What lies behind and ahead

Greetings! Hope everyone is doing exceptional!

Well it's Monday again, meaning a couple updates! We've had our first mainly dry week in Pittsburgh in a like a month which is nice. I've seen people online attempting to start petitions to send all the rain we've been having to California since they've been having that drought.

This week is also Comic-Con in San Diego which makes me really sad that I can't be there. But one of these days I'll make it.

Well this past week has been quite busy, as is the week ahead.

This past week the church I've been going to (Squirrel Hill Christian Church) has been doing VBS. On average we had 21 kids a night, which was a lot bigger than what they anticipated, and we had a total of 27 throughout the week, only 13 of which being kids of members of the church meaning we had over half not from the church!

The theme of the week was "God of the Underdogs" and we looked at stories about Joseph, Esther, Daniel, David, and Hannah. I got to take part in a couple of the skits as an alligator named Gally (I tried to change it to Gary, they wouldn't let me).

That ended up taking up my time from 5-9 every night and it was a blast.

Throughout the day during the week I've been working on homework with my class finally in full swing. There's a ton of reading I have to do before I get to campus in August, so I've been getting to work on that. This class is Doctrine of Salvation, and we're looking closely at Ephesians and Colossians. From reading those two books and the texts the professor has sent I feel like this is going to be a class I'm going to enjoy a lot and learn a lot from.

Wednesday I took a trip out to Altoona, PA where I'll be working for the next couple of years! I met the director of CSFPA there, Buzz, and we met at the church that I'll be working closely with. We got some business stuff out of the way, and went ahead over to the campus, right across the street from the church, and met with some faculty/staff there. I also got some leads on apartments, which I'll be looking at hopefully in a couple weeks. So far I got connected with the student life people on campus, which are good to have, and I also got on some of our (CSF's) websites so now I can easily get in contact with the students.

Already I've been talking with our president and gave him the task of getting an event put together. I got paintball tickets left over from last year that never got used, so we're trying to get a group together to go. Hopefully we have a good turn out! Some other events that I want to do are a snowboarding/skiing trip to the resort only 45 minutes away. I'm also thinking about doing a weekly meal at my place for students to come and eat or even cook for whoever comes to help create a community and have a good time of fellowship together.

The more I prepare for this coming year the more excited I get. But I still have times of worry and mini freak out periods because of funding. I've been trying to get in contact with different people that I went to school with to try something with them, but I'm still waiting on a couple of calls. Plus I'm trying to get friends from church's that I've attended or worked at to help with support, but that's not always lucrative either. I know God will provide one way or another, and that always gives me peace.

Something that I'm trying though is to connect with youth ministries, specifically Jr. and Sr. High ministries, and have them take me on as their own personal mission. I do consider myself an missionary, and I want to connect with youth ministries so that they can learn about campus ministry, what it's about etc, and take responsibility for a mission. I wouldn't expect it to produce a lot of support, but I still think that it would be good for both ministries.

But that's been my week so far. This next week is going to be a busy one as well. Tomorrow (Tuesday) I'm heading on vacation to Oklahoma for a wedding my girlfriend is in. The following Sunday (26th) I'm preaching at my home church, and hopefully will have some time to get to talk with people about supporting my ministry as well. So please keep that in your prayers.

So if I don't update this blog next Monday, I'll still be on vacation that that would be why.

CSF Altoona now has a new Twitter account @CsfAltoona feel free to follow us!

Until next time!