stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls
This year I spend most of my time at Boston University. I have loved every minute of reshaping our culture and community on this campus. I am especially proud of our leadership for the work they have done, for their faithfulness, and for their ability to lean into the future. Here’s some of my favorite pics from the year:
Some amazing Sojourn students have been sacrificing their Saturday mornings to tutor kids through the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative. It was a joy to honor them last Friday!
We had a great weekend: our fall DIG (also known as Sojourn’s Service Weekend) was a success. We headed down to Cape Cod on Friday, played some crazy games, built a campfire, watched the sunrise on the beach, and had many great times. Saturday we came back to Boson and served alongside some of our partner ministries in Dorchester, introducing many of our students to our work in the neighborhoods of the city. Check out some of the pics from the weekend:
Amazingly we are already in October! Marina is almost 3 weeks old, the Giants are in the playoffs, and students are starting to get ready for the first round of midterms. A couple of ministry notes to start off a new month:
Well, we are still on cloud nine because of this. But, the world keeps on turning, and one of the great events of the last couple of days (non-parenting category) was Sojourn’s first leadership community of the new semester. Last spring we introduced the “Golden Hammer” as a way to celebrate one of our teams that “nailed it” during the past month.
SojournBU won the golden hammer for the first time, and I am so proud of them! They’ve done a solid job inviting new people into the community and we are starting to see some good stories come in. Like this:
We held a welcome/intro event during the first week of class…I had a few students leave our set up time to randomly pass out fliers to people nearby. This was a bit of risk, and you can always look and feel stupid doing these kinds things. But they were up for the challenge and a handful of people who received fliers ended up coming to the event. One of the girls who came ended up joining a small group, at which she shared about her desire to connect more deeply with Jesus. She just didn’t know how to do that at BU. So, it was quite fortuitous that she happened to be handed a flier. Now she’s a part of a conversation about Jesus and Acts and the early church at one of our small group gatherings! Very cool…BU hasn’t had a ton of these kinds of stories but because our students are taking risks and making invitations they are going to become a much more regular occurence.
Some pics from two great days: SojournBU students participating in NotForSale’s Abolitionist Walk on Saturday, and then the craziest Free Student Lunch of all time (We jammed close to 100 students in to the office space and it was cozy to say the least). Awesome!
Some pics from the very beginning of a new year:
As the summer comes to a close it feels like an appropriate time to say “thank you”:
Thank you to our parents, who have supported us in a million ways for years, but especially during this pregnancy.
Thank you to our payer team who consistently remind us that we are not in this on our own.
Thank you to our financial supporters who make it possible for us to do collegiate ministry in Boston.
Thank you to those we have asked to join the team this summer. I know being asked for money isn’t fun, but we are humbled by your generosity and partnership.
Thank you to our students who were involved in DIG this summer, you helped rejuvenate me in so many ways.
Thank you to the BU leadership team for taking time out of your summer to Skype and chat and plan and dream. I am so excited to see how God will use you guys this semester.
Thank you to Stacey for taking the risk and moving out here to Boston. Thanks for throwing an awesome baby shower!
Thank you to our REUNION community (especially Jessica and the other ladies who helped with the shower), we are grateful for your friendship and support.
Thank you to everyone who has been praying for our baby!
Thank you to family and friends who helped provide supplies for this baby…we are so blessed in this area words don’t quite capture the awesomeness.
This list could go on and on…we are grateful and we are blessed.
A major project this summer has been increasing our support base. Fund raising, to put it bluntly. This is not my favorite part of the job, but there are also some beautiful, beautiful stories that come out of the process that I wouldn’t trade for the steadiest of incomes. I wrote about that earlier this summer.
Here’s what I want to say today: since Day 1 in Boston Amy and I have always been taken care of. Always. Sometimes in quite miraculous ways. Other times, simply through the faithfulness of our support team.
I read this article a few weeks ago. We have basically been fundraising during the worst time to do so in my lifetime. And yet, we have always been taken care of.
I also read this and resonated with it deeply. “It always seems to work out” is not a way to build a budget or to plan for the future. But, the truth is, it has always worked out. I think it has to do with faithfulness and with provision. They go together.
We have made some progress and we have some work still to do. That’s how fundraising works. Faithfulness and provision. And thengratitude…because it’s all a gift!
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