Chi Alpha @ BU

Challenge & Confession

2012-01-27T10:31:00.000-05:00

I started the new year and a new semester at BU with a challenge from the Holy Spirit to be more radical, and with confessions to students.

Hellen and Jessica asked me at the beginning of this semester to hold them accountable to be more radical for Jesus this semester. What an incredible thing to have students ask of me! I agreed and then God begin to work in my heart and I realized that I was not being radical enough in my commitment to him and the students he had given me to disciple.

Hellen, Jessica and I had a very intense meeting yesterday morning. I was challenging them on some decisions that they had made about their commitment to the community of Christ here at BU, and I ended up having to confess to them my lack of commitment, too.

We ended our meeting with a decision to pray together every week for the rest of the year. So last night, on campus, we met and prayed for an hour. It was wonderful and all three of us were refreshed and challenged. We will be inviting others to join us, if they want, but we are committed to pray every week, even if no one else joins us.

Will you pray with us also? Every Thursday night @ 9PM Eastern Time we will be praying for an hour. If you could make a note to think about us during that time, every week, and pray a short prayer for us and for the work of God here at BU it would make all the difference.

I know that many of you have been praying for our student leaders - Jessica, Hellen and Michael. Well, as you can tell from my story here, your prayers are being answered. These two women want to know God, and they especially want to see him do something significant on campus through them. Thank you for keeping them in your prayers.

Our Task

2011-12-17T11:26:00.000-05:00

I have not posted in a long time. I am sorry. I sat down this morning to write some thoughts to you and ended up writing a lengthy essay. I am going to share it with you in hopes that it will encourage you and give you some insights on what we do here @ BU.

The last time there was a move of God at Boston University was about 150 years ago during the Great Awakening that swept the northeast. Since then BU has stood unmoved. In fact, no one has had a successful ministry at BU since then (or, for that matter, in Boston). Not InterVarsity, Campus Crusade or Chi Alpha. None of us have built a strong, large, self-sustaining ministry on this campus. If you were to put all the evangelicals in one room at BU we would number, maybe, 200. The campus population is 32,000, larger than 30% of the towns in Massachusetts. We are trying to do something here at BU and in Boston that has never been done before. We are truly, using a religious metaphor, breaking very hard ground.

I need to define 'hard ground'. The students here at BU are not apathetic, or angry, or aggressively against Christianity. In fact, it is very easy to be a Christian on campus right now. No one cares. Our Chi Alpha students encounter an occasional class that challenges their faith, but for the most part they can be Christians their entire four years at BU and never be hassled about it. No one cares. PreChristian students here at BU are bored and totally uninterested in God and the church. They never think about it.

So when ever we do something on campus that everyone can see, students are surprised, sometimes shocked, that Christians even exist on a major university like BU. When we give out hot chocolate, host a cafe or a game night, set up an information table we get the most perplexed stares from students, and of course the avoidance response - walking on the far side of the sidewalk or hallway to avoid any physical or eye contact with us.

We rarely get anyone to stop. Not because they are angry, but because they are uninterested and bored. In their minds, we have nothing to offer that would add value to their lives, in any way. So when I say that we a breaking hard ground, I mean ground that has never been cultivated, weeded, watered, rock-picked, or leveled. Nothing has been done in their lives to prepare them to be interested in the Gospel.

(I still assume that God has been doing some kind of work in everyone's lives to bring them closer to him, but God uses his people to do most of that work and, to be honest, we are quickly loosing the next few generations.)

Gene, Thomas and I work hard to get our Chi Alpha students to see the need around them, reach out to their friends and be Jesus to the campus. We are constantly examining what we do at BU. How do we represent Jesus as something vital to everyone's lives? What can we do to get students attention? How do we motivate our Chi Alpha students to see the campus as their mission field? What are the best tools to use to break up this field so that it is ready for planting, growth and harvest?

We did not chose an easy campus. We did not chose an easy city. God called us to the most unreached area of the United States. We are not leaving and we will never give up, but that doesn't mean we do not experience discouragement. Pray for us. We get discouraged. The lack of funding, the lack of interest and responses from the preChristian students, and the difficulty of the task before us, are the three things that discourage us the most. Please pray for us. We are trying to do something at BU that no one has done before. We are looking to God to move on this campus in a way he has not moved in 150 years; in a way that will be unique to this generation; in a way that will change not just Boston, but the whole world.

Psalm 71:14-18

But as for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more. My mouth will tell of your righteousness, of your salvation all day long, though I know not its measure. I will come and proclaim your mighty acts, O Sovereign Lord; I will proclaim your righteousness, yours alone. Since my youth, O God, you have taught me, and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds. Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, O God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your might to all who are to come.

Thank you, for praying for us, for standing with us and for partnering with us to reach an unreached people, here in New England. Your commitment to our ministry is one of the most important parts of what we do here. Again, and continually, we say thanks.

Women's Core This Week

2011-11-04T08:25:00.000-04:00

This is just a quick note that I was excited about and that I thought you would like to hear:

On Wednesday night, our Chi Alpha women's core meets (small group bible study). Hellen and Jessica lead this group and they have been doing a great job leading for the first time. This week one of the ladies in the core brought a friend with her who was not a Christian. They were thrilled. The visitor loved core, asked some good questions and she said she will come back.

They held their core in their dorm room. They live in the dorm that is the furthest away from campus and they had the most ladies attend this week, despite the distance!

They introduced their theme for their bible studies for the rest of the semester - Loving One Another. They heard back from a couple of the ladies this week that they have been putting into practice the things they discussed in core.

Hellen and Jessica are so encouraged. They are beginning to take seriously discipleship of the women that God has given them and they are seeing some results. Continue to pray for them.

Halloween Success

2011-10-31T09:20:00.000-04:00

What a fantastic Halloween Party we had!

We started the week out with no money to do this party. By Friday, Chi Alpha Alumni had given $400 towards our Halloween party and other events for the semester. Wow! We have terrific alumni.

We stared our party at 7:00 and it looked like it would be just our students. Then in walked about 6 guys from the dorm we were holding the party in and they stayed with us all evening. They carved pumpkins, played games and ate our food. : ) They even helped clean up! We made some good contacts with these guys and we will see them again on campus for other events.

Gene made his famous Haunted Chocolate Cupcake Mansion and we had a local garden center give us our carving pumpkins for a discount. Patrick (my son) and I cleaned out 20 pumpkins Saturday morning before the party. My hands are still hurting from digging out all the insides. But it was worth it. Thank you for praying for us.

Our next event is Thanksgiving at our house. We open our home to students who can't go home over the weekend. It is always a relaxing time with lots of food, a walk around Horn Pond and games.

Fall retreat and a Corn Maze

2011-10-20T09:23:00.000-04:00

Our Fall Retreat was great! We had 14 students attend which is the most we have had in a number of years to our fall retreat. Rob Malcolm was our speaker for the day. He and his wife Sarah are starting a campus ministry at Yale. He is from Scotland and his accent sold the retreat for the students. He was also a wonderful speaker. We ended the day with a campfire and s'mores.

We also took our students out to Conners Farm in Danvers for a day of fun and a seven acre corn maze. If you heard the story on national news about the family that got lost in a corn maze and called 911 and the K-9 units - this is the maze we were in last Saturday. (I don't know how they got lost. There were signs all the way through it.) We had a couple of preChristians with us and a new student who came to our Tuesday night meeting because she was with us on Saturday.

Gene and I continue our efforts to update our pledges, and we are so encouraged with the response so far. Thanks for your prayers!

We have a Halloween Party coming up on October 29th. The students have planned games, pumpkin carving and lots of food! We hope to have a number of the preChristians we have been in contact with this fall attend.

Then Gene and I will be hosting Thanksgiving at our home for students who can't get home for the holiday, and our Christmas Party will be on December 9th.

This semester feels like it is flying by. Thanks for your prayers!

Fall Retreat This Weekend

2011-09-29T09:18:00.000-04:00

We have been preparing for our fall retreat this week. We will be spending this Saturday in Framingham at a beautiful retreat center on 113 acres. The students are looking forward to getting out of the city.

We have a handful of new students coming with us this weekend which is wonderful. We will get a chance to really get to know them and they will be able to fully experience Chi Alpha.

Our speaker is Rob Malcolm. He and his wife Sarah are planting a campus ministry at Yale. They just arrived in the Northeast in August. Rob is from Scotland and he will be teaching about faith and doubt by using Abraham and Isaac as his main characters.

Please be in prayer for us. Pray that we would have many unexpected, last minute registrations at our first meeting for the retreat on Friday. Pray that God would speak to the heart of everyone there and that we would have a rich time of fellowship together.

I will try to give you an update at the retreat to let you know how it is going. Gene and I will also tweet from the retreat. You can follow us on Twitter.

Thank you so much for your prayers.

Family Ties That Choke

2011-09-22T17:04:00.004-04:00

I just spent an hour sharing with two women in the GSU. I am making a point to take out our women leaders - Jessica and Hellen - to do evangelism on campus. Jessica and I just approached two women and had good conversations with them about God.

One woman is a very strong Jew. She comes from a very strong, practicing Jewish family, but she has adapted her Jewish faith to fit her lifestyle here at college.

The second woman is an international student and a very strong Hindu from Bombay and whose parents now live in Singapore. Jessica happened to know her so she has an open door with her to talk again. She had accommodated her Hinduism to her modern lifestyle, also.

I knew, as I was talking to both these women, that I would not have chance to share in depth about Jesus, but I was able to integrate a few statements of Truth into the conversations as I went. Jessica loved the experience and wants to go out again.

One thing that struck me about both women was the strong ties to family through their religion. Neither would even think about converting to another religion because of the relationship they have with their parents. They were born into their faith, their parents had brought them up in their faith and both women felt deep obligation to their origins. Neither had a negative feeling about this, but both wanted to be true to how they had been brought up.

It is heart breaking how the Enemy has twisted the family to keep people trapped. In the case of these two women, Jesus would set father and mother against daughter Matthew 10:34-39, and make it very difficult for them to make a commitment to Jesus. Jessica and I will continue to pray for both these ladies.

First Day Back At The Office

2011-09-19T14:23:00.000-04:00

I am sitting in the GSU Backcourt meeting with students. This is my office on campus and it is good to be back on campus working.

Our first two weeks have gone well. We won't know until two or three weeks from now how many new students we will have in our group. It takes that long for freshmen to decide which group on campus they will attend and our cores are just forming this week.

We had twelve new students the first meeting of the year and twelve different new students the second meeting of the year. This week Gene will be covering the topic "The Problem of Pain". We are hoping that topic will attraction some attention and get students involved in asking questions and making comments in our Tuesday night meeting.

The women's core meets for the first time this Thursday and I will find out then if I am leading a core this year. If there is an over flow I will be taking a small group. It would be a nice problem to have.

Keep praying for our outreach to men. We haven't had any new men visit our group. We are not happy about that, even though we have met many men and are being intentional about reaching out to them.

Our next major event will be our retreat Sept 30 - Oct 1. Please pray that we have at least 20 students come and that we receive the money we need for it from the university. We have a speaker - Rob and Sarah Malcolm. They are the new Chi Alpaha pastors at Yale. We will be going out to Framingham, just outside of Boston to a beautiful retreat center there. By then the leaves will be bright with color and the countryside will be beautiful.

First Week Adventures

2011-09-12T13:30:00.000-04:00

I just spent 28 hours in our car returning from Savannah, Georgia after leaving Laura off for college. Savannah is a wonderful town and the College of Art and Design (SCAD) is a great school. She is going to have a blast going to school there. Leaving her off made me think about how she is at the beginning of an incredible adventure in her life. She can be anyone, learn anything and do what ever she wants in these next few years.

Every new student I meet in these next four weeks, here at BU, is beginning the same adventure. I pray that they choose to make God the most important person in their life during their college years. Pray with me for that same thing.

Our first week went very well. We had twelve new students at our first meeting last week. We are expecting more tomorrow night. Last Tuesday was the first day of school and it was crazy raining that evening. More will come out tomorrow.

I have started making appointments with a few freshmen I met this last week and we have our first student officer meeting tonight. Thursday will be a dorm talk style presentation on Faith & Science in the GSU. Pray students attend. I'll have more to report later in the week.

Great Day @ Splash!

2011-09-04T21:59:00.000-04:00

Here we are at the end of Splash after greeting 3000 freshmen and talking to 77 new students. We had a great day so we are all tired, but excited. This was a new group of returning students and none of them had done Splash before. 77 names is a lot for a group of rookies!

I met freshmen from all over the US - California, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Washington. and from Korea, Japan and even Mongolia! BU has over 4000 international students - one of the highest numbers among private schools in the country. We pray each year that international students would join us.

I spent the evening putting all the emails onto our follow up list. Now begins the task of contacting each student personally and getting together with them. Our students will do most of that.

At the very end of our time at Splash we were in a circle praying for the day and two preChristians came up to talk to me. I invited them to join our circle and they prayed with us. Then Thomas and I had a long discussion with them about Christianity addressing a number of their questions. They were very interested and I think they may end up coming on Tuesday.

Our next event is the Religious Life Fair on Tuesday just before our first meeting that night. Please pray that we get even more names that day and that every student we met at Splash and that day, will come to our first meeting and they would like what they see and experience, and commit to joining us. Thank you so much for your prayers.

Six Days & Counting

2011-08-30T13:32:00.001-04:00

We survived Hurricane Irene. We didn't loose power or have any windows broken, but there were trees down all over Winchester and half the town was without electricity. The wind and the rain were amazing. Gene and Patrick went for a walk twice and came back soaked.
We have six days until Sunday, September 4th when we meet with our returning students for the first time this fall, and we meet 3000 freshmen at Splash. We are printing our flyers, making our table banners, and we have our t-shirts. We are also preparing for our first Chi Alpha meeting on Tuesday, September 6th. I've planned worship, prepped the worship team, emailed our student officers to let them know their roles and Gene is preparing his presentation.
I am also trying to get Laura ready to go to college. I will be driving her down to Savannah, Georgia next Wednesday. Patrick and Aaron started school to day, and I saw a tree starting to get fall colors this morning as I walked Aaron to school. Summer is definitely over for the Breitenbachs.
I have listed below our September events. Please pray for them. Pray that we meet and retain at least 50 new students this fall, and that we meet many preChristians with whom we can begin to establish relationships right away. Thank you for partnering with us.

Pre-Splash Meeting - September 4

Splash - September 4

Religious Life Fair - September 6

First Chi Alpha Meeting - September 6

Dessert Night Study Break - September 8

Sunset Harbor Cruise - September 9

Faith & Science (Dorm Talk) - September 15

Fall Retreat - October 1

From A to B

2011-08-11T16:05:00.000-04:00

I had the privilege of teaching at my home church here in Boston a couple of Sundays ago. I used an illustration that I thought might encourage all of you, too.

I was teaching about how God wants us to plan and dream big in his kingdom, but to hold those plans and dreams loosely, and to trust him for their outcome.

Point A is where I am today, and point B is where I want to be in the future (my goals, dreams, the person I want to be in Christ, etc.). The distance between point A and B is never a straight line with God. He wants us to dream and plan and look ahead to where he wants us to go, but getting there is never a direct trip with him. He takes us on winding roads with detours and side trips. We eventually get to point B and we get our hearts desire, but along the way he changes our hearts and lives and we realize that the dreams we made were so small compared to what we actually reach. My point B, in God's hands, becomes richer, deeper and very different than what I had planned. In fact its better, more life changing and world changing than I could have imagined.

No matter where you are on the path with God, moving toward your dreams, don't get discouraged. It's not going to be direct or instant. It's going to be a great adventure, a deepening experience, with challenges you will have to trust God for, and when you get to the end you will have changed into the person God wants you to be, and he will have given you your heart's desire.

I hope that is an encouraging word for you all. We continue to work on preparing for the first week of school. In three weeks the students will return to Boston and we will meet all the new students that God has been preparing for us. Please continue to pray. Thank you.

True Worship Part 2

2011-08-01T13:06:00.000-04:00

Here is part two of my thoughts on worship. This is a small part of the training material I am putting together for our students this fall. I hope these words encourage you.

Ephesians 5:1 & 2 “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

Paul exhorts us to live the same kind of life that Jesus lived – a life of love. But not only should we live like Christ, but also imitate God in his love for us. And when we do this our life of love becomes a fragrant offering and sacrifice also.

Worship is more than a service we attend or a song we sing – it is a life. It is how we live every day – as dearly loved children, imitators of God, living a life of love. Our very living of life becomes true worship to God.

Paul takes us back to what Christ has done for us – he gave himself up for us. He offered perfect worship to God for us through his death on the cross. We could never do that, but now we can worship in truth through our faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

True spiritual worship starts in the death and resurrection of Jesus, and as we imitate God and live a life of love. This is the foundation of our true worship.

Dearly Loved Children

2011-07-27T09:51:00.000-04:00

As I was considering what I would write today I realized that I was going to repeat myself, "We continue to prepare for the coming fall." So instead of repeating myself I thought I would share some of the content I am preparing, with you. I am working on a series of trainings on worship. Here is a sample:

I am amazed that God considers Jesus’ death on the cross a fragrant offering. Jesus’ death was horrible and tortuous, and yet God was pleased with it. How can anyone consider worshipping a God who demands the death of another, especially his only son?

My identity as a parent helps me to understand what God did. We were created to be God’s children and we rebelled and decided that we didn’t need God as our Father. Jesus gave his life so that we could be become dearly loved children again to God. Jesus, God’s son, was banished, exiled on the cross for us so that we could become true sons and daughters of God.

If one of my children rejected me, I would do everything in my power to win them back, even give my life. This is what God did. God didn’t just send his son - Jesus was God. Just like I would die for my children to save them, God died for us so that we could be called children of God.

God’s love for me is sacrificial. I want to worship a God who loves me so much he would sacrifice himself for me so that I could be called his child.

Part Two next week.

A Gift

2011-07-16T08:46:00.000-04:00

I received a beautiful gift from one of my students who graduated this year. She wanted to say thanks for the way God had used me in her life. I was overwhelmed and thankful. Her gift encouraged me and motivated me to keep giving to students.

And in the last couple of weeks I have been doing that. We have had a continuous flow of visitors in our home these last two weeks, but in between them all I have had time to finish preparing two training documents (Follow-up and Bible Study) and write a sermon I will be presenting at our church (Common Church) on July 31st. I have also had some great time at my computer working on recording some of my music. And we spent a day at the beach as a family, too.

Keep praying for our summer preparation and our finances. The later is always a challenge, but especially in the summer. I spend time praying for all of you, too. Thank you for your partnership in reaching students at BU and through out the world.

And don't forget to thank those in your life who have made a difference for Christ in you. Your thanks will be a tremendous encouragement and blessing.

A Vision Worth Sharing

2011-07-01T10:33:00.000-04:00

“For too long we have thought of the Christian life as essentially either involvement in political, economic, social concerns that wears us out and result in depression or activity which keeps the church intact and doctrinally pure. Our primary orientation cannot be an institution or some great cause or even other people, but first and forever to God. Unless our identity is hid in God we will never know who we are or what we are to do. Our first act must be prayer...To be human is to pray, to meditate both day and night on the love and activity of God. We are called to be continuously formed and transformed by the thought of God within us. Prayer is a disciplined dedication to paying attention. Without the singleminded attentiveness of prayer we will rarely hear anything worth repeating or catch a vision worth asking anyone else to gaze upon.” - from The Spiritual Life by John H. Westerhoff III and John D. Eusden (Bold mine.)

Gene, Thomas and I have been thinking and praying through why we do what we do and who we do it for. A very good thing to do on a regular basis. Incite also spent a lot of time encouraging us, as campus pastors, to examine our purpose and the 'why' of what we do in our ministries. It is good to be reminded that our why is "first and forever to God" and His kingdom.

What do I have to share that is worth anyone giving their life to? Nothing. I need God's vision, heart, and passion, then I will have something worth gazing at, a vision worth pointing to, something worth dying for.

I discover God's passion in prayer - attentive prayer. I need to practice that kind of prayer. Its not something I do naturally. I do a lot of asking, instead of listening. I am going to start paying attention more. Will join with me in attentive, singleminded prayer? Thanks.

Ready to Get to Work

2011-06-26T12:45:00.000-04:00

We just got home from Incite (Northeast Chi Alpha's professional training conference for campus pastors) and it was a wonderful week for me. I was very glad to be able to go. This was our fifth Incite and I have never been able to go because we have held it in May, while my kids were in school. This year we held it at the end of June and I was able to go.

The fellowship with all the campus pastors was the highlight. I was able to get to know so many Chi Alpha pastors in the Northeast that I have only known by name. The relationships, encouragement and support I experienced there was refreshing and strengthened me.

The main speakers, Eli Gautreaux and his wife Mary, were the second best highlight. They are the Chi Alpha campus pastors at Sam Houston State in Texas. They have a very successful student group and Eli shared what he does there. It was a wonderful reminder of the ministry of Chi Alpha and what we stand for. I was challenged by Eli and Mary's commitment to students. They challenged me to think about what I am willing to do to reach students for Christ and I came away challenged to do more and pray more.

Incite left me ready to get to work this summer. I am taking today to write down some priorities and put together a schedule for the next 8 weeks before school starts. Please continue to pray for our preparation this summer.

Summer Plans

2011-06-10T09:05:00.000-04:00

Gene and I just celebrated our daughter's graduation from Winchester High School. Laura graduated with honors and will be attending Savannah College of Art and Design next year. We are very proud of her.

Now we are beginning our summer preparation and study this month. Both Gene and I have been learning all about social media marketing so that we can take advantage of all the resources on Facebook and Twitter. All of our students and so many of our supporters use these two social networks. We want to learn how to use them to build our visibility on the web and at BU, and build a financial support network also.

We are also beginning our preparation for our teachings and training materials for next year. I am digging through all my old files for every piece of material on every subject I can find to see what kind of resources we already have. We are planning to build many tools for our students to use this next year.

Please keep us in your prayers this summer. Pray for our preparation and our finances - our monthly support tends to be low in the summer months. Thank you for all your prayers, always.

Book of the Summer

2011-05-18T13:39:00.000-04:00

We are asking our students to read through Michel Green's wonderful book "I Believe in the Holy Spirit". You can read with them by purchasing the book through the link on the right. Every purchase kicks back some money to our ministry at BU.

In fact check out our bookstore on our website www.bostonuchialpha.com. Part of every book purchased from that website goes toward ministry to the students of BU.

Thanks for looking!

The Most Prepared

2011-05-17T14:15:00.000-04:00

We finished our planning for next year last week and we are the most prepared than we have ever been at the end of a school year. We have every Tuesday night topic chosen and the date they will be presented for the first semester, and all the topics we will present for Spring semester. We have narrowed down a list of training content that we will be gathering this summer and we have September all planned with the students. Wow, that feels good!

For the next week I will be slowing down and resting. The first week of June our daughter Laura graduates from high school and from June 20-24 Gene and I will be attending Incite - a professional training conference for Chi Alpha pastors in the Northeast region. I have never been able to attend in the past but this year the dates were good and a church is helping us pay for the registration. I am very excited to be able to go.

Wrapping the Year Up

2011-05-09T10:38:00.000-04:00

Last Tuesday was our last meeting together for the 2010-2011 school year. We worshiped, shared communion together, affirmed each other and prayed together. It was a wonderful evening.

We also met with the returning students this week planning next year's activities. The students planned a picnic, dessert night, harbor cruise, game night and movie night. We even planned all the way to the Christmas Party in December. We were impressed with their excitement to reach out to the campus and have fun together, too.

Now, we as staff, will spend a week planning next year and making assignments for our work this summer. We are all tired and ready for a short break, but we do not stop working in the summer. We all work on our content and training materials during the summer months. I love the time to be able to spend studying and meditating on God. He refills and refreshes me in the summer.

We are still face a challenge of paying our outstanding bills from this year and last, but we had three churches come through to help us pay for our Easter Dinner and Year End Celebration. Thank you so much for your continued prayers concerning our finances, both ministry and personal.

Year End Celebration

2011-05-01T11:38:00.000-04:00

Wow, we had such a wonderful evening last night as we celebrated our year together. Jean Peteet, our faculty advisor, opened her beautiful home in Brookline to us and provided an incredible dinner for us. We played bocce in her yard, enjoyed homemade gourmet cupcakes,(from chef Gene Breitenbach) and honored our seniors. We hung out for awhile reminiscing and playing our favorite songs - Jean has a piano and we brought instruments for the students to play. We all had a very special time together.

There are a few seniors this year who are graduating that I will miss a lot. Amanda and Karen have become good friends, and Chi Alpha and I will miss them so much. Amanda will be attending graduate school in North Carolina in biochemical research, and Karen will be going on to nursing school and public health, hopefully in California.

Every year is bittersweet for us. Loosing great students is hard but sending them out is so exciting. Thats what campus ministry is all about: meeting a student in her freshman year and discipling her all the way to her senior year and then commissioning her to go out as a world changer. I know I will hear stories back from our alumni about how they will impact their world for Christ.

This is what you support us for, to influence the future scientists, doctors, politicians, artists and teachers. They are the world changers in our culture and most of them come to Boston to be educated. Thank you for helping us to disciple the students of today who will change the world tomorrow.

Easter Dinner

2011-04-26T14:06:00.000-04:00

This last Sunday we had our annual easter Dinner. We had about 30 students and Chi Alpha alumni attend. And we held our first competitive Easter egg hunt. We had such a good time. If you want to see a film of the event go to my profile on Facebook and check it out.

This weekend we will have our Year End Celebration and honor our graduating seniors. Jean Peteet, our faculty advisor, has offered us her home to have our celebration in and we are very excited to spend time with her and her husband.

I will let you know how it goes. Have a wonderful week!

Suddenly Spring

2011-04-21T10:53:00.000-04:00

Spring has finally arrived in New England. It is still cold, but the trees are budding, there are tulips and daffodils everywhere and the cherry and magnolia trees are blooming. I love spring because it means no more snow. This year we got almost 6 feet of snow! I am done with it and can't wait for the warmer weather to come.

Easter is this Sunday and we had a special Tuesday night meeting this week. We spent an extended time in worship sharing about art and how it enhances our perception of reality and God. The students responded well and prepared them for their Easter experience this weekend.

We are still waiting for two of our students to respond to our invitation to leadership. They have to decide by Friday. Pray that they would respond positively. We will be presenting our new student officers at our Year End Celebration.

We had a church in the area here help us with the cost of our Easter Dinner this Sunday. Thank you God! We still have more financial needs though. Check out my prayer requests tab above.

Gene and I will be doing our first pre-engagement counseling with two students this May. This will become a regular part of our ministry to students as they meet potential marriage partners at college. We are looking forward to helping these two students make important decisions about their future relationship together.

My family is finally well. Thank you for your prayers.

April Prayers

2011-04-11T10:04:00.000-04:00

I had my core last night and everyone showed up! We spent some good time praying for each other last night. We only have three more cores left, (classes end on May 5th). We have been studying Colossians this semester and we will be finishing that up the next time we meet. It has been a while since all my ladies were able to come to core and as the year winds down they will be even busier. They will be choosing between their Chi Alpha commitments and studying.

Our annual Easter Dinner is coming up on Easter Sunday, and we are beginning to plan our Year End Celebration dinner. April seems to rush by too fast.

We are planning our year end events by faith, so please pray that God would provide money to pay for these activities in the next two weeks.

My family has been ill these last two weeks. Please pray for us. My kids have a lot of activities this month also and that adds to the already busy schedule we have for this month.

As you can tell, we have many prayer requests. Be sure to check out my prayer requests tab above for more details. Thank you for your support and prayers.

Prayer Every Week

2011-03-29T09:04:00.000-04:00

Every time I come to blog I realize that it has been a while and I apologize. I knew that keeping up with this blog would be a challenge!

Our last few weeks have been ones of steady ministry and work with the students. I continue to work with my women's core and Tuesday nights have been steady with visitors every week. BU took spring break the second week of March and we had over 25 students at our Tuesday night meeting last week after the break. That was wonderful!! A few of them were visitors who returned.

Our staff group (Myself, Gene, Thomas and Robert) have begun work on a big project to put our training materials on the web for our students. I will tell you more about that next time.

The most significant thing we have done as a staff in the last few weeks is to pray together on campus once every week. For the last two Mondays, from 10am - 6pm we have been praying together for our ministry and the students. We invited the students to join us and they have dropped in to pray with us and we pray for them at that time also. We will be praying all day for the next two Mondays - April 4 and April 11th. We are having such a good time praying I am sure that we will be doing it until the semester ends.

Would you join us on Mondays? During your Monday would you remember us often and say a prayer of blessing for us? Thank you so much for your continued support and encouragement of our ministry.

Cafe Night and Retreat

2011-02-22T11:45:00.000-05:00

We had our first Cafe Night in the freshman dorm on February 5th and we had an incredible turn out. We stopped counting at 130 and that was at about 9PM. We didn't close down until 11 and more students came in after 9.

The Chi Alpha students were incredible hosts. Everyone that came through the door was greeted and every table had a Chi Alpha student getting to know the visitors sitting around them.

I ended up singing Beatles Rock Band all night with Tony, Jason and Annkaren (who is a great rock band guitarist!). They want to come to our next event - especially if it has Rock Band.

And what was most encouraging was we had more guys show up than girls. We have been trying to reach freshman guys all year and we met so many that night.

This coming weekend is our winter retreat. Last year God showed up in a big way and we are expecting that again this year. Please pray for our time together.

Check out the prayer requests tab above for more prayer needs. Thanks for praying for us!

New Van!!

2011-01-29T09:54:00.000-05:00

I picked up our new van yesterday and we are so excited! Every time I get in it I am filled with gratitude toward God and amazed at the support and encouragement we have received from the three churches that gave toward this incredible gift.

But all of you, whether you have are a part of the churches who gave the money to get this van or not, have provided this van for us. You all prayed! God provided through all of you.

There have been a few churches and individuals who have dropped their financial support of us because we do not fit their missions vision. I respect each everyone's desire to make their giving count toward God's mission in the earth, and to take the time to craft a vision that fits their goals, but sometimes we forget that the U.S. is a mission field. We are losing the next generation - fast (see Gene's blog "Faith 4 College"). If we fail to reach the next few generations in the U.S. we won't have missionaries to send overseas or money to support missions.

Gene and I are right where we are supposed to be as missionaries. The Northeast is the most unreached area of the U.S. (See my tab above "Why Boston?").

By providing a van for us - US Missionaries - you have encouraged us deeply and communicated your belief in what we do. Thank you so much for your prayers.

God's Great Provision

2011-01-20T12:27:00.000-05:00

We had our first meeting this Tuesday and we had 22 students attend. There were a number of students who came for the first time, and all of our returning students showed up. Gene did a great job talking about science and faith. It was great to see so many students.

Gene and I have been without a car since July. Fortunately we live in Boston and transportation has not been a big problem. Yesterday I had our old van towed away. We had it since 2000 and put over 248,000 miles on it. I thanked God for the many hours of ministry that van helped us accomplish.

In the next week we will be purchasing another van. Three of our supporting churches from Washington state raised enough money to buy us a van. Wow, God is so good.

My core prayed for a van for us this last semester and when I told them that a church in Washington was buying a van for us they were amazed. They had never experienced God's provision like that before. Their faith was strengthened. I hope to have one of my core meetings in our new van so that they can celebrate with us!

The new van and 22 students at our first meeting are just two of the ways that God has been providing for us this year. We look forward to even more provision from him. Thank you for your prayers.

A New Year

2011-01-14T11:59:00.000-05:00

This week we had our first staff meeting of 2011 and next Tuesday, the 18th, we will have our first Chi Alpha meeting at BU for 2011. We are all excited about the new year and about some of the great events we have planned, the students we will continue to meet with, and for any unexpected blessings that God has in store for us.

Over the Christmas break I got to take a trip out West for the wedding of my nephew and to spend time with my parents in Arizona, where they winter with their horses. The most relaxing part of the trip was in Arizona, riding in the desert and eating fantastic Mexican food with my parents. The family wedding in Washington state was very special and I also got to spend a day in Bellingham with a couple of very close friends.

I am rested and ready for this semester to begin. I notice that this semester tends to go very quickly, but is usually full of growth in the student's lives. I especially look forward to working with my core. I am going to be giving the women more leadership in planning our meetings together. I only have 14 core meetings this semester, so I ask you to pray that each meeting is full of God's presence, and that we would grow in vulnerability and love for each other.

I look forward to reporting next week on our first meeting of the year.

Updated Blog

2011-01-14T11:45:00.000-05:00

I have updated my blog in a number of ways in the last few months. First, notice the pages tabs along the top. You will find 'Our Story' of how we decided to come to Boston and 'Why Boston?' that lists all the reasons we are in Boston. Hope both of those pages inspire you.

Also, I have added a subscription gadget so that you can subscribe with your email. Each time I make a post you will receive an email. This makes it so that you don't have to visit the blog if there is no new postings.

Thanks for reading my blog and especially for praying for us.

Special Music Presentation

2010-12-04T19:18:00.000-05:00

I failed to blog during our Christmas party so instead I am writing to you from a special evening of original music. One of our students, Edward, is a grad student in musicology and he has put together an Advent celebration highlighting John the Baptist. He has written music for it and we are gathering to hear his concert.

Last night we had a wonderful evening celebrating Christmas and our fellowship together. Everyone brought food that they had made, including Thomas' famous jello. We all made paper snowflakes and hung them around the room and on the tree. We sang carols and then built gingerbread houses. Ryan, a civil engineer major from Wentworth school of technology, built an incredible ranch style house with a garage. It was amazing.

Edward has started his musical presentation. Looks like we have some visitors here who don't normally come to Chi Alpha. I'll talk to you later.

A Few Highlights

2010-12-03T10:09:00.000-05:00

The last few weeks of the semester have been a whirlwind of activities. I feel like I have been non-stop with all the ministry that has happened. Here are few highlights:

- We have had 2-3 visitors a week at our last 5 Tuesday Night meetings. That's so exciting! And they have returned!
- Thomas and Robert have made some good contacts with freshmen men in the dorms the last few weeks. We don't have any freshmen men involved in our group.
- We had a wonderful weekend retreat with our student leadership team. They came back refreshed.
- Gene and I had 6 students and Chi Alpha alumni at our home for Thanksgiving. It was a day of food and relaxing conversation.
- I connected again with M. and A. I spent a couple of hours with them at their sorority fund-raiser - "Manicure for a Cure" - a breast cancer awareness event. They were very happy to see me and we exchanged contact information this time so that we could keep up. I am going to invite them to our Christmas party tonight.
- Gene has been doing an incredible job at our Tuesday night meetings dealing with apologetic topics with a question and answer time after each. Our students have many questions about their faith and they really appreciate having a place where they can ask them.

I have appreciated your prayers. We are still in need of finances to pay a few debts left from last year's outreach events, and to cover the cost of our fall retreat. Please continue to pray for God's provision. Everything we are doing this year has been by faith. It has been encouraging to see God provide.

Classes end on the 10th, but before that we have our annual Christmas Party. Tonight at 7PM we will be celebrating the birth of Christ together. Pray that the students would invite all their friends, including the preChristian friends they have. I will blog from the party to let you know how it goes.

Experiencing God This Weekend

2010-11-04T20:12:00.000-04:00

This weekend we will be taking about 14 students to a retreat center outside Boston to spend a weekend "Experiencing God First Person". We don't have a main speaker but we will be taking the students through devotional excersises that get them interacting with God on a deeper more intimate level.

We are doing this retreat by faith. We don't have much money and we needed to give the students all a half scholarship so that they could afford to go. We have a couple of churches giving money toward the retreat but not enough to cover all that we have offered. Please pray that the other churches we have contacted will give quickly and generously.

Pray that the students that come this weekend would encounter God in a very real way and come back to BU on Sunday refreshed and ready to live for Christ. Thank you for your prayers.

A Chance Meeting

2010-10-22T22:12:00.000-04:00

I'm not usually on campus on Fridays, but one of the ladies in my core is having some serious roommate troubles and we met an official this morning who will help us. I finished with my appointment and did a couple of errands on campus, prayed in Marsh Chapel, and then sat down in the food court of the GSU.

Two women sat down to share my table. We didn't acknowledge each other and they started talking. It is Parents Weekend this weekend and there are many older folks on campus. One of the ladies was noticing this and then said, "I wonder if she's a mom?". I thought she was referring to me so I turned to her and said, "Are you referring to me?"

She said, "No," and I said, "I'm not a mom."

"What are you?" she asked.

I said, "I'm a chaplain."

"A what!?" and I proceeded to share with her about my position on campus. I introduced myself and then they went back to their own conversation.

I was listening with one ear, and they ended up talking about economic classes in the U.S. At that point she turns to me and asks, "Don't you think all the people in the south are poor?"

This started a two hour conversation with A. and M., both seniors and good friends. M. is from Chicago and has a Jewish background, and A. is from San Francisco with no religious experience at all, although she is Jewish. Our conversation was a normal, stream-of-consciousness conversation that flowed through socio-economic classes in the U.S., to politics, to Israel and the Jews, to baby boomers, their parents and how they were brought up.

Somehow we got on the topic of how I was paid, and I mentioned that they might not understand this but I lived by faith. They were fascinated! They had never met anyone who lived that way, totally depending on donations from individuals and churches who believed in what we did. A., especially, was so impressed. She asked me, "Can I ask you a question?" and I said, "A. you can ask me what ever question you want." (They were impressed with that.)

She asked what I did when I didn't have any money. I shared that God provided two ways. One through a partnership with him. I pray and tell him my need and then I go out and look for resources. The other half of the time God provides supernaturally - a check comes in the mail, someone hands us cash, or a large gift shows up in our account. I was able to share part of my testimony, that I had been a Christian for 35 years and I have seen God's faithfulness throughout my life.

M. started asking a lot of questions at this point, and she ended up talking about her Jewish background, her doubts based on some of things that happen in life, and her belief in a God. She can't imagine not believing in God. She said, "If there isn't a God what the f***** are we doing here?" I agreed, (of course my language wasn't quite as colorful as hers.). A. couldn't understand why God was so important. M. shared that knowing that God existed brought meaning to life especially in hard times. A. said that she had been through hard times and never once thought about God during that time. I asked if she ever thought about God at any time. She said no. "I never think of God."

They ended up inviting me to a fund raiser that they are sponsoring to raise awareness of breast cancer and I told them I would come. We had a very comfortable, natural conversation about life and God. I loved being able to share with them a whole new way of looking at God and shattering some of their stereotypes of Christians. I know that God opened a big door with them and that I will meet them again on campus to talk more.

These are the kind of conversations that make me love my job.

Meet the Women!

2010-10-17T15:44:00.000-04:00

After that last post, I wanted to introduce you to the women in my core. These are the women who have me so excited about this year. These women will be our future Chi Alpha leaders and I hope that you will pray for them.

Chelsey is a pre-med freshman. She wants to be a anesthesiologist.
Korynne is a music major. She plays the cello and she is a transfer student. She hopes to someday perform in a small ensemble.
Jessica is undeclared, but thinks she may go into journalism. She is a freshman from my home town, Tacoma, Washington.
Catherine goes to Berklee College of Music. She is a freshman and is studying music production.
Hellen is a freshman from Hawaii and she is studying Biology.
Maudeline is a senior and one of our Chi Alpha student officers. She is graduating this year from the School of Managment.

There are a couple of other women who come and go, but these are the committed members. They are the reason I keep such a busy schedule, and they are so worth it.

Please pray for them as they navigate school and grow in Christ. They especially need prayer in managing their schedules so that they make time for God. I expect that these women will be with Chi Alpha for as long as they are at BU.

Sorry it's been awhile

2010-10-17T15:33:00.000-04:00

Thank you, JQ, for mailing me and reminding me to keep up on my blog. These last three weeks have been frantic. We have so many women to follow up on and I am leading a freshmen core. I am on campus twice as much as I was last year. All this is good and exciting. But there are some things that get left behind.

So this is my weekly schedule: Every morning, Mon-Fri Aaron and I get up at 7:00 and get ready for school. He and I walk to his school.
On Monday I am on campus by 10:00. I meet with Robert, our intern for two hours, doing Scribe School and Devotional Life. From 1-5 I meet with students.
Tuesday I am either at home preparing for the meeting that night or on campus with students. Thomas comes by the house at about 4:00 pm and we pack up the PA equipment and get to campus about 5:30. We unload and set up the equipment. At 6 I practice with the worship team. Our meeting starts at 7 and ends at 8:30. We pack up the equipment and drive back to our house. We get done at about 10:00.
Wednesday I am on campus at 10:00 am until late in the evening. We have staff meeting in the morning and then I meet with students the rest of the day.
Thursday I am at home, studying, cleaning, catching up.
Friday I am on campus at 10:00 am for our discipleship class with both Robert and Thomas. I usually come home afterwards in time to pick up Aaron from school at 2:45.
Saturday I am home, but we have had events and activities with our children and outreach with students.
Sunday I am at church in the city, with my family, by 10:00. My family goes home and I spend the afternoon studying and getting ready for my core that evening on campus and my Monday morning meeting with Robert. My core starts at 7 and ends at 8:30pm. I catch the subway to the train station and take the 11:30 train home and I am in bed by midnight.
In addition our children have clubs and activities that I help them with also. gene and I spend a lot of time talking about the ministry and working through our philosophy, methods, and new ideas.

My schedule is hectic and filled with riding the subway and buses, where I get a lot of reading and studying done, and filled with meetings with wonderful students I am discipling.

First Back Court Cafe off 2010

2010-09-17T20:32:00.000-04:00

I am sitting at the door of our Back Court Cafe welcoming students in. We started at 7:00 pm and we have already had close to 50 people through the door. That's really good for the first hour.

It was a rainy day on campus today but we passed out around 700 flyers and the evening seems very active on campus. There are many students on the streets and in the student union. We have had many drop ins and I am so excited at how many of our new students are here.

Just met Pete and Chris, two drop ins who are having a great time. Robert has had a hour long conversation with a Muslim visitor and there is a big game of Uno going on towards the front of the room.

God is good. Thanks for all your prayers.

I Am Jazzed!

2010-09-16T10:31:00.000-04:00

I don't know if I have enough room to tell you everything that has been happening this last week. God has been blessing us. Between our first two Tuesday night gatherings we had 53 new students attend! Chi Alpha has never had that kind of response in this city on a single campus. We are following up on 70 female contacts, and the men's first core meeting had 11 !!!! guys there!!!

We are all incredulous and excited!! Forget about being tired, I am jazzed!

And I get to lead a women's freshmen core. (We will have two women's cores this year. Both will be full.) We had our first meeting on Sunday and I had 6 women attend, with about 5 more thinking about coming. I am very excited to be working with freshmen. These women will be our future leaders. In fact, the major women leaders we have had in the past two years all attended my freshmen core three years ago.

This Friday is our Back Court Cafe and we expect a record turn out. We will be passing out flyers on campus tomorrow. Pray that we would have many new students come and that the new students that are already part of our group would have a good time getting to know each other.

Thanks for your prayers. They are making a difference.

A Fantastic Week

2010-09-05T22:37:00.000-04:00

It is Sunday night and a fantastic week is about to end. We had 33 students at our first meeting on Tuesday, 30 at our dessert on Thursday and we had over 75 face to face contacts for the whole week at all our activities. Your prayers have made a difference. Gene and I are still amazed and incredulous over the number of students we have met this week.

This next week we will have an information table in Marsh Plaza all day before our meeting. We expect as many and probably a few more students than last week to attend on Tuesday night. I have already made arrangements to have a couple of new students to play on the worship team with me and an old Chi Alpha alumni has offered to play bass for us.

I think that we may have enough women who want to be in small groups to have three women's groups. That would mean I would have to lead a group. Wow, that's a great problem to have! I hope I get a group of all freshmen!

I am looking forward to this next week. We will take Sunday and Monday off and then back into the adventure. Please continue to pray.

Free Dessert

2010-09-02T21:49:00.000-04:00

I am sitting in the basement cafeteria of the Theology building watching our Chi Alpha leaders interact and converse with new students and visitors at our Free Dessert after the first day of classes. I am so proud of our returning students. They have really come so far. We used to have to remind them to introduce themselves to visitors and reach out to others. Now we can't stop them.

Our dessert tonight has been fantastic. We had 29 total come. Half of those students were brand new to us. Our attendance has been so encouraging.

Please pray that these students would choose to be part of Chi Alpha. Many of the students who came to our meeting on Tuesday are also looking at other Cbristian groups on campus. We don't compete, but I meet so many students that I would love to spend time with who choose to go to Real Life or Intervarsity.

Thanks fro your prYers. God is really answering them.

WE HAD 31 STUDENTS!

2010-08-31T23:25:00.000-04:00

We had 31 students at our meeting tonight! Did you hear that -we had 31 students at our first meeting tonight!!! We are so excited!! People started coming to our meeting at 6:30. By the time 7 came the room was almost full. We ended up bringing in chairs. AND we didn't have everyone there! Half of our returning students weren't in town yet! We have never had that many students at any Chi alpha meeting at BU!

I can't tell you how grateful we are to God for answering our prayers for growth and new students. Your prayers have made such a difference to us in these last few weeks. Thank you so much.

Please pray that next week we would have the same turn out and more. Pray that these students would enjoy being with us and decide to stay and commit themselves to Chi Alpha. The other religious groups on campus meet next week and there will be a few that will go to those groups, but pray that we retain those who came this week. We want 60 next week!

We had 31 students at our meeting tonight! Yay God!!

Great Turn Out for Splash

2010-08-30T14:40:00.000-04:00

We have had two days of 90+ degrees! But what great days we have had! Splash was almost a record breaking day for us. We got 75 contacts with students yesterday. The most we have ever had was 80, about 4 years ago. From 2-5 we stood in the hot sun (I almost fainted at one point), and we had so much fun.

Today we had an information table in Marsh Plaza and we met another ten students and we were visible to many more. We divided up the names of all the students and we will all be spending the next 24 hours contacting everyone we met in the last two days.

Tomorrow night is our first meeting of the year and we think we are going to have a big turn out. I would be ecstatic if 40 people showed up! With all our contacts that is possible!

Thanks for all your prayers. Please continue to pray as our week goes on. We are all very excited.

Fourth to Fifth

2010-08-27T16:37:00.000-04:00

Yup, the clutch is in and I am shifting from fourth to fifth today! We just finished the posters and printing for the Chi Alpha table at Splash on Sunday. Our information cards just came in the mail today and we received our t-shirts this week for everyone to wear. We started hearing from students who have been arriving back in Boston in the past two days and everyone is excited to be back.

Tomorrow we will meet with returning students to say hi and brief them on the coming week. Splash starts at 2pm Sunday afternoon. Gene is spending the day updating our website and creating some handouts on how to survive BU in your freshman year to hand out at Splash.

Please check out my last post and pray for our calendar of events for this next week. We want to meet new students who will connect with us and stay. Especially pray for sophomore students returning who met us last year but never got involved. I hope they are feeling the need to put God back in their lives this year.

I will try to blog from Splash or one of our events this week while it is happening. Thanks for your prayers.

Gearing Up

2010-08-20T20:47:00.000-04:00

I think we are in third gear now. Come next Friday we will be in fifth gear and overdrive, and cruising along at a fast pace. We had our Intern Day today with Robert and we introduced him to the coming year and we prayed for sometime about the coming few weeks ahead. On Monday we will have our first staff meeting with all of us together.

Here is our first week schedule. Pleased pray that we would meet many freshman, especially preChristians and that they would all join our group.

August 28 - First meeting with returning students
August 29 - Splash activities fair with freshman
August 30 - Info table in Marsh Plaza
August 31 - First Chi Alpha meeting
September 1 - Museum of Fine Arts with the students
September 2 - Religious Life Fair and evening dessert
September 3 - Harvard Square Restaurant tour
September 4 - Freedom Trail and dinner at Quincy Market

We were able to print our postcards and order t-shirts for Splash. Please continue to pray for God's provision for our events and outreach. It looks like God will be providing event by event. It's not the way we like doing things - it's veery distracting - but we are flexible and grateful.

A New Year

2010-08-09T09:41:00.000-04:00

My personal calendar is all off. Most people see the new year starting in January. But as a campus pastor the new year is always September. New students, new opportunities, new friends, a flurry of activities and a new Chi Alpha group. There are returning students, but when the new students join us this fall the group will be different in many ways.

I love September. And when I find myself in the summer looking forward to September it means I have rested and refreshed myself, and I am ready to start the new school year. I am ready.

Gene and I have had an interesting summer and it continues to be challenging. Our car is parked in our driveway and will not be moving anymore. We have survived with food to eat, a roof over our head and utilities. And our preparation for the coming year has been fruitful. Money for our events on campus is coming in, but continues to be a challenge. Thomas and Robert have been hard at work raising their budgets, and although its been hard they are doing well. (Thomas is at 70% and Robert is at 30%).

I am just finishing up a new believers bible study. All the time I have been writing this series I have been praying that we will be able to use it with new converts this fall. I met with two new freshman this summer as they visited for orientation and I am praying that they will both make the decision to be part of Chi Alpha this fall.

Gene has been working hard on learning the programming for building apps for the iPhone and the iPad. He is developing an online magazine for college students which will be a great way to train and give us visibility. We'll let you know when it is ready. He's also been working on this years Tuesday night teachings and our core facilitator handbook.

We will be contacting our returning students this week sharing our fall calendar and getting them excited to be back in Boston in September. Usually they all can't wait to get back.

I decided to start my blog early because things are happening and we can always use your prayers. Thank you for your prayers this summer. Please pray for our start up in September. Next time I will post our calendar so that you can pray for each event. We will be setting the dates tomorrow at our staff meeting. Talk to you then.

Last One Until August

2010-06-17T12:02:00.000-04:00

Wow, sorry I have not written. Summer is a different schedule for me and I tend not to remember to write to you. In fact, this will be the last post until August 20th, when our intern comes in to town and we are on campus again, getting ready for the first week of school.

Here are some things that you can pray for us about: 1) Our car, it has 250,000 miles and it is in it's death throes. We can't drive very far and it has made it difficult to do any fund-raising this summer. And that's my next request: 2) Please pray for our finances. This has been the most challenging last three months we have experienced since we moved here 5 years ago. We lost a large donor in the spring and our pledges have been inconsistent. I'm sure it's due to the financial crunch everyone is experiencing.

We need to make up for the lost pledges, but we can't get out to meet people and introduce ourselves to them with out transportation. We are doing some letter writing and phoning, but it is not the most effective way to reach out to people about our vision and need. So your prayers will be very much appreciated over the next eight weeks.

Hopefully when I log in on August 20th I will have some great news of God's great provision for you. I am sure I will. He always seems to come through. Have a great summer and I will be praying for all of you also. Lynn

Gene Ordained

2010-05-12T21:25:00.000-04:00

Last week we spent two whole days planning for next year. I am amazed at how many ideas we came up with - more than the three of us could ever do in one year. Now we have to come up with all the ideas we think are the most important and that we can prepare for over the summer.

Last night Gene was ordained. Congratulations Gene! It was a wonderful ceremony. The best thing about it is that our good friend of over 20 years, Nick Fatato, was one of the officials who ordained Gene. Nick and Gene were amazed how God works things out in delightful ways. We never thought, 23 years ago, when we visited Nick in Michigan at Ferris State University, that someday he would ordain Gene in Boston.

Gene's ordination felt like a stamp of approval on Gene for the commitment he has made to Chi Alpha at Boston University. I was very proud of him.

Ending the Year

2010-05-04T11:30:00.000-04:00

Classes are over and the students are now in their finals. We had our Year End Celebration Banquet and our last Tuesday night meeting. My direct work with the students is over but May through August is still very busy for us.

We had a wonderful banquet to end the year. We honored our seniors and spent the evening remembering our year together. The highlight of the evening for me was having J. there with his girlfriend, N. J. is the atheist Jew who has been coming to our meetings on Tuesday and whom we feel is a part of Chi Alpha. He graduated this year and so we honored him at our banquet also. N. came as his guest and at first she was not happy about being at the event. But then she began to meet us all and we made her feel part of the group. She heard and saw us honor J. and we also said a few words to her about her graduation, including her in the festivities. before she left she mentioned that she might drop by next year on a Tuesday night (she is going to graduate school at BU).

We celebrated communion at our last meeting together. We let the students take a piece of bread and share it with each of their Chi Alpha friends, along with words of thanks and affirmation. And then we shared the cup together. It was a meaningful end to a great year.

Thomas has finished his Chi Alpha internship with us and has decided to join our Chi Alpha staff here at BU and we are so glad he is staying to help us. The three of us will be spending the next two weeks planning next years events, teachings, materials and outreach.

We also have a student staying to be part of our internship next year. Robert Barrett will be an intern with us next year and we are so excited. He is the first graduate from BU to intern with us.

Gene will be ordained next Tuesday night at our denominational council meeting. And then we begin a summer of mostly fund-raising and preparation fro next year.

As with many other missionaries around the U.S., finances have been a big challenge for us. In the last five years we have had enough to survive, but this spring we have had the hardest struggled with our events on campus and our own personal finances. We have come close to canceling outreaches because we have no money and we have even had to borrow money to hold our year end banquet (an event we could not cancel). So this summer we will be on the road here in the Southern New England district talking to pastors and individuals about supporting our work here.

Please pray for us - for God to provide the money we need to cover our debts, and for his blessings on our efforts to raise more funds. Gene and I appreciate your prayers and support.

Two Weeks to Go

2010-04-15T12:19:00.000-04:00

Hi friends! I am still here, although very tired and getting ready for the year to end.

Our Easter dinner was wonderful! We had over 40 people come and half of them we did not know. And even more exciting - there were men there! I know that sounds kind of sketchy :) but getting men involved in anything on campus is a challenge at BU. We have been praying to discover the key to attract men to our fellowship. I believe the key lies in our men inviting their friends. That's what happened for the Easter dinner. There were also two international students from China there and a number of students from other Christian groups on campus.

Our fellowship was good and there was lots of food.

Classes end on April 29th, which will be my last day on campus. But there are still more things to do.

April 24th is our year end banquet - pray for finances to pay for that
In the next two weeks we will be meeting with our returning students to plan our events for next year.
May 10th Gene is getting ordained!
Then, all May, we will be holding staff planning meetings to work on next year and determine what we will study and prepare for the summer.

God can still do some great things in the lives of our students in the next two weeks. I'm looking forward to sharing those things with you.

The Last Two Events

2010-04-01T12:12:00.000-04:00

This weekend is Easter and every year we host a free Easter dinner on campus on Easter Sunday. We have had up to 85 students attend and it is always a great time of celebration and great food.

And our last event of the year is our Year End Banquet on April 24th. This is where we celebrate the year together and honor our graduating seniors.

Will you please pray that God would bless these events? Would you especially pray that God would provide finances to cover the expenses? Thank you for all your prayers.

On Campus Today

2010-04-01T12:07:00.000-04:00

Today I am on campus in my office, the back court in the GSU. Every Thursday I get together with a number of women in Chi Alpha for one on one discipleship. God has been using this time powerfully in the lives of the women I work with.

One woman is praying for the gifts of the Spirit - namely the gift of wisdom. Another is working hard on her relational skills with others and a couple others are working hard to make it through to graduation in May.

We have four weeks of classes left and graduation is in the middle of May. It doesn't seem to be very much time but God can do a lot in four weeks. Please pray that God would continue to change and grow the students we work with.

Success and Difficulties

2010-03-21T19:28:00.000-04:00

We had a very successful Back Court Cafe this last Friday. All of our Chi Alpha students had significant conversations with pre Christians all night. That's what we had prayed for.

Gene and I had a very difficult week. Last Sunday everyone in my family came down with a very bad stomach flu - I was directing traffic to the bathrooms all night Sunday. All week we have been recovering - slowly. And our financial challenges keep growing. Please keep praying for us. Prayer is the most powerful activity you could do for us. Thanks you so much.

What A Day!

2010-03-19T21:23:00.000-04:00

What a day to be in Marsh Plaza! The sun was out and it was about 65 - 70 degrees. There were students everywhere! It felt like a carnival. In one corner of the plaza was a group of students reciting poetry (at the top of their voices) to advertise their poetry jam that weekend. 'Hugs Not Hate'(a club on campus) were out giving out free to hugs to anyone who needed one. There was a group of students collecting signatures to petition the administration to control tuition hikes. Skate boarders, sun worshipers and sunshine!

And there was Chi Alpha. We had a big display advertising our cafe tonight. We had banners and balloons, and we were passing out flyers. Everything felt like a festival. I love days like this on campus when everyone comes out of their study holes and hangs out outside.

I hope your day was sunny and festive also.

Back Court Cafe

2010-03-19T21:13:00.000-04:00

I find myself sitting in the GSU back court for our Back Court Cafe, again. Albert & Rich are playing great music in the background. Students are gathered around tables covered with white butcher paper drawing with crayons and sculpting play-dough(....just got up to welcome two ladies who just walked in). People are relaxing enjoying each other.

Gene and Eddy have been in an intense conversation with a student for about two hours now. I have been praying that it has been fruitful. All of our students have been stepping out and introducing themselves to new people. So far it has been a good evening. Thanks for your prayers concerning this event.

Spring Break

2010-03-12T10:47:00.000-05:00

This week all the students are on spring break, and Gene and have been relaxing a bit and spending time with our kids this week.

March 19th, the first Friday back from spring break, we will be having our Back Court Cafe. Please pray for great attendance and God's blessings.

I'll be back on campus Monday. See you then.

Worshipful retreat

2010-03-01T11:19:00.000-05:00

Wow! Our winter retreat was wonderful. The facility was great, our speaker was prophetic and God showed up.

We spent the weekend at The Marist House, a Catholic retreat center outside of Boston in Framingham. We had a whole building to ourselves and it was very good to be together. Although the weather was awful (rain and snow mix) we had tons of indoor activities to do.

Our speaker was Matt Herman, the Chi Alpha pastor at Cornell University, in Ithaca, NY. Matt is a gifted speaker, very laid back and very personal. He spoke from I Samuel 1,2,3, & 8. This was a series he had spoken on in the fall with his students and the messages spoke so clearly to our students.

But the greatest part of the retreat was our worship. This was the first retreat we have had in the Northeast that actually felt like a Chi Alpha retreat. Amanda and I prepared worship a head of time, and Gene & I had been praying for a move of the Spirit during worship - that our students would be confident & free to work in the gifts and allow God to use them. It happened. From the first worship session on Friday night students were stepping out and sharing scriptures, visions, words and praise to God. Our Saturday night worship went for an hour and a half - the longest our students have ever worshipped - we even missed the last train to Boston and I had to drive a couple of students home who couldn't stay for the whole retreat.

We are so thankful for what God has been doing in and for our students this year. Especially in their interaction with him. We know that he will take what happened at the retreat this weekend and build on it for the rest of the semester and into next year. Thank you fro praying for our retreat.

2010-03-01T11:17:00.000-05:00

I want to begin this post with an apology. We have not sent out a newsletter yet this year. We have had some real financial difficulties these last few months. We are not overwhelmed and we are not quitting because of it, but it makes it very difficult to afford putting a newsletter out.

I am glad I have this blog that you can all tune in too to hear about what is happening. Please pray that God would provide for us - not only what we need, but an abundance for ministry needs also. Thank you for your support and prayers.

A Distracting Week

2010-02-20T18:38:00.000-05:00

It's been a challenging week. Gene went in to the hospital a week ago with a kidney stone (which passed over the weekend), but he has been recovering all week. Our kids have been home for winter break and I have been very tired helping Gene and spending time with the kids. We are also having some financial challenges that add stress. But I am not overwhelmed. This is the way ministry works - life is a part of it.

Gene leaves for Arizona for the annual two day conference for national Chi Alpha internship directors. I will be leading the Tuesday night meeting this week. I was going to do some teaching but I am having trouble focusing this week with so many distractions. So I plan on leading an hour in prayer and worship with the students. It's something I have wanted to do for a while and I believe that the students will appreciate it. Planning a worship and prayer time is much easier for me to do than a teaching.

Continue to pray for our upcoming retreat. I still have a few more students that I hope attend. They need a prayerful push.

Winter Retreat

2010-02-15T10:13:00.000-05:00

We will be having our Winter Retreat on Feb 26 - 28. We have invited Matt Herman to speak. He is the Chi Alpha campus pastor at Cornell University.

We will be going to the Marist House, a Catholic monastery and retreat center in Framingham, just outside Boston. It's on the commuter rail so its easy for the students to get there, but far enough out of the city that they feel they are getting away. The Marist House is on 25 acres of woods and we will have an entire mansion to ourselves.

Pray that all of our students would choose to come and that the Lord would minister powerfully through Matt.

A Cold and A Stone

2010-02-15T10:08:00.000-05:00

I usually only catch one cold a year. This year I am working on my third cold. I have felt very miserable for the last week - so much so I have forgotten to keep up on my posts. I am sorry.

But I don't feel as miserable as Gene. On Thursday (Feb 11 - his birthday) Gene realized he was working on passing a kidney stone (Happy Birthday :( ). We were up all night and on Friday I took him to the hospital. They gave him some drugs and got him hydrated. He is okay and we think the stone has passed now, but he has been in a lot of pain and extremely tired.

My cold is passing. Pray I don't get another. Thanks.

Tuesday Night Gatherings

2010-02-15T10:02:00.000-05:00

We have had four weeks of school now and our first four gatherings have been very good. We have been praying that the students would grow in their worship experience with God and we have seen that happening this semester. Students are participating and expressing themselves in worship and we have a couple of students who have been praying for our meetings during the week and they are bringing insights and scripture to share with the group. That's wonderful!

I lead the worship team. I play the piano and sing and I am the main leader. Edward plays the piano - he's wonderful - and I am working him into some leader experiences also.

Amanda will be helping me plan and lead worship for our upcoming Winter Retreat. (Edward won't be there) She is not on the worship team but she wanted to help for the retreat. Her enthusiasm is exciting.

Please continue to pray for our Tuesday night gatherings and the worship experience. Thanks.

Singing the Beatles

2010-01-29T21:43:00.000-05:00

And yes, I did sing a few songs on Beatles Rock Band - very fun!!

-2 Degrees - A Perfect Day

2010-01-29T20:30:00.000-05:00

Earlier today we gave out free hot chocolate and flyers for the Game Night. It was about 19 degrees with a wind chill of -2. Perfect day for handing out hot chocolate. The students were freezing and really appreciated the warm drink. We passed out about 200 cups and passed out about 400 flyers. Sitting here at the door of the Back Court for the Game Night, I've already seen a number of people who took hot chocolate come in.

Even though its very cold we always have a great time passing out hot chocolate. Its so hard to convince the students that its free. "What's the Catch?" - I heard that a few times today. But most of the time the students smile and appreciate wrapping their hands around a warm cup.

4th Annual Game Night - 8PM

2010-01-29T20:20:00.000-05:00

I am sitting in the GSU Back Court, which is usually my office on campus, but tonight we've cleared all the tables out and we have the room filled with video games. Behind me is Beatles Rock Band with about 10 students playing "Twist and Shout" and watching. To my right is Wii Sports. At the other end of the room is Mario Cart and of course, Super Smash Bros. We have pizza enough for 200 and a raffle.

At 8pm we had 100 students and I expect more to come later. Our Chi Alpha students are being great hosts - introducing themselves to new students and inviting them to play with them.

Two new students just came in - carrying their own game console. They just joined in on the Super Smash Bro game... Here comes a group of 4.... Just introduced myself to Eddy. Nice guy. He had questions about Chi Alpha and is now signing up for the raffle.

This is always a fun event. I'll report more later.

First Week of Spring Semester

2010-01-24T09:19:00.000-05:00

We had a great first full week of school. Monday we were on campus meeting students. Tuesday, during the day I sat at an information table for Chi Alpha and met a couple of students, and Tuesday night we had a wonderful turnout to our first meeting of the semester, Gene was on campus Wednesday with his guys, Thursday I was on campus meeting with my ladies and Saturday night we had big welcome back to BU party at our house.

We had 15 students in our home on Saturday. We fed them Cincinnati Chili, played tons of games and didn't get to bed until 1 AM. We met two new students at our party and I hope they continue to come out to our events and meetings.

Next week, on Friday, we will be holding our largest event of the year - Game Night. We fill the GSU Back Court with video games, computer games, board games, wii, Playstation, Xbox - you name it we have it - and over 300 students will be there to play games with us all night. We cosponsor this event with the BU Video Game Society club. Its a great way to introduce Chi Alpha to students in a non-threatening atmosphere. We look forward to meeting many new students that night.

Please pray for our Game Night this week. Pray that our students would reach out and meet new people, be great hosts and we would generate more interest in Chi Alpha and Jesus. Thanks.

First Day on Campus

2010-01-17T13:43:00.000-05:00

Friday Gene, Thomas and I had our staff planning meeting on campus in the GSU. The first person we see if J. who is the atheist who has been attending our Tuesday night gathering regularly since last spring. Robert and Karen (two of our students) joined us later and then we saw both Adam and Gerone as we were walking down the main sidewalk on campus. It was wonderful seeing all those friends on our first day back on campus.

We have our biggest event of the year coming up on the 29th - our 4rth Annual Game Night - and we planned through the details, and Robert and Karen turned in the paperwork, reserved equipment and got our poster artwork in. We usually have at least 300 students show up for this event. One thing we are trying to think through is how to make ourselves known at this event. We sponsor it along with the Video Game Society club, but we need to be able to communicate who we are effectively during the event. Please pray for wisdom in this.

Welcome Back!

2010-01-11T13:12:00.000-05:00

I hope that everyone's Christmas was merry and the new year looks hopeful and bright! This will be my first entry for 2010! Happy New Year!!

Today starts our first official day back at work, although we have been working all through the break. Gene and Thomas are attending the New England Chi Alpha Campus ministers meeting today. I cannot attend because of kids in school. They will be saying goodbye to Mike Olejarz, who is going to be moving to WA D.C. to join a national Chi Alpha team working on developing online training materials for Chi Alpha interns. He has been the director of Chi Alpha in Boston for over ten years and a close friend. But he won't be far away.

Wednesday , the 13th, the students at BU will begin classes for the first time in 2010. We are looking forward to welcoming them back. We also have 5 students who will be returning from studying abroad this last semester. I am looking forward to having them back with us.

Our first Tuesday night gathering will be on the 19th. It will be good to see all the students and get the new semester going.

I will get back to a weekly (or more) blog starting with this entry. Talk to you soon.

It's Been a While

2009-12-17T08:25:00.000-05:00

Wow! I haven't written to you in over two weeks! Sorry. At the end of the semester I am always very tired. I worked hard on the Thanksgiving dinner and then immediately had to plan and prepare the Christmas party. I baked & decorated 200 Christmas cookies in one day. By the time the party was done I was ready for a long break.

Our Christmas party went well. It ended up being a mellow time of very good food (students brought the food), games, the Christmas story and we made Christmas cards for soldiers who could not get home for the holidays.

Classes ended on the 11th and the students are now taking their finals, which end on the 20th. Gene and I will be taking the next week off and then after Christmas we will start again by preparing training resources for our students and we will be spending many days in training with our intern, Thomas, in January.

I will try not to be so long in writing to you over the break. I wish you a blessed Christmas celebration.

Thanksgiving Feast

2009-11-30T10:37:00.000-05:00

We hosted seven students in our home for Thanksgiving and had a wonderful time. Most of the students at BU are from somewhere else in the country and many of them do not go home for Thanksgiving because the Christmas Break is so soon afterwards. Every year we open our home to anyone who has no where to go. We take them on walks around Winchester and Horn Pond ( a lake close to our house). We play games, nap and, of course, eat lots of food.

We usually have a few international students who join us. This year J. from Switzerland joined us. He is a student at Berkeley School of Music. He was invited by Riley, a student at Berkeley also, who has been part of Chi Alpha for a couple of years. Gerone is a student at BU School of Theology and the other students were undergrads from BU and regulars at Chi Alpha.

We only have two weeks of classes left in this semester. Next Tuesday is our last meeting of the 2009 school year. This Friday we will celebrate Christmas with a party on campus. We hope many students will come and party with us.

Dealing With Doubt

2009-11-19T11:31:00.000-05:00

Today I met with Amanda and she shared with me about a class she is taking. (Amanda is one of our student leaders.) It is a religion course on the New Testament. The professor is not a believer and she has had her faith challenged deeply through this class. I told her how excited I was that she was dealing with doubt. She smiled and agreed with me. She is having to focus on who God is and what her commitment to him is. She is also having to use her intellect to reason and work out her faith. That's always a good thing.

This is one reason I love the secular college. A Christian like Amanda, if she is deeply involved in a Christian group on campus, will have her faith challenged every day. She will have a place to go to talk through and pray through the issues with believing Christians, and she will graduate a stronger Christian than she started out. She will be able to live in the world with a relevant Christian faith - a faith that will not wilt in the face of opposition. She will understand the true issues of the culture around her and be able to bring answers and hope to others.

I am excited to see how Amanda's faith is expanded. Through this experience God will reveal himself to her in new ways.

Four Amazing Women

2009-11-19T11:17:00.000-05:00

My main calling on campus is to disciple the women leaders of our Chi Alpha group. I am working directly with four women this year and I meet with them once a week individually. This semester the ladies have been dealing with some very challenging personal issues and we have been studying Romans together.

Every week I sit across the the table from these very talented women and I feel so privileged to know them and be a small part of their lives. I am also amazed at how God speaks through me and ministers through me to these ladies. I don't feel I have very much to offer (I don't outside of Jesus), and yet God gives me His Spirit to help these ladies.

I found that my age is a great asset also. All these ladies are young enough to be my daughter. They actually love that. I am like their 'mom away from home', but they also know that I am their friend and mentor in Christ. And I have had enough experience with life and relationships to give them real guidance that they can actually use. I never sugar coat issues. They all know that I will tell them the truth, whether it is pretty or not. Consequently they come to me often. And I know that I can't make anyone do what they don't want to do - only the Spirit can change and transform.

I remind myself often that it is the people I invest in, who will last forever. These ladies are my treasure.

Discovering Jesus

2009-11-12T13:42:00.000-05:00

Whew! All my kids are in school today. They have all recovered.

I wanted to share with you about a student that Gene has been sharing with for the past two months. His name is L. and he is from China and a graduate student at Northeastern. Gene met him through another campus pastor in the area and L. asked Gene if he could meet once a week with him. He has never missed an appointment with Gene. He has read all of John and a number of other books of the bible and Gene has been consistently sharing the Gospel with him.

Gene sensed that there was a personal issue in L.'s life that was keeping him from going further in his search for God. It took many weeks but L. finally confessed that he was gay. It is a difficult issue, but Gene's goal is to help L. discover Jesus and what He means to L. first, then L. will be able to hear how God cares for him in his heart issues.

Please pray for L. that he would discover the person of Jesus, encounter him supernaturally and come to know that Jesus loves him. Thank you for caring for L. through your prayers.

Holding Down the Fort

2009-11-09T12:06:00.000-05:00

Sorry I have not posted in a while. I have had a house full of sick kids with the flu, and Gene is in the Pacific Northwest doing outreach events on a number of campuses there which leaves me home alone to hold down the fort.

Tomorrow night I get the opportunity to teach at our Chi Alpha meeting. I am continuing our series on the book of John. My passage is the woman at the well which I am very excited to be teaching on. We post our Tuesday night teachings on our website, so if you would like to hear our series please give a listen at www.bostonuchialpha.com.

Our next event is Thanksgiving. We are expecting 15+ students in our home for the holiday. It will be great day. I will get back to you all later in this week.

A Busy Week

2009-10-27T12:17:00.000-04:00

This last Saturday we had our fall retreat for the students. It was a one day retreat and we had it in our home town, Winchester, at a local church here. We didn't have as many students participate as we expected, but the day was very good. Our worship times were especially filled with the presence of God.

Last Tuesday we invited Patrick T. Smith from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary to speak at our large group meeting. This was the first time we have had a guest speaker to do an outreach event at our meeting. Again, we didn't have as many students as we expected, but J. was there. He is a preChristian that we have had a relationship with for a year now and it was a great time for him to hear the Gospel again.

Patrick Smith did a great job and our students loved him. His topic was "Human Dignity and the Gospel:With Some Implications for Social Justice and Bio Ethics". We will be inviting him back to do more with us.

So last week was very busy for me - planning and preparing for the retreat and our guest speaker. We also attended a missions conference on Wednesday for a local supporting church. We have two more events left this semester - Thanksgiving at our house (we are expecting ten or more students) - and our outreach Christmas party on campus. It's nice to have a break from events so that I can focus on the students I am discipling. I'll introduce them to you next time.

'First Things'

2009-10-19T09:14:00.000-04:00

A couple of you have asked me if I got sleep on Saturday (We didn't get home until 3:30 am from cleaning the arena) and the answer is yes and no.

My life, as a campus pastor, includes my family. I have three kids: Laura - 16, Patrick - 15 and Aaron - 6. So, no I didn't get a lot of sleep. Laura had her PSAT on Sat morning, so I got up at 7 am (I had 3 hours sleep) to drive her to her test (She thinks she did well). Aaron woke up at the same time and proceeded to wake me up every half hour as I napped after taking Laura to her test. Patrick wanted to play Seafarers of Cattan (Great game by the way!) so we spent the afternoon building trade routes and getting beat by Laura (she wins every game she plays :( ). I made a big Mexican feast for dinner and an apple tart for dessert. We watched a couple of our favorite TV shows we had missed that week and I went to bed at 9 pm. I got sleep on Saturday night.

As I minister to students I am constantly thinking of my kids. Especially when there are issues going on in their lives that need my attention - and I am fighting to find time to spend with both the students and my children. Balancing priorities, setting and moving boundaries, maintenance of relationships and putting energy into growing those relationships, daily rewriting of my schedule, are all part of my ministry at BU. Both the students and my kids are important to me - 'first things' as Steven Covey says (7 Habits of Highly Effective People - a book I highly recommend).

'First Things' or Eternal Things. Every time I spend time with the students in the name of Jesus I am building something eternal, that will last forever. Every time I spend time with my children in the name of Jesus I am also building something eternal, that will last forever. Both are true worship, in spirit and truth, to God. There are only two things that are eternal in this world - God and people. I choose to spend my time with those things that will be here when the new earth and new heaven are revealed at the end of time.

I'll have plenty of time to sleep then.

Late Night Cleaning

2009-10-16T21:18:00.000-04:00

We are about to leave for the Agganis Arena on campus. It is 9:30 pm and we won't be back until probably 1 or 2 am. We will be cleaning the arena after a concert to earn money for our outreach events next semester. We've done this twice last year and we are known for doing a quick and excellent job. I'm sure we will continue our reputation.

The exciting thing is we have a whole group of preChristians who are going to help us this evening. For some reason this is the only event that we do that they come to - to clean an arena. It's strange, but a wonderful way to be witnesses for Jesus. We hope they come to something else in the future, but until then we include them and love them.

Don't expect me to be up tomorrow writing another post :) I'll be sleeping.

Plaza Encounter

2009-10-15T17:44:00.000-04:00

This last Tuesday we were unable to have our weekly gathering where we usually have it, because our room was not available. We were able to get a room in the basement of Marsh Chapel at the last minute. As I was walking across Marsh Plaza to put signs up on the doors to direct people where to go, an Asian student stopped to ask me directions to the Warren Towers cafeteria. He could not speak English very well but I was able to direct him to where he needed to go.

He stopped me, after I gave him directions, and took notice of the flyers I had in my hand which said "Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship" across the top. He told me he was going to Warren Towers for a bible study. He also wondered what the difference was between our group and the bible study he was going to. He said "I have some questions about the bible."

DW, (his name) wanted to know when we our meeting was and where it was. At 7pm, DW showed up at our meeting instead of going to the other bible study. Thomas and Edward gathered round him and sat with him during the meeting and invited him to come to their core the next night.

DW is a visiting scholar from China, studying systems engineering. He is very curious about Christianity and plans on coming to our meeting next week. If we hadn't moved our meeting place I would not have met him.

I haven't heard back from Naomi. Pray that she emails me and that we can get together. Maybe I will see her on campus soon. Thanks for your prayers.

Indonesia, Australia, Hungary

2009-10-08T14:34:00.000-04:00

This morning Thomas, our campus ministry intern, and I went out to share on campus. We walked up to a student to engage her in a conversation. The first student said no, she was not interested, but the second student invited us to sit down.

Her name is N. and she is an international student. She is Indonesian, but lived in Australia, then Indonesia again and now is from Hungary. Her father works for a large bank and has lived all over the world for his work. N. speaks perfect English, is studying Spanish and Hebrew (she wants to learn five languages before she graduates) and is a freshmen.

She is part of a very large tribe in Indonesia. Her tribe is Lutheran, and she went through Lutheran confirmation this last summer. Her grandfather is Pentecostal and goes to an Assembly of God church in Indonesia. When N. told me that I knew that this was a divine appointment. She also told me that she is on Chi Alpha's email list! God put this meeting together!

N. is searching to know God and what he might mean to her life. She was confirmed this summer because she wants to learn more about God. She has also been attending a Catholic church because she wants to learn to pray and having written prayers helps her to know what to say to God.

I invited her to have coffee with me sometime next week and she said she was open to do that. She even let me pray for her before we left. Pray for N. that she would want to meet with me again and that I can begin a good friendship with her.

At The Office

2009-10-08T14:23:00.000-04:00

Today I am in the GSU (George Sherman Union). The GSU is the student center on campus. There is a food court here, meeting rooms, offices, a ball room and game room. I use the GSU as my office on campus. I will find a table in the back of the food court, plug my computer in and sit and meet with students and work all day.

I love working here in the GSU because there are students all around me talking, studying, eating, sleeping :), and hanging out. The students are why I am here, and being with them reminds me of that. It's easy to forget what God has called me to do when I work at home and all I see are the dirty dishes and all I hear are my kids asking for help (they are part of my ministry, too). Here in the GSU I over hear the student's conversations, watch them interact and observe the intensity of their studies. I get to enter their world.

I spend a lot of my time praying for the students I see here, even though I do not know them or what they are going through. I know that God is doing everything in his power to reveal himself to these students. I pray that they would see his presence around them. I also pray that I would reveal his presence to them as I enter their world.

18 Apple Pies!

2009-10-06T08:21:00.000-04:00

Wow! You should have seen our kitchen! We had ten Chi Alpha students at our home on Saturday baking apple pies. At least 4 people were in our kitchen all evening long baking pies. Some students baked their very first apple pie ever - thanks to our wonderful pie instructor - Kelly. We played games, baked pies, ate chicken soup and, of course, ate apple pie!

We had 2 new students come on Saturday - B. and R.. They are from France, but their parents immigrated to France from Taiwan. They spoke fluent french with an Asian accent! R. is a pre-med at Harvard and B. is studying at BU. Both of them are Christians and were involved in a Chi Alpha group in Paris at their university there! They had a wonderful time and will probably be part of our group all year long.

All the students loved this event. They were able to get off campus for a break from studies and do something totally different then the routine classes and studying. We will probably schedule a Christmas cookie bake our place in December, too. And we always host Thanksgiving at our place for students who can't go home. Our next event will be on Ocotber 15th - Oasis. More about that later. See you then!

Free Event, Free Food, Live Music!

2009-09-27T13:10:00.000-04:00

That's what we said as we were passing out flyers on campus for our Back Court Cafe. One student stopped me and said, "Do I have to pay admission to get the free food?" Students don't believe that anything is really free, but when Chi Alpha does something on campus, we do it for free. And our Back Court Cafe was free.

We took the Back Court in the GSU food court and covered the tables with white butcher paper, crayons, markers and play-doh. We had a sculpture contest and two great musicians who played guitar and vocals all night - with lyrics that were very obviously Christian. Gene & Thomas put together a couple of power point presentations with art and thoughtful quotes that played on two screens through out the night.

Last year we had 100 people come and about a third of them were Christians from other groups on campus. This year we had 100 again, but the majority of them were preChristians (the other Christian groups on campus had their fall retreat this weekend). Everyone who walked in the door stayed, ate food and contributed in some way to the art work around the room and on the tables.

One of the musicians, Rich, sat down at a table and shared the Gospel for about an hour with a Hindu and a Muslim. Albert, our other musician played while he was sharing. Rich told me that was one thing he had really wanted to do that night.

We had a many positive responses to our event. Some said the atmosphere was laid back and peaceful; others said the music was really good, and many thanked us for the event and signed up to hear about our other events coming up.

We were all very excited about how well the cafe went. We plan on doing one again next semester.

This Saturday we will be hosting an Apple Day at our home. We are inviting students to come and bake all their favorite apple deserts and have dinner with us. I'll see you then!

The Storm

2009-09-16T08:50:00.000-04:00

We have had a busy week. We had our first meeting last week, our Plaza Picnic last night, followed by our second meeting of the year, we've rescheduled a major event and we are redoing our fall retreat, I've met with all my leaders and a few freshman women, plus all the family activities in the last week. And the week is not over. Gene and I are very tired, but very excited.

Our first meeting went very well, with new students attending. Last night we only had 8 students with one new student attending. But that's the nature of BU. We know that many students didn't come last night because of studies - the freshmen are already feeling the extreme pressure of BU's schedule and they are barely keeping up. It will be another 2-4 weeks before we start seeing our new freshmen students coming consistently.

But our cores started up last week - and both the women's cores were full of new freshmen and the men's core had a strong beginning as well, which for the men is significant.

Our Plaza Picnic was great! We usually have it in the middle of Marsh Plaza right off the sidewalk. Last year we fed 600. We had to do this year's picnic on the BU Beach, which is back behind Marsh Plaza and not in plain sight. We were wondering whether anyone would come to eat, but we fed 300 students! And our students engaged preChristians in conversations. One of my preChristian friends from last year showed up. His name will be J. and we had a great conversation. Again we had many students thank us for our free dinner and many were so surprised that it was really free. My friend J. said "It's not often you see anything free without strings attached at BU. This is really nice." And that is the main reason we do it - to serve the campus.

We have decided not to do the next picnic on the same night as our main meeting. The BU Beach is a great place to sit on the grass and hang out. We could have conversations long after we were done with the students who came. We had to pack up quickly and head in to our meeting right at 6:30.

Wow, this is a long entry! I will sign off for now and write later on. See you then!

Sunset - Moonrise

2009-09-06T12:11:00.000-04:00

Last night we had our Sunset Harbor Cruise and we had an extra pleasure. We watched the sunset behind Boston and the full moon rise over the Atlantic. It was a perfect evening - no wind and clear blue sky. It was beautiful and our students had a great time.

We had 17 students come with us - half of them were freshmen. This was significant. We have 5 of our students studying abroad this quarter - three of them are some of our strongest leaders. And even with them gone we had more students come to the cruise this year than we had the last two years when they were here!

We had dinner at Quincy Market afterwards and we sat at the table talking until about 10 PM. We could have stayed longer. I made some strong connections with all the new women. I will be meeting with some of them this week.

Gene and I feel very encouraged. Our returning students are doing a great job following up with all the new students and we have the possibility of having the largest group of students, on one campus, at our first meeting in all of Chi Alpha's history in the city.

Our first large group meeting of the year is Tuesday. I am really looking forward to it. See you then!

Table in the GSU

2009-09-03T15:53:00.000-04:00

   Today Thomas, Amanda, Elizabeth and I sat at our information table in the GSU (The George Sherman Union). It was a good day. We had ten people come by the table - 6 freshmen, 3 grad students and Andrew, a preChristian I met last year. He wants to get together with someone this year to talk about Christianity.
   The GSU is a great place to have a table. I started reserving a table last year during the Spring semester and I met so many new students and especially preChristians. We are planning to have a table once a week this semester too. About 3600 students pass by the table from 11-2. Half of them look at our table - which is great for visibility. We are trying to get 'brand recognition' for our logo on campus and this helps.
   This Saturday is our Sunset Harbor Cruise. We take a two hour cruise of Boston Harbor and watch the sun set behind the city. This is usually a highlight of the year. It looks like we are going to have a good turn out this year too.

Religious Life Fair

2009-09-02T20:19:00.000-04:00

Okay, tonight I'm tired.

It was a beautiful day in Boston and a great day to be outside at our info table for the Religious Life Fair. All the religious groups on campus have a chance to put up a table on the first day of classes to inform students of their club. There were about 20 groups out today including The Muslim club, two Jewish clubs, Campus Crusade for Christ, Intervarsity, The Episcopalians (who have a new chaplain, Joshua - great guy) and the Catholic Center. We all got sunburned!

Emily and Leo came up to our table this afternoon to say goodbye to Thomas and I. They are international students from Taiwan who had been involved with our group last year. Both of them were here with a visiting scholars program with the Law school. They finished their studies, took the bar test (they won't know how they did until November) and they are flying out tonight to go home. Thomas and I had been the two in Chi Alpha who really made them feel at home. We were sad to see them go, but Leo said, "I am going to go to church when I get home. Its time I do that." I told him I would hold him to that.

Thomas and I were glad to have been a small part of their lives. I will post a picture of them when I get it. Pray that they both get jobs when they get back to Taiwan and find good churches to be part of.

Tomorrow Thomas and I and a couple of other students will be sitting at an info table in the GSU link. I'll post a message from there. See you then!

Splash

2009-09-02T11:18:00.000-04:00

Yesterday we spent 4 hours on Nickerson Field trying to meet 4000 freshmen. All the student clubs on campus put up a table and after matriculation the freshmen are herded on to the field to meet us. This year the Student Activities Organization (SAO) set up the tables very close to each other. The crowds were very difficult, consequently we only got about 25 names (last year we got 80). SAO realized their mistake and won't do that again.

But our Chi Alpha students were wonderful. They stood out in front of the table and greeted every student that passed, and we handed out 500 pens, 500 flyers and over 500 info cards. We have already begun to follow up on those students. Part of our goal is to be visible on campus. We want every freshmen to know that we exist on campus and Splash is one event that helps us do that.

Today is the Religious Life Fair on Marsh Plaza. I will report out on that tonight. See ya then!

Calm Before the Storm

2009-08-26T08:26:00.000-04:00

Gene and I were noticing last night how surprisingly calm and unpanicked we are about the beginning of school. In just four days we will have our first welcome back meeting with our returning students and on Monday 4000 freshmen will bombard us at Splash. (Our kids start school on Tuesday also.) We're ready. We'll see how we do when everything gets going.

Welcome to My Blog!

2009-08-23T12:19:00.000-04:00

Hello friends and welcome to my new blog. Every week I will be sharing news from Boston University which will include the activities of Chi Alpha Christian fellowship at BU and my personal thoughts about those activities, the students, the events and daily life of this great university. Many of you are partners with me in my ministry to BU and this will be an excellent place for you to keep up with my ministry. I hope you will find encouragement here, and lots of 'stuff' to pray about.

Chi Alpha @ BU

Challenge & Confession

Our Task

Women's Core This Week

Halloween Success

Fall retreat and a Corn Maze

Fall Retreat This Weekend

Family Ties That Choke

First Day Back At The Office

First Week Adventures

Great Day @ Splash!

Six Days & Counting

From A to B

True Worship Part 2

Dearly Loved Children

A Gift

A Vision Worth Sharing

Ready to Get to Work

Summer Plans

Book of the Summer

The Most Prepared

Wrapping the Year Up

Year End Celebration

Easter Dinner

Suddenly Spring

April Prayers

Prayer Every Week

Cafe Night and Retreat

New Van!!

God's Great Provision

A New Year

Updated Blog

Special Music Presentation

A Few Highlights

Experiencing God This Weekend

A Chance Meeting

Meet the Women!

Sorry it's been awhile

First Back Court Cafe off 2010

I Am Jazzed!

A Fantastic Week

Free Dessert

WE HAD 31 STUDENTS!

Great Turn Out for Splash

Fourth to Fifth

Gearing Up

A New Year

Last One Until August

Gene Ordained

Ending the Year

Two Weeks to Go

The Last Two Events

On Campus Today

Success and Difficulties

What A Day!

Back Court Cafe

Spring Break

Worshipful retreat

Newsletter

A Distracting Week

Winter Retreat

A Cold and A Stone

Tuesday Night Gatherings

Singing the Beatles

-2 Degrees - A Perfect Day

4th Annual Game Night - 8PM

First Week of Spring Semester

First Day on Campus

Welcome Back!

It's Been a While

Thanksgiving Feast

Dealing With Doubt

Four Amazing Women

Discovering Jesus

Holding Down the Fort

A Busy Week

'First Things'

Late Night Cleaning

Plaza Encounter

Indonesia, Australia, Hungary