A Year Gone - On to the Second!!!

Whew!!! What a year! It has quite possibly been the best 10 months of my life, and soooooo much has happened! Since the last post, we've made it to the end of another semester, including another Small Group study, countless conversations, Summer Conference in Panama City Beach (!!!!), the loss of Chad (the campus minister) and Ben (my co-intern), and the promise of a new co-intern, Davis, who is moving to Jackson with his wife, Ashleigh. No new campus minister in sight yet. Yeah...it's been a little crazy.

The Small Group study was on the book Respectable Sins, by Jerry Bridges. Ben and I co-led it, and I don't think I've ever learned so much from a book study! It helped us unearth the sins we don't take seriously and taught us how to fight against them. Turns out the answer is not to beat yourself up until you gain control over each one! The means of fighting that Bridges gives are things like apply the gospel, depend on the Holy Spirit, memorize Scripture, pursue practical steps, pray continually, and involve other people. We were able to talk through the way sin manifests itself in our lives and what it looks like to fight each one. I loved it because we practiced doing with students what we were trying to teach them. Obviously, I'm not much older than they are, but I'm already seeing the gift of knowing early on how to hunt for and fight against the most deeply rooted sins in my life. I pray that God would remind me to be humble and teachable as I grow older, because there's no fear in finding and having to confront more sin in your life when you have Jesus as your Savior!

This has nothing to do with the Small Group - It's our ultimate frisbee team from SuCo :)

During fall semester, I spent most of my time in groups, familiarizing myself with people and how they operate together, as well as learning how to do college ministry from Chad. This spring I spent more time one-on-one with girls, and my how I've seen them grow! The transition from freshman to sophomore is especially marvelous to me...how one year does so much is just crazy! I've heard girls talk about how God's love has become real to them and begin to deal with what it means to trust him with everything. It's amazing to me how often these girls bring up issues that I didn't really want to deal with in my own life - the grace of God, that's what that is! Anyone who goes into this internship thinking that he will do more good than is done to him is kidding himself. You just can't do full-time ministry without God doing some serious work on your soul. (Actually, in my experience, you can't be God's child at all without Him doing some serious work on you, whether you see it or not!) I can't wait to see what this next year holds for all of us. :)

Summer Conference was wonderful, as usual! It never ceases to astound me how much God packs into that week. The seminars on different topics and questions are always thought-provoking, and the Large Group meeting every night is a beautiful time of hundreds of people coming together to worship. Even besides that though, the way God orchestrates these experiences to coincide with conversations and situations we find ourselves in around that time is a constant reminder that it is He who puts us where He wants us to draw us ever closer to Himself. What comfort and what joy :)

Mandatory group beach photo at Summer Conference :)

We found out rather late this spring that Chad is accepting a call to be the assistant pastor at a church in another town. Ben is also leaving us to be the youth pastor at a church in Maryland, but we've known for a while that this would be his last semester. With such short notice (Chad didn't know himself until just before he told us) we will not be getting a new campus minister for this Fall, though we may have one as early as next January and, in the mean time, area pastors will speak for the Large Group meetings. Instead, we welcome Davis, who has just finished a two-year internship with RUF at the University of Alabama Huntsville! Davis will be our part-time intern while going to seminary in Jackson and will help out with the administrative side of things, as well as being available to meet with our guys. :) From the few conversations I've had with him and Ashleigh, I'd say we're going to get along swimmingly! Ashleigh, Caroline (another recent intern who is moving to Jackson), and I are already planning girls' nights, and I can't wait! :) :) :)
---Of course we'll miss Chad and Ben terribly. They were some of the best friends I had in Jackson, and we worked well together (though we had to work through personality differences). But this is still God's best for us, so I'm looking forward to this coming year with all it's changes and difficulties. He's been very clear about the providential nature of everything that's happened so far, and I pray that we won't forget His trustworthiness if things are less clearly for our good in the future.

Summer is the time an RUF intern focuses on support raising, so here's the plug!
We have about $33,000 to raise once again, and about $5,000 of that is covered at this point. Both one-time and monthly donations are supremely helpful, and all the ways to give are outlined in previous posts :)
The easiest one is to go to http://www.ruf.org/support-us/, click the Support RUF button, and select Mary Hope Bray under Field Staff where you fill in your information :) The site is secure and we never sell personal information to anyone!