A December Update

It has been a wonderful semester full of learning and growing, and I'm so excited to share with you my December newsletter!

If you'd like to receive my newsletter in the mail or by email, let me know and I'll put you on our mailing list!

If the text is too small, you can also download my newsletter here

I also want to update you on my financial situation. I still need $1,315 to finish out my budget for this school year. I am so thankful for how much the Lord has provided for Logan and I already this year! I am so thankful to each of you who have faithfully supported and prayed for us this semester.

Please consider making a tax-deductible year-end gift to help me make it through the spring semester. You can give by going to www.ruf.org/donate

Thank you so much!

A Semester in Pictures

This is a slide show that our Campus Minister, Chris, made for our Christmas party that covers many of different ways RUF helps students get involved and create fellowship over the semester.

I hope you enjoy all the smiling faces!



If you are having trouble viewing the video on this page, you can go to youtube with this link: Maryland RUF Fall 2012

Thank you to all of you who have made it possible for Logan and I to minister to students here at Maryland. We have been so blessed to be given this opportunity, and have seen God at work in so many ways this semester. Thank you for your continued support and we look forward to sharing more with you over the next year!

Grace and Peace,

 

RUF Christmas Party

Merry Christmas!

Our students are getting ready for the last day of classes tomorrow, followed by 5 days of finals. No fun, but they had enough fun on Saturday night to hold them over until our end of classes events!

We got together to celebrate Christmas and the semester together at Wallace Presbyterian Church this weekend. Our students got together to bake peppermint sugar cookies, fudge, and all kinds of goodies and we all had a good time eating them, acting out the twelve days of Christmas, and doing out "White Elephant" gift exchange!

Here are some of the lovely gifts that people got:

It was a lot of fun and silliness:

 

One of our sweet Chinese Grad students gave Logan and I an Anniversary gift! We have loved getting to know each of our students this semester, and it has been a special priviledge to get to know our Chinese friends.

Merry Christmas,

Logan's First Sermon!

I am so thankful for all the ways that God is continually at work in the lives of His people. I feel privileged to be a part of this church, His people. I am thankful for the ways God has enabled me to serve in his body, and so amazing that I get to do that full time!

Logan and I have had the challenge and privilege to work with students, learn through a monthly study program, and get hands on experience in ministry. We get to try on the hats of pastor, counselor, etc as training for what we will do vocationally for the rest our lives.

Tonight was a particularly exciting night! Logan got the opportunity to preach for the first time! He spoke on Ephesians 5, tying in Romans 7 to talk about what it means for Jesus to be our husband and for us to be married to Christ. I have never been more glowing with pride and exciting about what the future will hold for us. It was such a privileged to sit under the teaching of my husband and be blessed as I heard the gospel in fresh new ways.

Here are a few pictures of the night:

Worshiping

Some of our Students Leading in Worship. They do a great job!

Praying

So proud of my preachin' man!

As you can tell, I'm quite proud of him!


Grace & Peace,

Decorating for Christmas

RUF got to help Wallace Presbyterian Church decorate it's sancturary for Christmas tonight instead of doing our usual Dinner Bible Study. We had a great time lending a helping hand and then grabbing dinner together afterwards!

I think we did a pretty good job decorating too:

Serve the City: Baltimore

The other weekend, RUF got the opportunity to be involved with a great annual service project called "Serve the City" in Baltimore. Each year groups can sign up to do a variety of service projects around Baltimore county to further the city. Last year, RUF helped plant trees, and this year we helped to decorate and run an inner city neighborhood festival for Halloween!

It is such a blessing to have students that care about their community and wish to serve God through loving and serving their neighbors. It was also a joy to serve the many families who benefited from the festival, and teach our students about inner city ministry.

As we were setting up for the festival, a few of our students seemed to not really understand how such an event really benefited and served the community. They thought that, while a fun thing to do, it didn't really feel like that necessary of a service project. It was a great opportunity to talk with them about city life, poverty, and quality of life. Many inner city or low income neighborhoods have little community life. There are few restaurants & businesses, and no festivals and family friendly activities. So coming alongside members of a community as they seek to brings neighbors together, is a real gift to such areas.

 It was great to see our students thinking about these issues, and I am so thankful for my own experiences on RUF service projects and missions trips (particularly my trip to the south side of Chicago) for teaching me about these issues.

In the morning we helped spread the word around the neighborhood about the event, and organize parking. Our job was also to decorate each of the stations of the festival including a hay ride and tent for making lanterns out of recycled materials:

Our lovely Hay Ride!

 We helped children create their lanterns out of water bottles & paper mache:

My beautiful example lantern: an owl!

I wish I could have gotten a few photos of the kids as well, but I was a little shy of taking pictures without parental consent to post online. Our student's smiling faces will have to do!

Grace & Peace,

Halloween Party

This Friday RUF hosted a Halloween party at our Pastor's house! It was a great time to get to know our students better, be a little goofy, and have fun. These just for fun events are one of my favorite parts of the job because I love planning an event, but also because they are a great way to introduce new students to RUF. An event like our Halloween party is a great event to encourage students to invite their friends. We met so many new people and I really hope we'll get to see them again at our weekly RUF events!

Now for the fun part of the post: Pictures!

 

Finishing out the night with a few games of "Signs"