Looking Back at the Fall

Hi Friends! What a great fall semester we had at Above the Haze. My last blog was on September 27th and so much has happened since then. I have been so busy. Here is a summary of just a few of the events and happenings this last fall.

October

Thomas, Gene and I attended the wedding of our student Jordan to Sarah. He is a grad student who has been a very important part of our ministry for two years now. Gene and I had the privilege of doing Jordan and Sarah's premarital counseling and then celebrating their new life together.

We had the most participants at our fall retreat October 12-14 - 14 students! Thomas and I shared on How the Gospel Changes You and it was very meaningful to the students.

Our Halloween Party was fantastic! Our students planned it and they did a great job. We carved a pumpkin together, played a mean game of musical chairs and bobbed for apples - most of the students had never done that before and I was surprised they jumped right in and did it! We had a number of visitors join us also.

Homeless in Boston

The students have been passing out lunches to the homeless in Boston. Once a month they have collected money, put together lunches and then passed them out on a Saturday morning in front of the VA office and St. Francis, a homeless shelter. Our students have been able to pray for many of the people they meet and they are beginning to see the same people each month.

November

We had 6 students attend our bible study seminar in November and 11 students in our home for Thanksgiving. 

We also chose our team for our first spring break missions trip. We are taking 9 students to Nicaragua. Be sure to check out our Facebook group page - Above the Haze Missions Team. They have been fund raising over the Christmas break and we will be starting our training meetings the first week we are back for Spring semester.

December

Our Christmas party was in our home this year and we had students making their first gingerbread houses and tasting their first eggnog, cutting out snowflakes and having a merry time.

The World Missions Summit in Texas was incredible. I so enjoyed the main gatherings with the worship and teaching and our Northwest Project booth was a success. We had many significant conversations with students who seriously praying about giving a year of missions service to the New England area.

The New Semester

Now we begin a new semester. We are going to Nicaragua, introducing Feed One to the campus and continuing our discipleship of students who will someday change the world. Thank you for your prayer and encouragement.

May this new year bring with it, for you, hope and revelation of who God is.

I'm So Glad We Changed Our Name!

Thomas and I had numerous students come up to our table, last week,  curious about our name Above the Haze. We ended up in a few conversations about who we were and we also got to know them, too. Our name change has been a great benefit to us. Our returning students have also had great conversations about our group because of the change.

We have had some great events these last couple of weeks. Our trip to Skyzone, a trampoline park, was a great hit and we had a couple of visitors come. This weekend we will be going out to Conners Farm Corn Maze and we are expecting our students will bring friends with them.

I thought I would include a picture of Thomas so that you have a face to our fellow staff person.

One Day in Haiti

My trip to Haiti was so fast. We flew in on Thursday evening. We visited a church in the city that was the center of relief and aid to the city after the earthquake and then went to the place where we were staying and had an orientation meeting and went to bed.

The next day we left the house at 7 am. We visited three orphanages in different parts of the city, the Convoy of Hope warehouses, drove through every part of the city, on dirt roads, paved roads, through markets and tent cities, up the hill above the city and then back to the house by 5:30 pm.

Every where we went we learned about Haiti, its history, its very complicated problems and how Convoy of Hope and God are making a difference in this city.

I came back impressed with Convoy of Hope and their very thoughtful, well planned efforts to make a difference in the lives of the Haitians. Be sure to check out their website. This organization knows what they are doing. Their goal is the work themselves out of a job in the countries they are in, not add to the problems that relief aid can sometimes create.

I am so excited to introduce the students to this organization and partner with them in the new Feed One program that we will be testing in February.