It's been four years since we made that road trip across the US and landed in the middle of the Green Mountains.
I was talking with my husband Joe last night about blogs. Neither of us are very good bloggers. During the days when we started this blog- towards the end of 2006- life was different. Back then, we were in the throws of fundraising to start a college ministry at UVM. The organization that we work with would not release us to be college pastors at UVM until we raised 100% of our budget. I’ve come to respect and love this policy, and strongly feel that it helps to fully ensure financial stability in your ministry endeavors.
So, what does a person do when they’re full-time fundraising? You think of all these cool ways to communicate your ministry vision with potential investors- and then you mostly only use the ideas that are cheap, like blogging. So, we set up a blog account with wordpress. We also kept up our monthly ministry newsletter.
I’ve been writing monthly ministry newsletters since I first started working in college ministry in 1999. At that time I don’t think blogs even existed. I’ve come to see that a main difference between the ministry newsletter and a blog is that the letter is more of a report to investors, while the blog is a public diary.
And here we are now in 2011 and our poor public diary has been sorely neglected. What can I say? Life happens. The public journal has been thrown into the backseat (or out the window.)
But, lately I’ve felt this new wave of inspiration to blog. Who knows where it will take me?
Last night I told Joe that I had an idea to start a blog about living in the Old North End of Burlington. He suggested I call it “O.N.E. Life to Live.” Ha ha ha, I said. But who knows… Maybe I should just work on persevering here.
I’ve been feeling a bit guilty about neglecting this publication, so here’s a brief recap of what’s been happening.
We’ve almost completed our 3rd year of campus ministry at UVM and we have survived yet another Vermont winter. Our daughter Jaeda is now 2 yrs. old.
We have been very pleased with the Chi Alpha community’s progress this year. Last week was probably one of the highlights of the year for me. I interviewed 8 students who have applied to serve as small group leaders with Chi Alpha for next school year. During the interviews I got to hear some wonderful stories about how Chi Alpha has impacted lives for Jesus. It was a good week to be a campus minister!
Our second year at UVM is quickly coming to an end. The ladies small groups closed by spending the last couple weeks sharing testimonies, giving words of affirmation, and lifting each other up in prayer. It was so encouraging to hear the students share about the difference that this Christian community called Chi Alpha has made in their lives. Monday, April 26 with mark our last worship gathering of the semester, followed by a celebration picnic on Saturday, May 1.
A highlight of the last couple of weeks of ministry has definitely been Chi Alpha’s recent club recognition through UVM’s student government association. We are especially excited about all the new opportunities that Chi Alpha now has to host events and activities on campus and advertise throughout campus. Of course the possibilities are endless, but my prayer is that we’d be particularly strategic as Chi Alpha enters a new phase of life at UVM.
Another highlight of the last month has been confirmation that Jessi Stoher will be moving to Vermont in July to join the Chi Alpha staff team as an associate campus minister at UVM. Jessi is a graduate of Central Washington University, where she was involved with Chi Alpha. Subsequent to graduation, Jessi spent two year with Chi Alpha at CWU receiving training through their nationally recognized internship program. Jessi has been working to raise her budget and is nearing her minimum goal.
A final highlight pertains to the Atlantic Coast Student Institute of Campus Ministry (SICM) Conference this May. Six students have signed up to attend this week-long training event offered by Chi Alpha. We pray that through this event, students will receive a fresh vision and calling to bless UVM and will be better equipped to express Christ’s life through their class work and in their friendships.
Thanks for your thoughts and prayers!
It’s been awhile since our last post! Jaeda is now 14 months old and prefers walking to anything else. Joe is currently wrapping up a week-long spring break missions trip to Antigua, Guatemala with a team of 6 UVM students. This Monday, March 15 we are looking forward to having a YWAM team from the Dunham, Qc base to minister at our weekly worship meeting.
Thanks so much for your prayers this past October as Joe was dealing with some health issues. He has had a couple of follow-up appointments with good results. He has been feeling much better!
On Monday I (Rachel) spoke on the topic of Spiritual Friendship at Renaissance. It was my first time being back at our main weekly gathering since pregnancy. It was sort of crazy finding time to prepare for the talk, but old notes helped streamline the process. I’m glad I got to do it! There’s something unique about our Renaissance meetings that we’ve recently discovered- it’s the only Christian ministry meeting at UVM where worship through singing happens as a formal aspect of the meeting. This definitely makes us special in what Chi Alpha offers to both Christians and non-Christians alike at UVM!
This was my (Rachel’s) first week back at work with Chi Alpha since Jaeda’s birth. Besides attending the New England/New York winter retreat over the February 14 weekend (Jaeda was 5 weeks old) and the AG Sectional meeting for the Northwest NNED (Jaeda was 7 weeks old), I’ve been spending all my time adjusting to life with a baby. My first step was to figure out how to maintain personal hygiene while caring for a newborn:-). There were definitely days when I didn’t shower or brush my teeth. Next was exercise. Jaeda is learning to like walks with mommy in the Kelty carrier that friends let us borrow. Also, I started taking Jaeda on personal errands like shopping. Jaeda is still deciding whether or not she likes the car seat. Overall, the last 10 weeks have been a crash course in caring for a newborn!
At the advice of our Breastfeeding class instructor, Joe and I waited until 6 weeks to introduce the bottle to Jaeda. And, so far, Joe has only been able to feed Jaeda 1.5 ounces of milk in one sitting. At Jaeda’s 2 month check up, we told our pediatrician about this, and she said we should have started the bottle sooner- like at 4 weeks. Oh well!
Jaeda’s feeding preferences have affected my ability to work. So, I’m on a graduated work re-entry plan. For the rest of the semester, I’m attending our women’s small group and have blocked out a couple of hours for administration and meeting with students. The women’s small group started this semester and 2 students are facilitating. Neither student has ever facilitated a small group, so I’m very grateful that they wanted to do this! I still love campus ministry and seriously enjoy spending time with college students, although the challenge now is learning how to be a working mom.
