In the Words of a Student

I'm so very thankful for this sweet student and her blog. She often mentions RUF in her posts and it always helps to encourage me about our ministry. I've shared one of her posts before last year, and here is another that I just wanted to share:

"Midterms. Stress. Sleep deprivation. Mid-semester apathy. Trips home. Homework. Papers. More Midterms.

For whatever reasons, there were a lot of empty chairs in RUF tonight. It was small. There were a lot of people missing. But there are no words to describe how amazingly blessed I was by our large(ish) group tonight! Because of the small number of people that could come this week, our campus minister decided to have “RUF unplugged.” It was a little more informal than usual, no microphones, no electric guitar or instruments. Instead of having the full worship band complete with bass, amps, and keyboard, we just had an acoustic worship service- two guitars, a drum, and our voices.

Even though there were few of us and things were a little quieter than usual, I could feel energy and joy filling me up as we sang. It was absolutely beautiful! People broke off into parts. As we sang, more and more elaborate harmonies emerged and  filled the room. I looked at the worship team and the two leaders in the front, and affection and appreciation for them welled up inside of me. They’re such amazing friends and mentors, and I am so blessed to have them, and everyone else in RUF, in my life! Realizing how much they mean to me and how great of an impact they’ve had on my life made me stop and think.

I’ve been so concentrated on all the things in my life that are stressful or frustrating, I forgot to be happy to be here and happy to be alive. The reality is, I have so so much to be thankful for! My life is amazing! I have the opportunity to come to a great college, I have awesome friends, a fantastic Christian group, talented professors, and a terrific family! So why do I spend so much time obsessing over the fact I didn’t ace my latest quiz in anatomy class?

When I walked into RUF, I felt burnt out and tired. I honestly did not feel like coming, but I went anyway. When I left, I was energized and revitalized. I had spend a few hours in the company of my wonderful friends learning about God and praising Him. The teaching was amazing, the worship inspiring, and the people are fantastic. I have so very much in my life to be thankful for!

After we finished large group, we stopped to grab some ice cream and just hang out in the food court at stamp. I had almost forgotten how much I love getting to hang out with everyone from RUF! There were people there that I’ve barely gotten to talk to this semester! It was so wonderful just to get to sit and catch up with them.
On the way back to my dorm, two of my awesome friends and I decided that we didn’t feel like studying. We felt like singing. So I ran up to my room, grabbed my guitar, my other friend grabbed her Ukulele and that’s exactly what we did! The three of us sat by the elevators in the dorm lobby and sang and talked for almost two hours! It was great!!! We just sat there and spent some more time praising our Creator.

Tonight, it wasn’t just the guitars at large group getting unplugged. It was me. Unplugged from the stress, the worry, and the constant busyness that have consumed my life these past weeks. And I’m so, so, so thankful that God brought me to UMD and to RUF."
-Kerianna (Sophomore, Hearing & Speaking Major)
 You can read more about her time at UMD on her blog Just A Bit of Faith

A few of our students before Large Group

This is encouraging to me because we continually pray for RUF to be this place of rest & refreshment. My campus minister at Belmont used to speak of worship as re-orienting us back to reality. I'm so thankful that God speedily answered the prayer request I sent out to you all just yesterday. I pray that more of our students will find RUF to be this place of truth, rest, & refreshing.

Thank you for your prayers and Thank you to the God who answers them!

Grace & Peace,

Pumpkin Patch

It finally feels like Fall here in Maryland!

To celebrate this, Logan and I once again took students out to Homestead Farms to pick pumpkins from the pumpkin patch, apples from their orchards, and get some homemade apple butter and apple cider!

It was such a fun time, and we finished out the event with pumpkin carving and the Hitchcock movie, Vertigo, at our Campus Minister's house.

We had about 20 students participate in all, and it was a great time to help some of our newer students get to know the upperclassmen better. This time in the semester is also when getting off campus is good for the soul. Being in the country and sitting on a couch in someone's home can help to refresh weary students after mid-terms. Sometime they just need to be reminded that there is life outside of college!

Here are some of the pumpkins we carved:

Thank you so much for your continued prayers and support of our ministry!

Grace and Peace,

Fall Conference

Thank you all so much for praying for our Fall Conference the other week! I figured it was about time for me to fill you all in on how it went.

Know that prayers were answered in some big ways during this weekend. Not only did the 20ish students we brought really bond with each other, they also grew deeply in their knowledge of Christ. Evidence of that is this post by one of the students who came with us:

Click the picture to enlarge

 And although this was my view for the first portion of the weekend because of a migraine, through your prayers I was able to spend the second half of the trip enjoying the beautiful PA fall weather with students.

Praise God! Maryland RUF joined together with RUF's from Pitt, Penn State, and Millersville, as well as students from Frostburg State University. The weekend consisted of hiking, worship, a dance party, star gazing, a bonfire and more.

While a bit stressful, Logan did a great job leading us in worship through 4 different services. At each of these services we also heard preaching from former RUF campus minister and now church planter, Pete Hatton.

Pete titled his series, Life in the Kingdom of Grace. Which at first seemed interesting to me as we dove into the story of David & Bathsheba. He focused on the aftermath of David's sin, how God did not give up on David but sent Nathan to David to lovingly convict him of his sin. We looked at David's repentance as a response to God's grace and the way that God restored David. Even after these atrocious sins of adultery, murder, and injustice God did not give up on David.


I could write a very lengthy post about his sermons alone since they were SO good. If you are interested in hearing them, you can listen to recordings of all of them here or download them at the bottom of this post.

Instead I will tell you some of the things our students shared on our last day as we sat together to talk.

Over and over again I heard our students share their wonder at a God who could love them so deeply even when He knows the depth of their sin. I heard students share how much more amazing and real Christ's death was to them. Pete encouraged the students that in Christ we are save to own up to our sin fully so that we can then cast it away in order for it not to own us any longer.

Logan shared in his latest news letter about one student in particular who came up to him after Fall Conference with great urgency asking to meet. That week, Logan sat in a crowded foot court as this student poured out his heart, weeping & confessing his sin. He then said to Logan that if it weren't for the love of Christ he didn't know how he could continue.

God was at work at this retreat. God is still at work on our campus. His great love and mercy is sinking into the hearts of our students and I'm so excited to see their lives change!

Keep praying that students would ponder and reflect on this retreat, that the relationships the were formed would continue to grow, and that God's kingdom would expand here at Maryland.

Thank you for being a part of our ministry! We couldn't be here without you. Your support and prayers are changing lives!




Grace & Peace,

Hear the Sermons from Fall Conference:
Our 2013 speaker, Rev. Pete Hatton, currently serves as a church planter in OK. His series on the life of David is titled, Life in the Kingdom of Grace. Each is about 35 minutes long, and worth every second.

Life in the Kingdom of Grace:
Message 1 - Psalm 32
Message 2 - 2 Samuel 11
Message 3 - Psalm 51
Message 4 - 2 Samuel 12:13-25