Keeping Tabs Jan2012

RADIATE.2011—Be Free

Every New Year, I have the wonderful opportunity to worship into the New Year with hundreds of students from the mid-atlantic region. This year 937 students from Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey gathered in the Baltimore Inner Harbor to develop their relationships with Jesus through fellowship, training, worship and prayer.

 Pastor Jackson Crum, Claude Hickman and Roger Hershey all spoke on the topic “be free”. In and through their teaching, felt God challenge me to give a detailed testimony, known as a “soul to soul”, to the women involved at Kean Cru. Little did I know this time, which included my sister, developed a greater feeling of freedom within the women to be open and honest about where God has convicted them of sin. Since that night, I’ve been able to privately meet with several of these women and encourage them, as Paul did in Ephesians 5:8, to walk as children of light.

One of the great things about conferences like these is that I am able to reunite with the students I worked with this past summer at Hampton Beach, NH Summer Project. It was really encouraging to see the women from Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia & North Carolina persevering and “running the race.”

Prayer for Tab's Summer 2011

Hey readers!
Here's a quick 3 point update of my life... (HBSP, NST & Personal) read with caution :)

Hampton Beach Summer Project:
I just returned from a summer project trip to New Hampshire (with 24 students and 14 staff) where I...

• ...discipled 3 student women (Lauren from Salisbury U. in Maryland, Julie from Towson U. in Maryland, Alison from Virginia Tech) on what it means to live by faith in the power of the Holy Spirit.
• ...trained one of the small servant teams of our students on how to plan and put together a weekly meeting (kinda like a church service)
• The other groups were prayer team, evangelism team, community team, etc.
  
• ...shared my faith on the beach & taught my students how to do so in a variety of fun ways!

Prayer Request:
The staff left after training and teaching and now all the students have taken leadership roles and run the ministry in NH for the last 5 weeks of the project without staff! This is where I feel like Paul, leaving those who I've helped train in the faith and entrusting them to God to lead the movement where they are. Please pray for me to let go and allow the Lord to work on their lives. And pray for the students to work well together so that their love for one another may be shown outward to those who don't yet know Jesus Christ.

Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC) National Staff Conference
I will be leaving for Colorado next Monday for our National Staff Conference (which happens every two years)

• It's a refreshing time for staff to be poured into and relax with our main speaker, Francis Chan
• I'll also be updated on what's happening around the world with Campus Crusade for Christ! :) (probably my favorite part)
  
• Lastly, I'll be informed on any changes CCC is making and trained in new ways to advance God's kingdom within my field (college students)

Prayer Request:
I will be with over 6000 other staff at Colorado State University in Ft. Collins, CO. Please pray for my flight and for how I manage finances while I'm there.

Awake at 4am?!

So I finally fell asleep around 1:30am after saying some long, tearful goodbyes to the students of Hampton Beach Summer Project, 2011. Then I woke up around 4am from a car leaving and despite my efforts of forcing myself to stay in bed til 4:30am, I couldn't return to sleep. So I prayed, got up, prayed, got dressed, prayed, packed the last bit of things, walked to the beach for the sunrise and prayer, and brought some left over food over to the students. My momma always said that if you can't fall asleep, the Lord must be wanting you to pray for something...

...so I did and now I'm just waiting... I'm waiting to take two students to work (so they wouldn't have to leave 2 hours before they start  work because of their only ride). I'm waiting to eat breakfast with the coffee I hope to get from Dunkin Donuts when I drop them off. I'm waiting for my roommate to wake up and pack her last bit so we can go. And I'm waiting for God to answer my prayers as I surrender these girls to Him and pray that He work in their lives.

Alison, Lauren, Me, Julie

Alison, Julie, and Lauren have all been such a blessing to me as I discipled them these last five weeks. I feel like I was in discipleship with them and the Holy Spirit was the one teaching us all. I've learned so much about myself and who God created me to be from these women and I will never forget this summer and how God used them to impact my outlook on life and God's plan for it.
              Julie, a very young believer, challenged me in my thirst and hunger for God and His Word. This young woman soaks up Jesus and enjoys it! I've seen her take steps of faith in sharing her faith and now she is barely nervous. :)
             Lauren, who lost her mom at a young age, has encouraged me to better love others through affirmation, gifts and even just time. She's grown so much in how well she listens and considers others before herself. :)
            Alison....where do I begin? We basically have a nearly identical painful break-up story and God strategically placed us in each others lives to spur one another on towards good. Learning to forgive, love and be patient, Alison has also grown a lot and I'm sure will continue to do so after I leave! :)

What Changed?...Generosity!

Hampton Beach Summer Project

New house, new staff, new project, same God!

You’ve probably noticed in the past two letters that I’ve asked for prayer for my summer project trip to Hampton Beach. The reason I hadn’t gone into too much detail about this trip is because I had never been on one! As a student, summer project always scared me because I knew I’d have to raise support to live away from my family with 20-30 other students for 10 weeks! In my mind, these were four extremely uncomfortable and nearly un-American things to do!

So here I am, sitting in a small quiet room on the second floor of the Hampton Beach Summer Project (HBSP) house! What changed? Well for one, I’m no longer a student but am on staff with CCC. And since interning in 2007 this is the first summer I’m available because I’m not raising support full-time! There were many different projects I could’ve been on but I think God knew what He was doing when He assigned me to this one. A summer project is basically a summer long missions trip through Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC).

Training in our house on how to clearly communicate the Gospel

Here at HBSP, staff train college students in the three modes of evangelism: initiative, relational, and body. Students and staff go to share their faith on the beach (initiative), with their co-workers at the local Dunkin Donuts (relational), and through group outreaches like ice-cream socials or scavenger hunts (body). 

We may not have been able to do all of this if it wasn’t for a local church member who decided to help support our ministry by purchasing a house in which our students could stay for the summer! Through prayers and this man’s generous answers to our prayers through God's power, HBSP exists!

 You may not be able to purchase a house for us or even a car, but some church members have donated couches, bikes, and all kinds of food. Some families in certain churches have even adopted the students that attend their church by taking them grocery shopping after church or inviting them over for a home-cooked meal. Our project has truly been blessed by those who are willing to love their neighbor and not leave the world the way it is.

These students want to reach the lost New Englanders of Hampton Beach who believe they are "all set". All they need is help to get there. They are willing to spend their summer serving God. Will you help them stay? 

Maybe you are not local and can't give items, but your prayers and finances are always essential. I currently only raise enough monthly support to cover my basic needs, not extra trips like Summer Project or our National Staff Conference in Colorado this July. Project expenses including housing and fees from May 23rd to July 1st costs $1500. Currently I’ve been able to pay $300 of this $1500 expense but there is still much more due.

Would you prayerfully consider giving a special one-time gift of $50 to help build and transform Christian students into life-time laborers for Christ so that everybody knows somebody who truly follows Jesus Christ?

HBSP'11 Church Participation

Just finishing student orientation week for Hampton Beach Summer Project 2011 (HBSP)!

This week, we had three Project-wide meetings with all 25 students in our three church partnerships. These churches are a huge part of HBSP! They not only allow us to use their facilities for our big meetings (pictured right) but they also support us through “adopting” students for the summer. Students are dividedly equally between each church partnership: Bethany Church, Faith Community Church, & Hampton Falls Baptist Church. Members within each congregation “adopt” a student by feeding them a home-cooked meal or taking them to a restaurant after church, taking them to buy their groceries Sunday afternoons, and sitting with them in church. Another way the churches partner with us is by helping us train students to participate in their church leadership as much as possible. This gives our students experience and training but also encourages the church body. Some of our students have already “signed-up” for their positions at churches. Some may be working with children, while others are helping lead worship.