A Whirlwind of a Semester

It seems it was only days ago that the students were returning from their winter break. But it is April and the semester is almost over! Unbelievable! Its amazing how time flies when you're busy...

They say that the Fall semester is usually the busiest for ministry...but I beg to differ. This semester has been non-stop! Each week brings new tasks and events, new students to disciple, and more preparing for the future!

The events that have taken place and the memories that have been made make this semester unforgettable and one of the best!

January brought our student ministry team retreat. We spent 2 days at Glen Eyrie, team building and planning for the semester that has now flashed before our eyes.

Our Student Ministry Team

February brought lots and lots of events...starting out with an amazing super bowl party!!! We had over 50 students attend this years party!! It was a lot of fun even though we were squished into the living room of some of our student's house.

You may be surprised to hear that this party brought out Derrik's creative side...his creative cake decorating side. Derrik spent hours the night before creating beautiful cakes...and they turned out absolutely amazing!!

The next event in February was our annual Valentines Dinner. Every year the men in our Navigator ministry treat us women to a night of dinner and dancing at Glen Eyrie. They prepare the meal themselves. It is always such a treat for us women to get dressed up and be treated to such an awesome night!

All of Us Navs Women

The next couple days brought about a road trip with a bunch of our dear friends! We had a regional staff meeting in Albuquerque, NM for a couple days... and what better way to travel down south than with friends. EDGE Corps staff from around the region piled into two lil' rental cars the make the drive to the NM together. It was such a highlight. We stayed in NM for a couple of nights and met with all of the staff from around the region. It is always a treat to come together!

RMR Edgers!

The end of the month brought about a very special event: The Rocky Mountain Region Laborer's Conference. Only 2 days long, this conference has an incredibly lasting impact. The focus of this conference is to encourage and inspire students to labor for a lifetime. We invite some of our core leaders in the ministry to be apart of this weekend. They are poured into through influential workshops and messages. Derrik led a workshop on how to read the Bible with friends who don't know Christ in a group or a one to one setting. It was amazing to see the students excited to answer their friends questions.

Me and some students in FoCo

March flew by... it was mostly filled with days of planning the intricate details of Spring Break. In many ways it has been the culminating event of my frist year of EDGE. I look back now and I can scarsely remember the days in March.

I am happy to announce that our spring break trip aka Super*Cali*Fellowship went amazingly. I will soon post more blogs to describe our fantastic trip.

Oh Sweet California!

Derrik and I at Long Beach

EDGE Corps is a dynamic job. Almost every day there is a new, exciting adventure. But what happens when the students leave for Christmas break? We are still required to put in a full work week. So what do we do with the students away? Well this time is actually extremely busy. Students are our top priority so some things tend to get pushed to the side…like administrative details. This is a great chance to catch up on such things.

This “break” Derrik and I and our fellow Edger Lauren, had another task at hand…
One of my responsibilities this year is planning our spring break trip for our students. Every year we try to have our students invest their spring break in our Navigator sponsored trips. This year we have decided to head to California!

What an exciting adventure! Lauren and I had never been to CA and Derrik went when he was ten…so our boss decided that it might be best for us to scout out SoCal before we embark on the journey with 18 college students, some of whom have been there before. So January 7th we headed to CA!

We were there 4 days…well maybe 3 if you include our fly time. It was a whirlwind of a trip. Each morning we woke up, hopped in our little rented Dodge Caliber, and drove around Southern California scoping out possible places to visit and serve. Our days were crowded. I didn’t know you could visit so many places in just 3 short days!

The trip was a success. We learned some highly valuable information and helpful tips. Now we know that it is imperative to have a GPS if you don’t want to…well put your hair out driving around LA. Someone graciously lent us one and now we know that we will want those for sure when we are there again in March. We also learned about parking…which can also be a nightmare. And traffic…well that a whole other issue!

Yogurtland!!

My favorite discovery in California: Yogurtland! I love it so much. Basically you get to choose between 14 different flavors of frozen yogurt (it is self serve, so you can even get more than one!) and then you move to the toppings station where you can choose between 20 different toppings. And then all you pay is $0.30 an ounce! We were able to go there twice when we were there!

I feel so blessed to be in a job that I love. It is so rewarding and I can’t imagine doing anything better! Not to mention, the little “perks” (like scoping out California) are remarkable as well! Thank you for all of you reading this that have helped make it a reality!

Pro Life Discovery...

An interesting, maybe commonly overlooked issue has come to my attention in the last couple weeks….but the findings have changed my life.

I write this not to condemn anyone or to sound like a fanatic. I know God has put it on my heart to share what I have learned. Too many women and families are ignorant about this matter…just like I was.

So what is this pressing matter that has become such a pressing concern of mine?

The Pill….
Yes the ever common birth control pill that so many women use as a contraceptive.

I started the pill when Derrik and I got married…knowing we were not ready to have a family quite yet. I knew enough about the pill and the way it worked from some of my schooling and some things I read. In the last couple months I had this inkling that I needed to research it more. I know it was the Holy Spirit pressing me to discover the truth about the pill.

What I found changed my life…

As I researched the mechanism of how the pill works, I discovered a horrible and alarming truth.
The pill works in three ways:

1) Preventing ovulation (the release of an egg)

2) Changing the womb and cervical mucus, making it more difficult for an egg to meet sperm (fertilization)

3) Along with preventing fertilization the change in the cervical mucus and womb makes it difficult for the fertilized egg to attach to the wall of the womb…

What?! As I read these words on my computer…my heart sunk. Taking the pill could prevent my baby from being able to implant in my womb to be nourished and grow. Why didn’t I know this earlier?

I continued my research to discover if it was my pill brand in particular or if this was the common mechanism of all oral birth control. And sure enough…all oral contraceptives use the same mechanisms. Also with “low-dose” pills (which almost all pills are) there is a higher rate for ovulation…which means there is only two mechanisms. However, although the first two mechanisms are contraceptive…the third is abortive. Every time it comes down to the third mechanism… a baby is aborted.

I am very angry, sad, disheartened, guilty, and embarrassed. Why wasn’t I more informed? Why did I allow myself to be so ignorant? I value life so highly. I am pro life in every sense…yet I did not know the effects of this so called “contraceptive” that so many of us pro life women are on.

If you are reading this and you are uninformed like I was, I hope you will read this and see what I saw. We cannot allow ourselves to be deceived any longer. Satan uses these lies to steal precious lives. I will not fall victim to it any longer. I will do what I can to tell other the reality of the pill...

If you are reading this and you are informed about all of it, Derrik and I are sorry if we have disappointed you. We are sorry for not being well informed.

Much of the information I received on this matter was from a booklet by Randy Alcorn called “Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions?” The link below has an entire PDF file of the booklet or a condensed version of it. I hope it will be helpful.

http://epm.org/books/does_the_birth_control_pill_cause_abortionsDetail.php

I thank God for his grace and mercy for walking me through this. Praise to our Father for his love and forgiveness. Only he knows what has gone on with my body while on the pill…and for that I am grateful. He is walking me through healing… and part of the process is sharing the truth with others.

~1 John 1:9~

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Moving onto…November!

I anticipated November hoping that it would be little less crazy than October… it was… slightly.

On November 15th, our prayer team hosted a Prayer Night at my friend Megan’s House. It was beautiful!

We broke bread together (actually chili and cornbread) and then dove into prayer for 2 hours. We spent half an hour praising and thanking God for who He is and what He has done. We focused on our inner circle of Navigator ministry and continued to branch out asking God for big things in our world. We prayed for students, professors, and our city. Then we moved onto our nation and on into the world, lifting up each continent.

It was beyond encouraging hearing these students communicating with the same God. It truly amazes me that God is so intimate with each of us individually, yet he meets us in a group. He is so awesome!

The weekend before Thanksgiving, our staff team traveled up to Breckenridge for a weekend retreat. Our campus directors, Bill and Nancy, had been looking for a nice cabin for us to be able to stay in. Without much luck, Bill decided email some cabins that were…well let’s just say a bit out of our price range. He offered them $140 a night hoping someone would be willing to let us stay there. Someone did answer. We were blessed to be able to stay in a beautiful, six bedroom, 5 bath mountain home that usually runs $1400 a weekend. What a blessing! We enjoyed a relaxing weekend filled with sweet time together and with Jesus. We also managed to make to the slopes on Saturday for some skiing.

After this much needed relaxing weekend, Derrik and I were off to Iowa for Thanksgiving.

Adair and Anita, Iowa are small…or well tiny farming towns on the western side of Iowa. Anita is where my dad grew up and where my Grandma still resides. Adair is where many of our other relatives live and its sits right next to Anita. Visiting there is always fun and interesting. This time upon entering Adair in the middle of the night, we saw dozens of blinking red lights…all in unison, flashing in the sky. Strange! It looked like something out of a Sci-Fi movie. The next morning we come to find out that throughout these small towns, humongous wind towers are being set up everywhere. Many farmers have had the option of leasing their land to put these big windmills up. It is very strange to see such modern windmills meet such rural territory. Very interesting!

Windmills and cattle

We enjoyed a big Thanksgiving with about 30 of us… our family is getting so big! We truly enjoyed the time with my Grandma and being with our family. After about 2 days in Iowa, we made the 11 hour trek back to Colorado.

Site of Jesse James' First Train Robbery
(in Adair, IA...who knew?)

And this so concludes the month of November and several months since. I hope that you have enjoyed reading through these excerpts from our busy, blessed life. I will try to be much more diligent in keeping you all up to date on the happenings here!

October – part deux: Journey ‘08

The second big event for the month and probably the biggest event of the entire school year: JOURNEY ’08! Journey ’08 is our annual fall retreat. It is a gathering of over 500 students (this year we had 552) up in Estes Park, CO at the YMCA. It occurs every single year at the end of
October….this would be our 4th retreat but this one, as staff, was definitely different…

At the end of September, Derrik and I were asked to each lead a workshop. What an honor! We were so excited and terrified all of the same time. What authority did we have to speak to students? But we knew the Lord had put it on our heart for a reason.

The topic we were asked to speak on:

Purity and Relationships

This topic couldn’t have been more perfect for Derrik and I. It is something we are so passionate about; a passion that steams from the Spirit. We knew God wanted to use us.

All month we thought and prayed about it. It seemed like a colossal responsibility. Our desire was to communicate truth to these men and women and steer them to the truth of what God has to say about the topic. I would pray to the Lord for clarity and wisdom asking him what he would like to say through me and what Scriptures to use to communicate truth, redemption, and love to the many women I would be sharing with.

God is gracious.

As I sat in the meeting room one half hour before the women arrived, I trembled in trepidation. What would I say to them? Would they be interested? Would it come out all at once in one 100 words a minute moment? I bowed my head and poured out all of my anxiety to God. He comforted me with His words reminding me that it was Him who does the work…I am merely the instrument. He showed me 2 Corinthians 3:4-5

~2 Corinthians 3:4-5~
Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God.

God gave me my competence. He enabled me, a simple servant, to inspire many women. Between two 90 minutes sessions, I was blessed to share what God had put on my heart with about 85 college women. Derrik was also able to speak to many men what God had placed on his heart about this touchy topic.

What a beautiful experience! We both felt so honored and blessed to have been a part of this. God was doing much bigger things than our minds were even aware of. Our submission and obedience to Him made them very successful workshops.

Now this was only a small part of enormity of such a glorious weekend. Nothing compares to what happened on the Sunday morning, the final day of the retreat.

But let me back up a little…

Christina: a girl who has been coming to Navs for the past year or so. With a heart of gold, Christina is easy to talk to and befriend. Christina has always had many questions she sought answers to; so there has always been great discussion with Christina. But something was holding her back…she hadn’t decided to trust Jesus with heart and her life. She had been on so many peoples’ hearts for the last year. Many were constantly praying for her, desiring her to accept Jesus. But doubt and unanswered questions held her back.

It was a last minute decision for her to come to Journey ’08. She decided to go Thursday, the day before we left. On Saturday night she approached me and asked if we could talk about what I shared in my workshop since she didn’t want to attend it. I said sure and we started chatting right away. Once again she had great questions but many of them came from a skewed perspective based on the culture we live in. Lauren, my teammate, walked up and entered the discussion. She knows Christina better than I and knows how she thinks. Together we discussed purity, relationships and overall holiness. I prayed as we spoke, knowing she was close to the kingdom but something was holding her back.

The next morning, Christina and Lauren spent time in the Word together. Lauren confronted her on her doubt. Christina came to terms with it. She realized what was holding her back. During our Sunday morning session, our speaker, Johnny Square, gave others the opportunity to come to Jesus…he asked people to come down and confess at the altar…Silence…no one…at the very end…Christina…silently…down the stairs…to confess to Jesus…I followed her…

At this point, after minutes had passed, Johnny had moved on to a recommitment call. Many stood, desiring to rededicate their lives to Jesus. After Johnny prayed and the worship band resumed, we pulled him aside. He prayed with Christina. She gave her life to Jesus. It was November 3rd, 2008.

WOOOOOO HOOOOO!!!! HALLELUJAH!!! PRAISE THE LORD!!!!!

That was the best moment of the weekend for me….what am I talking about...that was the best moment of EDGE Corps so far!

Christina is now my sister in Christ. I know I will spend eternity with her. She will be there. There is no greater purpose in this short life than helping and watching someone make their way to Jesus…

So needless to say the end of October and beginning of November were remarkable and absolutely astounding!

Christina and I the morning she accepted Jesus

October!

The moment we returned from our lil’ vacation we knew that we had one crazy month ahead of us.

As we were away on vacation our team had decided on a date for our fall women’s day…just two weeks away on October 18th.

Now I love events and I love planning them (I mean I would probably be happy as a clam planning my wedding all over again) but this one presented a new feat to overcome: my first event…that I was responsible for…all of it. Thankfully I had a great team to help me organize our second annual Navigator Women’s Spa Day.

Hosted at Kristin’s (one of our students) house, we transformed it into a tranquil, relaxing setting. Each room contained a different station including: pedicures, manicure, facials, make-overs, hair, refreshments, and a peaceful quiet room where girls could spend time alone with Jesus. The house was filled with chatter, laughter, and deep sighs of girls relaxing and allowing Jesus to remove the burden they started carrying since the semester started. About mid-October is when midterms begin and the stress culminates…what a perfect time to have a spa day!

Lindsey, Amy, Hailey, and I working on our Pedicures

After a couple hours of pampering, the girls were treated to a lasagna dinner just down the street at another student’s house. After a delicious meal, providing so graciously by one of our student’s parents, we were treated to a word from my fellow EDGE staff member and friend, Lauren. She spoke truth to these women about allowing God to take our burdens and letting go of anxiety taking key Scriptures from God’s Word like Lamentations 3:22-24.

~Lamentations 3:22-24~
Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “the Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.What fun that was.

With the help of many I would say the day was a success!

September

Stunning Lake Powell

So let’s start with the month of September…

September seemed to be a bit of a rough patch for us

The second week in September we had to step off campus because our funding wasn’t completely in place… that was very difficult… we weren’t sure how long we would be off since we needed to be at 90% of our total funding and we were only around 70% funded….

Through some adjustments to our budget and some miracles such as the previous blog about the money on our porch we were only off campus for a week! It was a huge blessing and God continued to show us that He is faithful and our problems are no problem for Him.

At the end of September, Derrik and I were blessed with a very relaxing vacation…

My Aunt Crystal and Uncle Bob have a timeshare on a houseboat at Lake Powell. They invited Derrik and I to go and what a great vacation that was!! We had a blast sunnin’, swimmin’, and fishin’. Derrik caught upwards of 30 fish (big ol’ striped bass). I spent many hours playing Scramble with my aunt and mastering the art of strategy in word creating and position.

One of many Striped Bass that Derrik caught

(that sucker never had a chance!)

Our Last Night on the Boat

We truly had a wonderful time and felt extremely renewed as we returned to campus for the super busy month of October…. (see next blog)