Lia and I are enjoying marriage a lot, and settling down in our home. I have a home office (in the corner of the dining room, which is in a corner of the living room), so my commute is short on days I work at the office. ☺
I’ve been having some great ministry this fall. Our ministry here has two main facets. We match international students with American Christians to facilitate friendship evangelism, and give the international students relationships beyond their school (70% of them won’t get invited to an American home while they’re in the US). We also run a Friday night meeting where international students join us for dinner, dessert, and topic-focused conversation. We have a number of Americans who volunteer to help with that, and I’ll be leading and training that team this year! I’m excited to get to multiply our effectiveness through them!
I’ve also been talking with churches, Christian organizations and individuals, recruiting and training new partners to meet with our international students who want a friendship partner. We signed up over 70 new students this fall, and had to get partners for all of them! Also, our annual Thanksgiving dinner had almost 200 students and their Friendship Partners there, which is easily the most we’ve ever had! God has us in a season of growth!
I also have had a bit of a breakthrough: I’ve realized that with all these new students, Tim (my boss) and I can’t possibly reach them all, nevermind all the students in Santa Barbara. Because of this, we’ve realized that we need to focus on training our volunteers, and multiplying ourselves into others. We’re very excited, and are already sensing God’s hand in this.
I’ve also had a couple really good conversations with one of the students I meet with: he’s reading the Bible because he wants to better understand America, and we’ve been talking about Jesus.
I’m still working on fundraising, and have had both victories and losses here. I’ve raised over half of what I’ve needed to, but I still need to raise the final $600/month to be fully effective (details on the Be Involved page).
In personal news, Lia and I will be coordinating Perspectives On the World Christian Movement this coming spring in Santa Barbara. After a rousing success in last year’s class (over 100 students), we will be leading it again. I’ll be leading the half of the class that meets on Friday mornings (aimed at pastors). Pray for lots of people to sign up and learn about what God is doing!
I’m also in a small Bible study that’s been reading through the Old Testament and discussing it. We’ve done Joshua, Judges, and Ruth already this year, and have just started 1 Samuel. By the end, we’ll have read all the OT history books sequentially, which will be a really good overview of Israel’s history.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Married and in ministry in Santa Barbara
