Brooklyn, Brooklyn Take Us In

February 28, 20131 Comment

It’s been 2.5 years since we moved out of Brooklyn to join the Cru team in Charleston, SC. But as we left, well we really didn’t “leave” in all aspects of the word. Our desire to move to Charleston was in our eyes and hearts a strategic one. We didn’t leave Brooklyn because we didn’t like it or that is was too big or too fast paced or any other typical reason that someone might leave a big city. Instead, we left because we saw an opportunity.

This Saturday is a part of that opportunity. For the second year in a row, we are leading and have helped plan/coordinate 3 weeks of spring break mission trips to nyc. Over the next couple of weeks students from the College of Charleston, UNC-Wilmington, NC State, Florida, Southern Miss, UNC-Chapel Hill, Miami, USC, UNC-Greensboro and Alabama (roughly 250 students and staff) will make their way to NYC to work along side of our co-workers on the NY Metro Team that we used to be a part of.

While there, these students and staff will have a couple of objectives:

starting new ministries – many of, if not most of nyc campuses don’t have any type of Christian outlet. our group will seek to network with nyc students as they share their faith in Jesus with those that don’t know about Him and help those that are Believers get connected to the NYC team.
sandy relief – in light of sandy, our teams will also work along side of the Brooklyn Presbyterian Relief to help in the reconstruction of Brooklyn

Because many of the students and staff are not aware of the needs of ministry in nyc and the opportunities there, we saw it fit to help promote it from the ground and get people there in hopes that some, many of them would be called to serve God in some capacity in the city. This is too why we lead the mission trip this past summer, which we have a few students from that team who are considering moving there who would have never considered it prior to spending time there.

Please pray for the hundreds of conversations that are about to take place all over the city. Pray that we can start a new ministry on a campus that will make it possible for students on that campus to know about Jesus and the hope that is offered through a relationship with Him.

Pray that the logistics work out.

Praise God for my sister taking a week of vacation to keep the kids so that Ansley and I both get to work together on this project.

We can’t wait to share how God works through these couple of weeks. Thanks for praying!

Semester Wrap Up

December 20, 2012December 20, 2012Leave a comment

Tacky Sweater Party – Final Cru meeting at CofC 2012

The last Cru weekly meeting of the semester is always a little bittersweet. It represents the end of a long fall, and a little change of pace, but also a time to reflect on how God has worked in the lives of the students pictured. The sweetness represented in this picture is not only the awesome tackiness of the sweaters, but the fact that we had 62 students at our LAST meeting of the semester! If you follow patterns of any organization on campus, the November/December months are notoriously know for a drop in attendance and participation. Thankfully, we’ve seen quite the opposite this year and we hope to carry that momentum into the spring.

About 15 students from cofc have placed their faith in Christ this fall! I believe it has a lot to do with this picture above. These students are loving each other well, serving one another – and not just the people involved in cru, but even more so the ones that are not involved.

That same night I spoke to our students about their upcoming time at home with their families. I encouraged them to consider the different ways that the celebrate this time of year, and challenged them to make them more than most of us usually do – consume. I encouraged things like: serving at a shelter together as a family, intentionally talking about what it means to you that Jesus was born or sponsoring a family overseas through a Christian ministry by buying livestock or providing funds for them to dig a well for clean water.

Our hope is that we/they don’t get to January with regret. Regret that too much money was spent on us and too little good for the gospel of Jesus was accomplished. I pray that you too would hope for this.

B Speaking at CofC

Beach Bash – Welcome Event

September 19, 2012Leave a comment

It’s been a month since the beginning of school and i we feel like this has been the first 20 laps of the Daytona 500, that fast. I hope to be able to give you a glimpse into what has happend both in Cru and our family in the next couple of posts.

What does every freshman in Charleston want to do the first weekend of campus…..THE BEACH! Yep, everyone is living for Saturday to go spend the day at the beach, the reason most of them choose to come to school here 🙂 So our team decided that because interest is so high we should capitalize on that and provide a place to hang out for the day and provide food too.

We had over 200 people attend! This was by far one of our best welcome events, praise God! Throughout the day, as we looked at the massive amount of people out on our section of the beach, we saw our student leaders engaging with the freshman and making them feel so welcome. Because we had a house for the day, the environment was great even for those that don’t really like the beach, by staying in and playing board games or just relaxing on the porch.

This event has generated so much momentum for this fall. I’ll write more about what it has done specifically later.

Here are a couple of pics from some of our Cru Beach Bash. Enjoy and thanks for praying.

b and ans gettting ready to welcome the masses

the parking lot – the masses

the line for food

B sitting with a freshman guy

lowcountry staff team

dreamed about since college…

August 9, 2012September 19, 2012Leave a comment

Over the summer we have experienced some transitions on our staff team here in the Lowcountry. One of our team members, Shannon Justice (also a former student from Winthrop that we worked with) is going to help lead a team to the Dominican Republic for the year, a new partnership we are working with. And another family, Chad and Elizabeth Young, are moving to Atlanta to give leadership to the Southeast Region of Cru (GA, FL, LA, MS, AL). Chad has been the director here for the last 6 years, and we are excited about his next step but will miss him and his leadership a ton.

Here’s where the new role comes in…I will be giving leadership to our Lowcountry team this upcoming year. Ever since I first got involved with Cru back at cofc I’ve wanted the opportunity to work with the ministry here. To be able to do that the last 2 years has been such a blessing and growth opportunity for me and Ansley. Now, to be able to give leadership to a part of the state that we love so dearly on top of the work we are already doing is amazing. We covet your prayers for our team during the transition and especially for me as I lead our team. And pray especially for these 4 schools that we are working with this upcoming year.