Ministry Update – March 2019

Hey everyone! It’s the last Friday of the month, so here’s my ministry update for the month of March. This is going to be a shorter update as March has been relatively quiet after the busy ministry season of Recharge and as the students were also on break for a couple of weeks.

Academics:

Everything continues to run smoothly in academics. I am enjoying my role and it is going well. The students are currently studying the book of Matthew for the next couple weeks. Matthew contains a lot of great principles which can be applied to life. One of the assignments that the students have for this class is to write out twenty personal applications for their lives taken from the teachings and lessons in Matthew. Up ahead, the students will be studying the book of Judges.

Praise Team/SEM:

The campus praise team has started up again and we will be practicing and playing every week now until the end of the semester. We will also be playing for an event this weekend here on campus. It is our Students Exploring Missions (SEM) Conference. A number of missionaries will be on property to talk to the students all about the mission field and their experiences in missions. It will be a great time of learning and insight.

Break:

Finally, most of the students went home for a two week March Break. A couple of the students had the opportunity of going on a trip to Israel! This is the same trip that I was privileged to travel on a year ago. Thinking back to the wonderful memories of that trip, I am very excited to connect with the students and ask them about how they enjoyed their experience. I also had a week long break on which I journeyed home and had a good time visiting and catching up with family and friends.

Prayer:

If you would, please pray for the following:

1. Pray for the students as they have about two more months left to go in the school year. Pray that they would focus on the present and finish well.
2. Pray for all of the staff and students here that our lives would be a godly testimony to every person that comes into contact with us.
3. I would also appreciate prayer as I have been sleeping rather poorly lately and just that I would get the rest that I need.
4. Finally, I encourage every person who reads this to thank God for three specific things in your life today. God has richly blessed us in so many ways.

Well, that’s about it for this ministry update. I have been thinking about possibly writing some more blog posts again soon, but probably not as frequently as before. I just want to close by encouraging you with something that I found inspiring in my Bible reading today.

Bible Verse:

²⁵ Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. ²⁶ When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold your son!” ²⁷ Then He said to the disciple, “Behold your mother!” And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home. – John 19:25-27

Jesus, in the agony and pain of the cross, at the hardest time in His life, is still thinking about the needs of others. He loves His mother and wants her to receive care, so He gives John the privilege of taking care of her. Jesus didn’t stop caring for others because of His pain. In life, we will go through hard times, but if we keep our eyes off of ourselves and on God, we can still have an impact and bless others even through our own pain. He will give us the strength to accomplish this. Jesus loved and cared for others while hanging on a cross. By God’s grace, we can still love and bless others even in our own hardship.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!