June has been and will be quite the busy month! We spent the first week attending a Northeast Chi Alpha training conference in Nyack, NY. It was a great week of learning and equipping. Later in the month we will be traveling to Springfield, MO for a Chi Alpha pioneering boot camp. This will help us to think through the specific needs and culture of UVM as we plan for our official launch on campus this fall. And finally, throughout the month we will be attending freshmen orientation sessions to meet new students and share the vision for Chi Alpha. Pray that God will help us to connect with many of these freshmen, and that He will begin forming the first of many generations of Chi Alpha at UVM.

Rachel and I are new to Vermont. We’re planting the very first Chi
Alpha in the state, and we certainly have our work cut out for us. But as we’ve driven around New England raising support this past year, we can’t help but notice the tremendous need for Chi Alpha throughout this region. There are literally tens of thousands of students attending college in Northern New England, and Chi Alpha is only beginning to scratch the surface of this incredible opportunity.

This past month we hosted a luncheon at UVM for pastors from around the region. Our goal was simple: to encourage the church of New
England to dream big dreams for our college campuses. We want them to know how strategic these young people are, not only for their
influence on our culture but also for the future of our church. It was a great success, and nine pastors requested more information on how their churches can be involved in reaching local students. Imagine nine more campuses being reached with the Gospel!

Your generosity and prayers allowed for this luncheon to happen. The seeds we’re planting together today are preparing the way for
generations of students to be reached in New England. Thank you!

My friend Stacie was finally able to email last Friday with an update.  She’s doing really well in Myanmar.  Here’s her email:

“Hi everyone,

I wanted to email a lot sooner, but as many of you know, a big Hurricane came through and so I was unable to email last weekend. I am doing well. I have plenty of food and water and a safe place to live. Thank you for the many prayers, and I ask that you will continue to pray for those who have lost loved ones and homes. There are many people who can’t afford food and water because the prices for everything are going up. I have been helping out here and there for those that I know and those that my friends know. It sometimes get sad though because there are so many people in need and I wish I could help them all, but I just have to do the little that I can.

I’m sure many of you have been worried for my safety or worried that I may be afraid. Amazingly God has given me peace and safety through the whole storm and these 2 weeks afterward. Here is an entry that I wrote in my journal, it will give you a little look into my experience.

“Last night there was a big Typhoon. I woke up at 1:00 because the wind was blowing so hard, so I got up and looked. (My house has ventilation holes in the wall near the ceiling) Wind was blowing into the house through the holes in the walls. Dust and leaves were blowing in. I checked the windows and they were all closed. There was nothing I could do so I crawled back into bed under my mosquito net and tried unsuccessfully to sleep. Next I knew I heard glass shattering. I got up to check and found that one of the windows in another room must not have been latched all the way and so it blew open and shattered, thankfully outside so I didn’t have any glass to clean up. This allowed even more wind to blow in, but thankfully there wasn’t much rain and so only a little water came in. The tree in front of my house started banging against the roof. With each blow the whole house shook. I was back under my mosquito net just listening to all the sounds around me. The shower and bathroom doors started banging around down stairs so I went down to latch them, then the door upstairs started to band and so I went upstairs to latch it. (It was amazing that although what was happening around me and being all alone was a little eerie, I had a peace knowing that I would be just fine.)

“When it got light out I used a shower curtain to cover the broken window to block the rain from coming in. Good thing because from about 6:30 it really started to rain and so much would have blown in. The shower curtain worked pretty well to patch the window, but was pretty difficult to put up in the wind. It kept blowing out the window, but I finally did get it in place. (Now 2 weeks later it is still doing its job.) After patching the window I read a little in Matthew and then I played guitar and worshipped for a little while. During this time I was thinking of how powerful the wind was, but how God is so much more powerful. I was also reminded of how Jesus was able to calm the storm just by saying ‘Quiet, be still!’

Around 10:00 the wind had died down a bit and the rain let up so I decided to take a nap. I slept a little off and on until 12:00 and then I got up. I went down stairs and was surprised to see about 10 inches of water in the house. Thankfully I didn’t have any personal things that got wet, but the bottom of the refrigerator got wet, an power inverter box, and some fluorescent lights that Kiyoshi was going to hang up sometime. When the power comes we will have to see what is ruined or not.

There wasn’t much I could do to clean up yet, so I decided to go and see how the families and school were.

So many trees were down and houses lost roofs. I felt so sad for all the people. So many of them are poor and don’t have money to be fixing their houses. I thought of Naw Eh Wah (the kids’ Burmese teacher) and prayed that she and her family were ok. I know that their house is not very strong.

One of the families’ house lost the entire roof and at least 5 windows broke. All the DD girls store their things in that house and all their stuff got wet. They were able to go next door to the school to get out of the weather. At the school the only damage was one window in my classroom broke. Shiho moved my things and covered the bookshelves so that nothing got damaged.”

Well, that gives you a little insight into my experience. The water didn’t come for 4 days and now 2 weeks later we still don’t have power in my area. The areas that call pool enough money and pay are able to get power the fastest. I heard of a street that is only 4 or 5 blocks long that has apartment buildings paying 2,000 dollars just to get their power restored.

I’m going to go now. I want to see what news I can read on the internet. I haven’t read or heard anything yet, I’m sure you all know more details that I do.

Thanks for all your prayers and please continue to pray for the people of this country.”

My friend Stacie is currently working as an English teacher in Myanmar.  She loves being there and has a tremendous love for the Burmese people.  With the recent cyclone, Stacie has not been able to make contact with anyone in the “outside world.”  Of course, we know that Stacie would have it no other way than to be in Myanmar at this specific time, and for His specific purposes.  May she know the Father’s protection and guidance during this time.

The school year has officially ended.  Students are headed home, and the once busy campus has gotten a lot quieter.  Our focus over the past few weeks has been getting to know these students and the campus culture of UVM.  We’ve been meeting with advisors, program heads, and other campus pastors.  We’ve talked to several dozen students about their experiences at UVM.  Here are some of the things we’ve discovered:

• 39% of students said academic pressures were the biggest challenge they face.

• 35% of students said they needed help with time management and balancing studies with their social lives.

• 70% of students said it was easy or very easy to establish healthy friendships.

• There are 250 enrolled international students at UVM.  Most are in graduate programs and come from India and China. There are no ongoing support programs to help them with language and cultural challenges.

• 87% of students have never attended a religious event or meeting while in college.

These statistics reinforce what is a common perception about UVM: This is a party school where students show very little interest in formal religious expression.  Most students were not even aware of the presence of any campus ministries at UVM.

One conversation stands out most for me. I was talking to a young woman who is a freshman at UVM.  She was raised in a Baptist church, but she has not attended church or a campus ministry while at UVM.  I asked, “How easy has it been to establish healthy friendships at UVM?”  She replied, “It has been very easy to establish friendships.  But I wouldn’t call them healthy.”  I could detect a bit of sadness and regret in her voice.  My heart broke knowing that this young woman had probably made decisions she regretted.  Our prayer is that she, and other students like her, will discover love and healing through our community of faith.  We want her to know friends who desire the best for her, not just a good time.

Last Wednesday two representatives from the UN visited us. The ladies from London came to see our townhouse and to talk with us about our experience in working with Champlain Housing Trust. There were about six people who accompanied the ladies, and they brought some beautiful orange tulips as a gift for us. The Champlain House Trust is the only American Finalist for a prestigious UN urban housing award. We were thrilled to host them and it gave us a great excuse to do some much needed spring cleaning:-).

The Edmundite Center at St. Mike’s sponsored a night with Miroslav Volf on the topic of “Identity and Otherness in a Fractured World.” I was very excited to attend the talk after having read his book: Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace. Tonight Volf talked about the need to embrace and use a hermeneutic of grace when interacting with other cultures, ethnicity’s, nationalities and so on. At the core of Christianity is this concept of interpreting the other through a loving gaze, and the action of embracing the one who is characterized as the enemy. The cross most fully exemplifies this as Christ embraced all who were far from him through his death. This does not mean that our mistakes are excused, but they aren’t in the foreground of Christ’s complete understanding of us. In the same way, let us embrace the other by seeking to understand them and welcoming their beauty into the foreground!

Our new website for Chi Alpha Vermont is up and running.  It was a joint project with artist Evan Hinthorne of Seattle and tecky Curtis Aube of Burlington, VT.  Let us know what you think.

http://chialphavt.com

I recently read a book On Beauty & Being Just by Elaine Scarry that was recommended by Pat O’Donel, who is a campus minister in Boston. It was a refreshing look at how noticing and appreciating beauty can cause a deep longing for its replication through the preservation and furthering of truth and justice.

I was pushed to consider the possibility that I don’t fully notice the beauty of our world. I’m kind of a miser when distributing recognitions of beauty. The author refers to this by sharing her own miserly attitude towards the palm tree. She wasn’t aware of its beauty until one day, having an up-close moment with one, she had an epiphany. After realizing its majesty, she thought back to some of Matisse’s paintings which she dearly loved that were completely filled with the palm theme. Yet, she had never noticed the palm’s presence in the paintings until having that later moment when she really saw the Palm’s beauty.

Towards the end, Scarry talks about beauty’s affect on our sense of place in the world. Beauty causes us to move from the center of our own world to a lateral, or adjacent place. Here’s an excerpt from this passage:

“It is as though one has ceased to be the hero or heroine in one’s own story and has become what in a folktale is called the “lateral figure” or “donor figure.” It may sound not as though one’s participation in a state of overall equality has been brought about, but as though one has suffered a demotion. But at moments when we believe we are conducting ourselves with equality, we are usually instead conducting ourselves as the central figure in our own private story; and when we feel ourselves to be merely adjacent, or lateral (or even subordinate), we are probably more closely approaching a state of equality. In any event, it is precisely the ethical alchemy of beauty that what might in another context seem like a demotion is no longer recognizable as such: this is one of the cluster of feelings that have disappeared.”

Today I prepared my favorite version of the peanut butter sandwich for a late lunch. One slice of toasted honey-oat bread with Reese’s creamy spread on top. I much prefer this to any other in this part of the sandwich family. If I was to fold it in half whereby doubling the bread portion of the bite, I would not like it half so much! While I was enjoying each bite, it dropped out of my hand, did a flip, and landed face side down on my plate. This is the risk involved in eating an “open” sandwich. Sometimes you lose your toppings.