.png)
With students gearing up for exams, I thought this would be a good time to reflect and give month-by-month highlights of ministry with IVCF in PG, as well as a financial update.
September
Clubs Days
We had 55 new sign-ups for InterVarsity at Clubs Days at UNBC and CNC.
I was able to give out First Nations Bibles at CNC to the college's elders and community.
We received a request to have more at the college for students to use.
Our Clubs Days idea was to hand out corn to promote our fall retreat! We handed out a total of 104 Cobs of corn and 7 mini pumpkins.
October
Worship Nights
We had 35 students attend our first worship night.
There, we had students encounter Christ in new ways. What's cool to see is that our encounter with Christ did not end with our time that evening. The time students had to pray for one another has extended to time on campus, friendship, wrestling with questions about faith and how one incorporates Christ in every aspect of their lives.
November
Live Clue!
Last Saturday, our exec leaders hosted a Live Clue! event. Brad and I where the murder victims and our exec friend Izzy was the murderer (It was Aribelle Wilder in the library with the fire poker!). We had over forty-four students attend. Half of the students where folks the student leaders did not know and a number of them were non-Christians. One of my prayers, while we were planning for the event, was St. Patrick's classic, “God in my everything”. It was a silly fun event, and yet, it is events like these that God can use to change lives.
September – December
Friday Soup Lunches
Every Friday, myself and Tara (The Christian Reformed Campus Minister) have been making soup lunches to give to students. We have an average of fifteen to thirty students come by every Friday. This has been a great opportunity to meet new students. My favourite part on Fridays has been walking around the Winter Gardens, stepping into student friend groups and inviting them to a free lunch. It has been a great time of conversations from simple fun things like movies, to deeper things such as faith, creation and culture.
Fall Retreat: All Aboard!
Our big event this semester was the fall retreat. We had a total of 28 students attend! The Fall Retreat: All Aboard had a focus on reintroducing students to InterVarsity as a ministry on campus at UNBC. We had times of worship, manuscript study, a coffee bar and our corn roast! One of the highlights for me was our partnership with our local churches. On Saturday night, one of our church families from Lakes hosted our students at their farm. We roasted so much corn! But a highlight was when our friend, Mark Brown, brought out his family's plane. I had arrived before the students and came up in my little blue car to watch Mark making circles in the field with his airplane. As I was setting up, I asked Mark, “What are you doing with the airplane out?”.
“Oh, I was hoping to bring a couple of students up in the sky if that's okay?” Mark asked.
“Okay?! Uhh... Let me make a call quick call to make sure it's good with our insurance.”
As we were eating hamburgers and roasting corn over the fire, Mark started up his plane and did an air show for us with one of our student leaders in the passenger seat. Afterwards, we were able to invite students to free airplane rides! We weren't able to bring all of them up in the air but it was an amazing gift to give the students.
Afterwards, we had a time around the campfire where many of the students shared what God was doing in their hearts over the weekend. For some, they were experiencing God in new ways through Scripture. For others, where feeling the call and challenge from God to live in community. Some were being moved with the conviction to be closer and share the Gospel with their non-Christian friends. That evening, I shared from 1 John 4:11-21 and talked about how abiding in Christ was not just an individual act but is lived through community with the Body of Christ and the Trinity.
The next day, we wrapped up the retreat with a service at Fort George Baptist who hosted us during the day. Pastor Dan, also preached out of 1 John and gave an incredible message and similar to what we talked about the previous night. As Dan was reading the passage, three students who were sitting behind me leaned forward and whispered,
“Cristyn, Cristyn, did you guys plan this?!” My shoulder's where shaking from holding in the laughter so as not to interrupt Dan's preaching.
“No, no.” I replied. “I didn't, but I think the Holy Spirit might have.”
The retreat opened up many invitations for students to walk closer with Jesus, invitations I am still seeing play out near the end of November.
(There's more than one picture here! Click the arrow to see more)
2022 Financial Need
Alright, I like visual graphs when it comes to money.
Helps put things in perspective and gives a better idea of where things are at.
The last time I sent an update, I did a brief scan of where we were at. This time we did a bit of number crunchy to get some of these numbers straight and accurate.
Village Missions
We'll start with Villiage Missions as that's the easiest.
Since Lakes is a self-supporting church, we get a salary from them but not the full salary of a full-time pastor. As a result, we haven't done a whole lot of emphasis on the VM side of our fundraising but I think we are both realizing our expenses are going to be changing when we put future little ones in the picture (Not Pregent! But doesn't mean things ain't comin down the pipeline ;) )
So, we are letting folks know our need for raising our support from $550 a month to the full $800 minimum VM asks their missionaries to raise.
That works out to needing to raise $450 a month for Brad.
Over the year, if you have been reading through our updates and you have been moved by Brad's stories about serving in rural ministry, would you consider praying about supporting us and our family? (Also if you click the button there is a really funny picture of a sweaty Brad after playing softball. Cracks me up every time I see it.)
InterVarsity
IVCF is where most of our needs are, as you can tell by the fancy graph above. My position with IVCF as a campus minister is COMPLETELY fundraiser. From my salary to the resources that go towards buying Bibles, taking students out for coffee, and travelling down to Thetis for camp, all of it makes up that big number of $38115.00 a year.
And you know what, 92% of that has been fundraised!
That's amazing, however, I still need to raise the full amount at the end of 2022.
That works out to $2370.59 I need to raise by the end of the year.
Looking back at the year and how God provided, I'd say it's pretty doable.
However, what is more, important is raising the money for my monthly support.
Thanks to many generous one-time gifts last year, I was able to start my ministry with IVCF in January. However, I will need to raise money to fill the gap in 2023 that was raised in 2022.
I need to raise my monthly support by $1301.59 per month.
Already, by letting our needs known, I am seeing God provide through friends and strangers! If you are one of those people thank you!
That's all for this update.
Currently, Ollie is bundled up next to me on a -25 day in PG.
We wish you blessings as we begin the advent season.
Comments