exhausted much...

Our first week is over. We start class tomorrow...ekkk! I'm nervous!

This past week was jammed pack. The schedule was crazy, but still enjoyable. Tuesday we arrived & had a meeting at night time/welcoming deal. Wednesday the President of Campus Crusade (Steve Douglas) spoke about the significance of our call. We had other things too this day...meeting type things. Wednesday night we stayed up chatting with our floor friends. Thursday we made the trek to Denver (one hour) for our day of outreach. We had some time for training using the KGP (knowing God personally) ate lunch they provided for us and headed to do evangelism throughout the entire city. We were assigned to Washington Park.

The park was HUGE and beautiful. There were actually a lot of people in the park, but obviously most were active (running/biking/roller blading etc) so it's a little difficult to approach people. Teddy and I approached around 6 people total. We were not able to go through the KGP with any of them, but left the booklet with many of them. Teddy and I have done evangelism before back at Texas Tech--I really enjoy doing evangelism with him! After a while Brett and Teddy went to meet some guys playing football & Kim and I went to the park area with the hope to connect with some moms there. We sat down on some benches where people continue to come and go. Finally a young girl sat next to us and we struck up conversation. It was so fun getting to know her & for her to learn some about us. We learned ALOT about her (Kelly) in the span of 45 mins. It was a fun conversation & we ended up sharing the KGP (the gospel) with her. She indicated that she wanted to receive Christ & prayed with us to do just that. YAY!! I pray that it was genuine and that she would start to see life change. You have no way of knowing since it will be difficult to follow up with her---but what I do know is that she had some of her thoughts challenged by us, learned that there are young people out there who love Christ & desire for others to know Him that aren't "weird", she seems to want to grow & learn, and I'm convinced that she had to have talked to her boyfriend that night about it all.

After evangelism we went to debriefing to talk about our day. There we learned that there were a little over 700 conversations initiated, over 200 full gospel presentations, and 8 decisions for Christ!!! :) What's great is that the Denver CRU has all the contact information for these people that accepted Christ--so there will be follow up. We enjoyed a pizza party and I had the chance to sit and talk with a friend of mine that staff Branson summer project in 2009 with me (Lindsay). She isn't on staff, but lives in Denver. So she met up with everyone in City Park and hung out. It was fun catching up on life with her.

Friday we had more meetings. This time the focus was on our hearts. We went over something called the Growth Model. Something that I value within Crusade is their desire to see us grow spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. They really challenge our hearts and want to know where we REALLY are in life. Not to put up a "fake" face. That day was full of wonderful conversation about our hearts. For some people you might thing...ewww. But man, it was incredibly refreshing to connect with others who are in the same spot. In the afternoon we had a short orientation for class. That evening we had our first Lifegroups (small group discussion group). I am in a group of 6 total. All of our husbands are in the same group too. I really enjoyed out time together. Again, another refreshing moment during this week. Kim and I are in the same group--but didn't know any of the other ladies.

Saturday (day off)Teddy and I went with a big group (around 25 ppl) to hike Horsetooth Reservoir. I constantly called it horseshoe...whoops! It was much longer than expected and not that easy. We had to climb on rocks a few times & to get to the very top we had to climb up about 30 feet. It was scary at moments. I struggled ALOT on the way up. This altitude is the worst part. We hung with 4 others girls from our region (red river region) and made it. Coming back down was obviously a lot easier. We started the hike at 10:15am and were back at our car at 2:00pm. I hate my legs today :)...sore is an understatement. But, I am glad I pushed through and made it. At the end we were 7,000ft up. It was beautiful! Saturday afternoon we passed out because we were exhausted. Saturday night we went to a focus dinner on ministry & then met up with our floor for dessert (ice cream).

This morning we went to church (another day off). It was REALLY long...started at 10am and we walked out around noon. The pastor was great, but preached for over an hour. I struggled. :) We ate lunch back at the dorms and have been relaxing for the most part. Teddy is out playing basketball right now with Crusade guys, I'm working on laundry, hanging out with the girls on the floor who husbands went to play bball, and checking out my course notes for class that starts tomorrow.

Tomorrow starts classes like I said. We are taking two classes: Bible Study Methods and Intro to Christian Theology. While we raise support we will also take New Testament Survey. Our two classes are like "mini-mesters"...2 weeks long. We will go to class from 8am-12:30pm for 2 weeks. We will have loads of homework/reading to do. Should be interesting considering I haven't done school in almost 4 years. :) I will keep you posted on how that is going.

Here is the view from one of our windows in our dorm.