Christian Challenge Christmas Update 2013!

Hope everyone had a great Christmas! Ours was nice and relaxing. It was a good change of pace from how crazy this past semester has been.

The semester started off with us not being allowed to move freshmen in but God still brought us one of the best starts of the semester we have ever seen. It started off big and we were excited for the students God brought our direction to disciple and encourage.

We look forward to what God is going to do this next semester. Our first FCA will be January 13th. Christian Challenge will follow on the 14th. Then the 17th, my good friend, Jimmy Arcisz, will be bringing out his ministry to team up with us and perform a Philippines disaster relief benefit concert at the chapel on campus. This will go to rebuilding after the typhoon.

It’s going to be an exciting first month of the semester! Thanks for making it possible with your support! Merry Christmas, Mike and Rachel

PRAYER NEEDS:

• For Rachel, Randi, and myself as we will be leading the ministry for the first month while Josh and Jennifer take some time to heal after a very stressful past year with his heart surgery and the death of Jennifer’s brother.
• For our support: We are slowly getting closer to the goal but still have a ways to go.
• For our students: that God would continue growing them and that the Holy Spirit would be working on their hearts.

HOW YOU CAN HELP:

• Help cook on a Tuesday night anytime Jan-April for 25 or so students. Let us know if this interests you.
• We have weekend events planned this semester: Come join us and help out. We can send you a list of future events.
• Become a host family for our international students. This is like adopt-a-college-student programs many churches run.
• Support...there’s still time to give an end of the year or beginning of the year gift. Your support makes the ministry we do possible. http://thewallscall.blogspot.com/p/other- giving-options.html

Christian Challenge November 2013 Update!

Hey team! Hope everyone is doing well and had a great Thanksgiving! November has been a busy month for us and really flown by. It’s hard to believe Christmas is just around the corner.

Our team has been battling sickness this past month. Josh has been sick with the flu, then with strep two weeks later which hospitalized him. In between his sickness, I ate some, meaning maybe five or six, Heath Bar gluten-free cookies and had a severe allergic reaction to the finely-ground almonds in them which nearly hospitalized me. I could barely eat any food for about a week which was certainly no fun.

After that, we did a quick weekend up to Fort Collins, CO for a wedding I was in for a friend who had been in the former college group I helped lead. It was great to see a lot of old friends from that group at the wedding and see how the Lord was working in their lives.

After getting back from that quick trip, Meagan, who went on the Philippines trip, provided us with one of the highlights of the month. She was able to give her testimony of the mission trip at FCA. That night, we had one of our biggest crowds of the year and almost every student-athlete there took info on the mission trips we have going out this summer. It was awesome to see Meagan’s passion for missions after the trip and how it was now rubbing off on other students.

Another highlight of the month was our guys retreat. Our focus was looking at what it meant to be a real man of God. Though the snowy weather certainly changed our plans a bit, it was an amazing retreat where I really think light bulbs went on for some of the guys. It was very cool to see.

At Christian Challenge, we were able to do a night focused on Operation Christmas Child. We took students to the store where we filled up nearly 40 shoeboxes for underprivileged children. It was great to see our students so excited about helping others.

Toward the end of the month, I was asked to write an article for the international publication, The Climbing Way, a magazine produced by Climbing for Christ. As someone who loves to write, it was very exciting for me. The article is on why college is a great time for people to get involved in missions. I’ll make sure I post it to our website soon.

This month, though it’s been a bit tough building consistency with the students we disciple due to being sick and the holiday, we’ve seen good growth with the students we’ve been able to meet with. It’s exciting to see God work in our students’ lives!

Prayer Requests:
• For our team’s health. It’s that time of the year again where our students get sick and generously pass it on to us.
• For the FLC students, that the Holy Spirit would be working on their hearts.
• That God would continue growing us closer to Him and help us not neglect our first ministry; our marriage.
• For open hearts, for many to join us prayerfully and financially, to bring the Gospel to Fort Lewis. If the Lord is leading you to give, please go to: http://thewallscall.blogspot.com/p/other-giving-options.html

Thank you for joining with us to reach Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO! -Cheers and God Bless, Mike & Rachel

Christian Challenge October 2013 Update!

Hey team!  Hope everyone is doing well.  I wanted to welcome all of our new friends who have signed up for our email list in the past month.  We’re excited to have you be a part of what God is going at Fort Lewis!

Rachel and I have had a busy past month since our last letter.  Early on, we had a great camp and climb with our students up on Silver Mountain.  I went up with some of our guys the day before to scout it out.  We actually got snowed on.  It was some good bonding time with the guys.

The next day, our full team headed up to what would be our base camp on the side of the mountain.  After dinner and some good time around the camp fire, everyone headed off to bed.  The next morning, we awoke and had a church service around the camp fire on the side of the mountain.  I
spoke on how God provides and that we can rely on Him.  I tied it in with the climb that was before us.  It gave the students something to really chew on and pray about as they hiked.  In the end, everyone summitted and made it back down safely.  God is good!

After that excursion, Rachel and I headed to KC for a short support raising trip.  Thankfully, Josh, Jennifer, and Randi were able to cover for us along with our pastor, Jeff, while we were gone.

While in KC, we stayed with a friend from high school who is now a youth pastor.  I was able to give messages to his youth group and college group.  It was fun to work with students that come from a different culture than that of Durango.

During the trip, we met many folks who now want to come out and minister with us.  We’d love for God to call more people to the mission field of Durango and Fort Lewis College!  There’s a lot of ministry to be done!

Being that our main focus was support raising, we were able to meet with many pastors and got to share at a church in Overbrook, KS.  It was all very encouraging!  We are thankful for all of the doors God opened for us while in Kansas City!

Upon our return to Durango, we jumped right back into ministry.  Rachel had an exciting ladies retreat with our students where they talked about the lies women often believe and God’s promises to combat those lies.  Sounds like it was a pretty awesome retreat for our young women!

 We’re excited to see how God is going to work the rest of the semester!

 

Prayer Requests:

• For Josh and Jennifer...Jennifer’s brother just passed away and the family is all back in Oklahoma right now.  Pray for strength and peace in this tough time for their family.

• For the FLC students, that the Holy Spirit would be working on their hearts.

• That God would continue growing us closer to Him and help us not neglect our first ministry; our
marriage.

• For open hearts, for many to join us prayerfully and financially, to bring the Gospel to Fort Lewis.  If the Lord is leading you to give, please go to: http://thewallscall.blogspot.com/p/other-giving-options.html

Thank you for joining with us to reach Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO! -Cheers and God Bless, Mike & Rachel

Christian Challenge September 2013 Update!

Hey team! We’ve got a lot of exciting news to share with you all! This semester has started out as one of our best yet. The harvest is great and God is moving at Fort Lewis!

We kicked off the semester wanting to help out with freshmen move-in. Just before it, we were informed that the campus would not be allowing any ministries to move people in.

This would not deter what God was doing on campus though. We were able to hold a barbeque on campus later on where we served 378 plates of food to students. That was up from around 300 last year.

For our yearly night hike with students, we had 14 sign up to go and 44 showed up. All but about 6 made it to the summit. It was awesome to see the growth of the event adding about 15 more students to the adventure this year. It was a great way to connect with new students!

We also had a big first retreat of the semester. We were able to have two of our students we’ve been working with step up and give talks. It’s awesome to see their growth over the time we’ve known them.

With the great numbers we’ve seen at all of our events, those numbers have continued into Monday night’s FCA, Tuesday night’s Christian Challenge, and our English Conversational Classes with our international students. Though it’s not all about numbers, it awesome to pour into the students God is blessing us with and hard not to get excited!

Rachel and I are continuing to meet with the students we were discipling last year while meeting with new students also this year.

For FCA, our student-athletes have been great about inviting other athletes. We’ve been going through a series on running and how that relates to our spiritual walks with Christ.

In Christian Challenge, we also have a lot of new students and have covered topics like Christianity 101, personal testimonies, and Christianity and War. We are excited that a lot of our international students have joined us for it. They seem very interested in learning more about Christianity as do our other students.

It’s really been awesome to see what God has already done this semester and we’re looking forward to see what He has in store! Keep praying for FLC!

Prayer Requests:

--For Josh and Jennifer...Jennifer’s brother is still alive but could go at any time. Jennifer is back in Durango but the family could have to leave at any moment if her brother passes.

--For the FLC students, that the Holy Spirit would be working on their hearts.

--That God would continue growing us closer to Him and help us not neglect our first ministry; our marriage.

--For open hearts, for many to join us prayerfully and financially, to bring the Gospel to Fort Lewis. If the Lord is leading you to give, please go to: http://thewallscall.blogspot.com/p/other-giving-options.html

Thank you for joining with us to reach Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO! -Cheers and God Bless, Mike & Rachel

Christian Challenge August 2013 Update!

Hey Team! Hope you’re doing well! Summer for us has quickly winded down. We have been hard at work preparing for the new semester during this past month.

We had our first official event of the semester with students the 28th. It was a meeting with our student leaders. It was a training on how to lead Bible studies. We already have students wanting to start Bible studies with their friends. It’s pretty awesome to see their excitement to study the Word.

Our next big thing is freshmen move-in on the 29th. Our plan was to be up on campus to help students move into their dorms. We did this last year and it was extremely successful. There were a lot of hoops the campus wanted us to jump through to make it happen but it was well worth it.

Unfortunately, due to parent complaints about other groups last year, we were just informed no one will be allowed to help students move their belongings in. We are extremely disappointed with this decision but know God will open other doors for us to reach the students. Though we are not allowed to help out with move-in, we will still be on campus that day.

On the 30th, we have a club fair where students and their families can stop by our table and get information about what we do. That night, we will team up with the International Club and have our International Dinner. Last year, almost all of the international students came. The dinner is always a great way to make contact with them. Thanks to our awesome students from last year, many of the incoming students have already contacted us after talking with our former students.

We are also having our campus barbeque again that coming Sunday. Last year, we had 300 students show up. This year, we fully expect God to bring us even more. We are so blessed to be able to do something like this on campus after so many groups have been told no for years.

Classes then start the 1st. Discipleship, FCA, Christian Challenge, and our conversational English classes will get rolling that week as well. Beyond that, we have tons of events over the next month as well. Pray that they are fruitful. We’re stoked to see what God is going to do this semester! Keep us and our students at FLC in your prayers!


Prayer Requests:

For Josh and Jennifer...Jennifer’s brother has been given less than a week to live. They will be in Oklahoma with the family for possibly these first two weeks. Rachel and I will be running things with the help of Randi, our new staff member, while the Story family is away. This will be during the two busiest weeks of the year. Pray also for us against burn out.

For the FLC students, that the Holy Spirit would be working on their hearts.
That God would continue growing us closer to Him and help us not neglect our first ministry; our marriage.

For open hearts, for many to join us prayerfully and financially, to bring the Gospel to Fort Lewis. If the Lord is leading you to give, please go to: http://thewallscall.blogspot.com/p/other-giving-options.html

Thank you for joining with us to reach Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO! -Cheers and God Bless, Mike & Rachel

Living Our Adventure

I stood on a mountain top with a brotherhood of men. We had worked together night and day for the past month. We had bonded closely over that time working in the woods of Colorado.

Our time was soon coming to an end though. Our boss wanted to make sure we had something to remember our time together. He wanted something that would tie us together for years to come after we parted ways.

He brought us the idea of taking 3 mm climbing rope, wrapping it around our wrist once and melting the ends together. Once melted together and the bond of the climbing rope sealed, we were not allowed to cut it off until our wedding night. It was a symbol of becoming a family together after the long month. When it would finally be cut off, it symbolized us joining a new family. To me looking back, the climbing rope symbolized the adventure that would lead up to meeting the woman I would eventually spend the rest of my life with...and the birth of a new adventure that she would bring into my life.

I grew up a flatlander amongst the sweet barbeque flavors of Kansas City. Though a flatlander, my heart yearned to be in the mountains. I pursued my adventure as well as I could growing up in the Midwest. Mountain biking, rock climbing, and ski racing from Wisconsin to Colorado. Still, I was chained to the Midwest. I felt caged and out of place. When I turned 18, I escaped as soon as I could. Looking back, I had finally escaped for good. My journey took me to Northern Colorado for awhile before finally settling in the San Juans of Southwest Colorado.

There, a new adventure would begin. I found myself not the adventurer I thought I was in my mind. In reality, I was still a naive flatlander. For the first time, I really tasted fear. I made mistakes...a lot of them. Many of which probably should have killed me. But I learned from each mistake and did my best not to repeat them. Skiing, whitewater rafting, mountain climbing, jumping off 40 foot waterfalls into 34 degree flood waters...just living the dream.

As I grew older and wiser, the fears still persisted as did the reasons to face them. Life was an adventure and I refused to be someone who only loved the idea of an adventure. It was part of me, running through my veins. Life was meant to be a great adventure and I refused to just take up space in God's country. I would not waste the creation I was blessed with living in.

She was born in Austria and a child of Chernobyl. She graced the playgrounds of a crumbling Yugoslavia. Serbia, Croatia, tanks, and land-mines. A life lived of adventure but she knew no different.

And then came America. It was a country who had influenced much of her life already in foreign policy decisions. Now, it would try and raise her as she now stood on American soil.

When she turned 18, she wanted adventures she could chart her own course for. She took control of her adventures. Skydiving, mountain climbing, taking time off from college and taking random dream jobs just for fun. She was breaking out. She was coming into her own. She was finding out who she really was. If life was going to be an adventure, it was going to be her adventure.

And that's when our passion for adventure finally crossed paths.  We both met while planning out a new adventure. It was an adventure we'd need a team for, the sport of adventure racing. Her team had just dropped her because she was a girl and they no longer wanted a girl on their team. I was just looking to find someone interested in teaming up. After meeting for the first time, it turned out that we made a pretty good team together. Soon, we'd become more than just an adventure racing team.

Starting out, we never knew our passion for adventure would take us as far as it would. One day, we found ourselves in a high mountain city overseas. It was early morning outside of our hostel. The fog was hugging the mountainsides surrounding the city. The city lights were still aglow from the night before as the sunlight began to sneak in and slowly wake the valley below. Above us stood an 18,000 foot glacier-covered peak. There are few places more beautiful in the world than that spot was at that moment.

Sadly, we were leaving. Our friends were all packed up and ready to go but I wanted one last moment with my love in such splendid beauty. I walked up to the vehicle and asked her to follow me. She came with a concerned look on her face as she thought I was probably sick and not feeling well. Though tired from the early morning, I felt okay. I had something else on my mind, a new adventure.

This was not the adventure we had seen earlier on our trip or even on previous trips. There were no road blocks put up to track us down. There weren't 16 machine guns pointed in our faces. No situations where you didn't know who you could trust. The sketchy climbing and hiking was behind us. We were past the dangers and in a safe zone. This wasn't life and death. This was life...till death do us part, a different kind of adventure.

There, I dropped to one knee and pulled out the 3 mm climbing rope that I once wore around my wrist. Due to wear and tear, it had finally fallen off after we first started dating those many years ago. When it fell off, I had a feeling that I should save it. I saw it as a sign. All those years, I held onto it for just the right time. Before our journey overseas, I crafted it into a ring. Though faded, it looked almost good as new...and it sure looked nice on her ring finger. The rest is somewhat like a blurry dream.

Three months later, we stood outside in another mountain range. This time, we were back in the States. We were back in the San Juans, our backyard. Just us...and a hundred guests.

As a nice wedding gift from the Southwest monsoons, we were married outside in lightning and thunder. Afterwards, we jumped waterfalls with our wedding party instead of having the typical dancing. We battled hypothermia as we kissed for the photographer at the last waterfall. The wedding day was full of adventure. It was a picture of our lives. We had lived adventure, apart and together, since the days of our youth. But for us at that moment, there was another great adventure just beginning.

C4C Summer Trips 2013

So, normally I update our blog after each trip but this summer has been a bit busy so I thought I'd save it all for one post after we had completed all of the trips.  This summer, we had Kala Matzdorf interning with us.  We met Kala through one of our FCA students.  She was looking for an internship with an outdoors/adventure ministry over the summer for her college major.  Our FCA student, Mary referred her to us and the rest is history.  Kala's internship included going on the Philippines mission trip, attending all hikes, planning and giving devotionals for each trip, and writing trip reports.  I thought I'd post her trip reports here with a few pictures from the trips.

Ice Lakes:

On Saturday morning Michael, Rachel and I, Kala, met up and headed towards Silverton, Colorado. We picked up another college student, Mary, along the way and traveled for about an hour before reaching the trailhead for Ice Lakes. Before starting up the mountain, Michael offered up a prayer for all glory to be given to God as well as for our safety and fellowship.

Crossing a river which flowed over into a waterfall, we encountered the first obstacle of the day. A few splashes later and we were on our way up the gradual traverses. After about two hours of walking through forests, across rocks, and into a meadow we stopped for a quick snack break.

Having refueled and re-energized, we began our final ascent. An exhausting 30 minutes later, we finally approached the crystal blue lake. We explored the area and smaller surrounding lakes before taking a seat by the main lake where we ate lunch and enjoyed a bit of conversation.

We each had the opportunity to share with each other what God has been teaching us in our lives. As I sat on a mountain top, pondering the fact that I was by the most beautiful lake in the world because of a college internship, I was overwhelmed by all the different ways that the Lord is at work in this world and the opportunities that He has provided me with.

The descent to the car flew by and we were on our way back to Durango after just an hour and half. We stopped by Cascade, a place on the river where locals jump off of a series of rocks, but because of the high water level at this time of the season we were unable to jump. A group of college age students had gotten themselves stuck at a point in the river that they could not climb out of and Michael had to give them a hand to wade back up river to a place where they could get out safely. After our little rescue mission, we continued on to Durango where we said our goodbyes and parted ways. We are all looking forward to Prayer Peaks day on Saturday, June 29th, where we will have the opportunity to climb a mountain in Durango and worship together as well as pray for the city.

Hogsback Prayer Peaks Day:

Saturday, June 29 marked the 16th Annual Prayer Peaks Day, a day in which believers from all over the country joined in praying for the Christian church in America and around the world. Michael, Rachel, and I were joined by Fort Lewis College students Mary and Will for our climb up Hogsback Mountain. As only a short two mile hike, the climb was far from easy. Half a mile of the ascent was steep enough to force us to stop and catch our breath nearly every hundred feet. After finally slipping our way to the top on the loose dust, we were rewarded with a beautiful view of Durango, only slightly disrupted by the smoke from the nearby wildfires.

I had the privilege to give a short devotional on God’s provision through his taking away. God gave the Midian army into the hands of only 300 Israelite warriors so that the glory would be given to Him rather than to the Israelite army. Sometimes we are required to live with less securities so that we give the glory to God rather than to our undeserving selves. Next, we took time to pray for the college, the lost, and the churches in Durango. As well as praying for the people of Durango, we prayed for those who are fighting the large wildfires near South Fork and for rain to help in controlling the fires. Not much later in the day, the skies let loose and it poured. It only rained for a short period, but it was certainly an answer to prayer. We were also able to sing a few worship songs, but unfortunately there was a little misplacement with the sheet music, so we had to go with what our guitarist, Michael, knew by heart.

After skidding our way down the steep slope, we treated ourselves to a bit more fellowship over Dairy Queen. I think that the whole team would agree that there is no better way to end a hike than with a little ice cream.

Grizzly Peak Camp and Climb:

Mike, Rachel, and I, Kala, met up with a new friend and fellow hiker Lizzy late in the afternoon on Friday the 26th of July. We passed the two hour, four-wheel drive ride with great conversation. After finally reaching the trailhead for Grizzly Peak, we said a quick prayer and began our overnight adventure. We only had a mile to hike on the first day to reach our camping site, but just before arriving there the skies let loose and we were pelted with hail.

We took shelter under a large rock for a few minutes allowing the hail to stop before setting up camp. Mike scouted out a safe place in a grove of trees, where we each set up our tent and enjoyed our late and much anticipated dinner.

Before bed, I gave a short devotion about the Church being a place for sinners, yet it not always feeling like that. A couple of conversations with friends who did not feel accepted in church had got me thinking of how many Christians could work on being more accepting of those who may sin differently than themselves. After some helpful conversations, we went our separate ways for some much needed sleep.

We woke up early on Saturday morning to eat a quick breakfast and begin our final ascent. The remaining two and a half miles to the summit were uphill and lacked a clear trail. Once we made our way through the boulder field, our last obstacle was a rock chute.

The quarter mile scramble up the loose rocks took nearly an hour, but the view at the summit was definitely worth the struggles. We spent a few minutes soaking in the beauty, but because of the incoming rain clouds we decided to save lunch for once we made it down safely.

Unfortunately, we did not make it out before the rain and then hail returned. We quickly retrieved our equipment that we had stashed to lighten our packs for the summit, then made our way briskly back to the cars. The hail may have stung a little, but we all reached the cars safely, ready to enjoy sitting down for the next couple of hours. When we returned to Mike and Rachel’s house, where we had met the day before, Mike prayed for us, ending another great adventure with Climbing For Christ.