Pray for the Maze

I (Matt) just wanted to ask that if you get a chance, to please pray for a unique ministry opportunity here. This Wednesday (MSU) and Thursday (Gustavus) nights the Maze will will be performing in front of hundreds of students.  The Maze is a show led by Jim who is an illusionist and also a Christian who is passionate about sharing what Jesus has done in his life.

We have been promoting for the Maze for weeks on campus.  Jim will draw more interest for the evening events by doing "street magic" throughout the campus during the day.  The auditoriums where the Maze will be preforming can seat 800 and 450 respectively.  We are praying that each one of those seats will be filled and that many students will come open to Jim's testimony.

Jim states that the only reason he gets up and tours the country performing is to give an opportunity for many people to hear the Gospel and see how Jesus has transformed his life.  In fact, about an hour into the show there is a short intermission.  He says that anyone is free to go, but for anyone who stays he would like to do a couple more of his illusions and also share about his faith and why it matters so much for him.    

Please pray for this event these next couple days.  Pray for the students coming and for Jim as he prepares for the upcoming days.  Pray that they would clearly hear the Gospel through Jim's testimony.  Pray that we would be able to follow up with students who want to discuss more about faith.

Thank you so much for your prayers!  Blessings

What is a Maze?  A confusing network of massages where a single, interrupted path is the only solution.

a fun story from yesterday...

Jake (our teammate) and I (Matt) just got done talking to a guy named Garrett. It was a really fun conversation. He came to Cru last night with roommate (his roommate wanted to come because of the Cru cup he got during the first week of class and Garrett was invited by Liz, who's one of our student leaders!). We went through the gospel with him and after we discussed salvation by grace vs by works for a while he realized he had never trusted in Christ before. So, in the Preska lobby he prayed (to himself and the Lord) to trust Christ as his Savior and Lord! Another cool thing is he sounds really excited about Fall Retreat and he went to Facebook and liked Mankato Cru right after our conversation! Praise the Lord for a new brother in Christ.

the results are in!

These numbers include all Cru summer projects, both stateside and overseas...so fun that we got to be part of seeing so many lives changed!

4000 (!!!) men and women received Christ through PERSONAL gospel conversations on summer projects around the world! 

Over 7000 men and women received Christ because of hearing the gospel through a GROUP presentation!!

"Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God" John 1:12

As I write, Matt is at a root beer kegger that Cru is sponsoring for students tonight to build community and to have some fun together. I'm home (because Maggie is sleeping!) but I have a stack of surveys from international students next to me. We're having a Cru tailgate tomorrow for MSU's first home football game and thought it'd be fun to introduce internationals to 'tailgating' :) I'm going to email them right after I finish this post. I'm pretty sure at least a few are coming so far!

This has been another fun week....our team leader, Jake, shared the gospel clearly during his talk at Cru on Tuesday and invited students to put a check mark on their contact cards if they trusted Christ. Four girls indicated that they had!  I get to meet with two of them on Tuesday. I'm excited to hear more about their decision and to help them get more connected with Cru so they can keep growing in their walks with Jesus. If you think to pray for them, their names are Halley, Shannon, Anna, and Gianna.  Thank you for your prayers! God is moving here around Mankato!

Over Labor Day weekend we had the chance to travel to visit Matt's family in Alexandria. The lake was starting to get cold, but our adventurous daughter loved it anyway! She also took her first step over the weekend! Our world might be changing soon....! Here are some pics...

wow!

Reconnecting with girls in my Bible study at the first Cru
meeting. L-R: me, Laura, Eddye, and Tyler

Our family tradition is to have 'celebration breakfast' every Friday morning and celebrate the things we've seen God do throughout the week.  We had a lot to talk about this morning! The first week of classes is coming to a close as students head out of town for Labor day weekend, but it was a great week!  We had our first Cru weekly meeting on Tuesday night and had over 100 students show up. It was fun to meet some new freshmen there as well as reconnecting with students from last year.

One of my favorite things this week was following up surveys that we did the first two nights of school during dinner. Students indicated if they were interested in hearing more about Cru or learning about how to know God personally. We stop by their dorms to chat with them and answer questions. The first girl I talked to was Babie. I was with my friend, Brenda, who will be leading a Bible study in the dorms. Babie had marked that she was interested in Cru and in how to know God personally.  We chatted for a bit and then shared with her how she could come into a personal relationship with God. As we got done sharing, we asked if that was something she wanted in her life and it was clear that God had been working in her already, preparing her to enter into relationship with Him.  Brenda and I had the privilege of praying with Babie to come to know Jesus!  What a sweet moment.  God was so gracious to let us be part of that!  Please pray for Babie as she begins her journey with the Lord.

more updates to come.....!

Home Sweet Home

We got back into Minnesota from summer project just a week and a half ago and promptly closed on our new home and moved in. Our last few weeks were full of travel, packing, moving, cleaning, painting, and unpacking. Whew! Its been fun to settle into our new home and to dream about the potential it has. We're located just a few blocks from campus and we have a couple good spaces to invite students into our home and to host Cru events. I (Kristin) am excited to be so close to campus so I can potentially meet with women in our home during Maggie's naps and so we can easily walk or bike to work. We've already gotten to meet a few of our new neighbors and Maggie has managed to explore almost every inch of the main floor of our house - she'd love to give the stairs a try but we're going to hold her off on that for now! Thanks for all your prayers that we would find a good living situation for our family. It seems the Lord has provided a home that's a good fit for us and that will hopefully increase our ministry potential as well!

I also wanted to throw in a few pictures from summer project. Our internet connection wasn't very good in North Myrtle, so I had to hold off on them. Maggie grew A LOT during our time there and started standing and crawling....and learned about the joys of tide pools and eating sand ;)

Pre-sand...loving the beach!

Reaction to eating sand...silly girl!

Maggie and I with the girls in the Bible study that I co-led this summer