Two Weeks Gone!

Back again!

As stated in previous posts, the pasts two weeks I've been at camp which is a black hole for Verizon and connecting to the WiFi can be difficult. So I decided to just postpone my post for two weeks, and give you an extra long one today!

Let's review the past two weeks now.

June 14th I hopped in a white creeper van (Greg's van) and we made our way down to camp for Senior High week.That particular week I was the mission so every day I got to speak about campus ministry. Basically what I went through was first what campus ministry is and how it's a mission, why campus ministry was important, why the students, when getting in college, should get involved in a campus ministry, why they, their families, and churches should support campus ministry, and finally I talked about my walk, how God got me to where I was at, what campus ministry had done in my life, and how I came to be the man I am today. It seemed to be received well, and I hope some of those students will be reading this post. If so, HI GUYS!

The theme of the week was Covenant, I believe, and we focused on the Banquet as seen in Matthew 22 and we connected it to Revelation 19 with the Marriage. We had three teaching times, the first was worship and a sermon, then missions, then separated guys and girls lessons. Two of the guys lessons I taught, with the first being on Jesus as the Groom and what we, as men, can learn from that, with Jesus being the perfect husband. The second lesson I had was over the Banquet. I at first had some trouble figuring out what I wanted to say with that, but God eventually showed me, and I had a good lesson on salesmanship. We looked at the Banquet and I pointed out how we, as Christians, are the servants, going out and telling of the Banquet to those who don't know or aren't there. In the parable the servants are selling the feast, the party, as put on by the Master. The Master then is what the servants have to sell, that he's wealthy, able to provide, and has the best available. The servants have to know the Master and what he has to offer incredibly well. In the same way we as Christians need to sell God in the same way to those around us, and the only way we can do that is by knowing him extremely well, meaning we need to be in prayer and scripture often.

Throughout the week I was a family leader, and being a ministry major I was kind of the main leader for discussion times in our family. During which I had many opportunities to put my teaching skills to use, but also got to just lead a discussion between students seeing where they're at and their thoughts. There's not much more satisfying than students having a discussion with minimal prompts from you. I grew close to a couple students, forming a good bond with them, with some even opening up to me with concerns about life and all other sorts of things. Also, Tuesday I completely destroyed my throat, which was fun. We were at campfire, and I decided to join in on Romans 16.19 Says (the song) and well that wasn't smart. I could taste blood by the end. But God gave me the volume to be heard when I needed to throughout the week which was all I asked for.

As soon as I got home I got to do laundry, pack again, and head back to camp for a second week. This one was video game camp, along with 3 others. Luckily we didn't have many students because my staff was lacking and so were the number of systems and controllers. We played a lot of Super Smash Bros. Brawl on the Wii, a good bit of Nintendo 64, and some GameCube the first part of the week with the younger kids. The second part of the week we added Xbox games, but mostly stuck with Nintendo because it was awesome.

The theme of that week was Trust, and I spoke every day, twice a day, which wasn't great for my throat, but god again provided! The first day we looked at how God has entrusted us with the building of his temple, ministry, and gifts. That was a bit hard to get across to 8-13 year olds. But we tried! The second day we looked at how God has called us to trust those he puts in our lives. I talked a bit about those who encouraged me and discouraged me to go into ministry, and I went with those who agreed with what God was telling me. The second part of the week we also talked about the idea of accountability, and both halves we looked at companionship. The final day is why we are to trust God, and I talked all about how throughout my life and ministry career I trusted God and he provided as he always does.

That week I had to leave early on Friday, the camp went until Saturday. Saturday one of my best friends Shawn got married down in West Virginia. It was a great wedding, though the town didn't have water until Saturday morning, which was a huge blessing because I had two weeks of camp stank on me. Saturday was also the annual big CSFPA board meeting where I was approved to be the campus minister in Altoona. So I got a job for the foreseeable future! I'm going to be starting in July, and be moving out there in August so please be in prayer for that transition that that I'll be able to get funds raised to effectively minister to that campus. If you're interested in supporting the ministry, feel free to contact me and I can provide any information you need! You can also just contact me if you just want to talk, share prayer concerns, or whatever else.

I think that's all I got for now, and this has been going on for a while, so yeah. My girlfriend is here this week and we're having a good time with having gone to the zoo today and later we're going to be doing a lot more awesome stuff in the 'Burgh before I leave.

Thank you for all your support and prayers! Looking forward to seeing/talking to some of you soon!

Your minister in the field,

Mike

One Last Free Week

So this is probably going to be the last update for June, and this is why.

The next two weeks I have camp! But before we get to that, I want to talk about the previous week to let you know what's been going on.

Overall the past week has just been planning for stuff. I'm awaiting my syllabus to arrive so that I can begin work for class. I also have two weeks of camp coming up, one of which I'm the mission so I have an hour every day that I have to have something for, and the week after that I'm deaning a week of video game camp. Both of these require a good amount of work, which I'm attempting to prep for. So this past week and this coming week have been/will be devoted to that.

Other than that not much has gone on this week. I've been trying to send out newletters via email, but the email I was using isn't working for some reason so it's back to ol' reliable Gmail!

This week has had a good number of church activities though. Tuesday was Bible study were the conversation stuck with, "People get mad at me for sharing the gospel with them and I don't know how to fight back." It seemed at times as if we were making progress with the person that was having trouble with that, but time will tell. Friday we had a free community dinner for Greenfield, where the church is located. We had a good turnout for our first, about 30 people. We had noodles with some different sauces, both red and white, and some chicken to go with it. For our first one it went well! Sunday (yesterday) the city of Pittsburgh started its summer movie nights, where they show a movie in parks for free. Last night was the Sandlot, one of my top five favorite movies, and we had a good sized group there, even having one of our students that's in town this summer come out to join us.

This week is looking busy with getting ready for camps, planning, writing, packing, finishing laundry, and all that. I would appreciate your prayers for the coming weeks as I'm going to be pretty stressed and busy.

This coming Thursday I have my interview for Altoona, which I'm excited for. I'm sure it'll go well but prayers would still be appreciated.

For Altoona, I've been having some idea's rolling around in my head about themes for the year, possible events, and whatever else campus ministry would entail. I'm thinking for the year of just looking at who Jesus is, and building that foundation that can be built upon. I know that the students know who Jesus is, but I love what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2.2, "I know nothing but Christ and him crucified." Wherever I go, whenever I preach, whenever I teach, I know nothing but the Christ and him crucified and risen from the dead. That is what my hope is in, that is the reason I'm here today and do what God has called me to do. Without the foundation of who Jesus is and what it means that he is the Christ, we will never truly understand our hope.

But that's just thoughts rolling around in my head right now. I do have to get through these next three weeks first before I really start tackling that.

But overall that's all that's really going on. I know that's not a lot, but I'm still working out a lot with God as to future plans for the ministry I'm going to be a part of. I also have a packed summer that I have to continually get prepared for.

As always, thank you for your support and prayers, and I'll attempt to update in the coming weeks, but if not be looking for an update June 29th at the latest!

And Here's June!

Well one final week of being busy and May has come to a close.

Last week I wrote on Sunday and detailed some plans as to how I'm going to be keeping everyone up to date with the ministry that you're supporting. I was going to put out a newsletter last week, but I thought is to write them the first Monday of the month and send them out that week. Well today is that first Monday, so I plan on getting it written today!

As for this past week, I've been doing a good number of things! Not all ministry related, but a couple have been. Monday was Memorial Day, and marked 11 1/2 months in Pittsburgh and I noticed I haven't done anything Pittsburgh-y since I've been here. So I went and explored the town a bit. And by explored the town I mean Greg took me up Mt. Washington on the incline and we had lunch up there. Then after that we went back down the incline, tried to find a place to park to go see the point, which didn't work, so we went to the Carnegie Museum and wandered around a bit. Greg's wife works there and gets us in for free which is awesome. I feel like I could spend an entire day there and still feel like I haven't seen everything. We'll see if that's true in July!

Tuesday we ended up going to a Pirates game with some students and their friends/family/significant others. 8 of us in total went, sitting in the Left Field bleachers right behind Marte. The girls that went with us kept trying to get him to toss a ball to them but they didn't want to get too loud. It was a really fun time with the students, hanging out, watching the game, yelling at Yelich. I'm hoping that the students will be up for another game in the near future since it went off so well. 

Throughout the week I've been doing stuff around the house, nothing too exciting. Prep for video game camp has begun. I've been thinking about how I'm going to be having things set up, trying to figure out what games to play, how to incorporate them into lessons and Christianity, and trying to find systems and controllers. We'll see how all that works out, hopefully well. 

As for this week, my summer semester "officially" starts. I put that in quotes because I haven't received a syllabus yet, but I also don't have by book yet either, so that's cool. This week will hopefully be full of productivity for camp, ministry, and fundraising. But I'll let you know how that goes next week!

Until then, thank you for your support, and be expecting letters from me soon!

Your minister in the field, 

Mike