“What an awesome night!!! I can’t even begin to describe how excited I am about the upcoming year and spending it with CCF!!” - New freshman Meredith's Facebook status after the first Dinner and a Message last week.
Wow. That’s all I can say. We ended last spring’s semester with momentum, on a high, and the summer just seemed to keep us moving. All summer we worked on “beautifying” CCF, growing deeper through Bible Studies, reading books together, and preparing for this year.
But, things really picked up at the end of July when the Interns started. Adrian, Elizabeth, Josh and Laura have added a tremendous amount of energy and effort and love to CCF. They are amazing. They have propelled our ministry forward and are helping take it to the next level of excitement and excellence. The house looks incredible both outside AND inside now– it’s clean, neat, creatively painted, hospitable, and fun. And you should see their flyers! If we gave out medals for good flyers – they would all win!
We are so excited about this year. It’s off to a fantastic start. We are meeting lots of cool and interesting people and our student leaders are working hard to make CCF a loving, wonderful place. And people are responding. In the last week we have had a Muslim student, a Buddhist student, multiple students who are “unsure of their faith” or “not very religious”, and a bunch of other “non-traditional” (in the Bible-belt-Christian sense) students attend different events – and have a great time. We LOVE it!
Numbers aren’t everything, but they are exciting because they represent souls. So, let me throw some numbers out from the last 2 weeks.
9 - residents at the Campus House.
22 - leaders at our Leadership Retreat.
20 - new freshmen at CCF for our freshmen ice cream socials (before school even started).
50 - students at our welcome to school party.
130 - at our first Fat Mondays.
90 - at the first Dinner and a Message (30 of them were new. Many of those were the same freshmen I noted above!).
65 - at Fun til Four. (20 until 4am!)
195 - at our 2nd Fat Mondays.
Yea baby!!
Our Kickoff Retreat is this weekend and already 20 people have signed up. We’ll let you know how that goes. We want 50. After all, who wouldn't want to come hear Ric and Sarah White?!
Our theme this year at CCF is “Authentic Christianity” and that’s what we are trying to do – live out our faith. Things are going really well! There is excitement in the air. God is doing great things in people’s lives, already. We’re tired, but so so happy for all that God is doing! Please keep us in your prayers, it’s just getting started!
I hope you are well and I hope to hear from all of you soon!
In Him,
Angela
