Our semester is now officially two weeks under way.
Only two weeks in and already I have lots to fill you in on.
I have to be honest, after a crazy spring semester and intense summer, I wasn’t totally ready to get things rolling this fall.
I guess I could liken it to a teacher going back to school after a summer break.
I’m wondering if teachers get really excited when they see their students walk through the door for the first day of school,
because that’s how I felt when I saw our students come back for our leadership retreat!
We have a stellar group of over 50 leaders this year. These are the students who will be leading bible studies on campus. Before classes began we got away from campus for a night and had a retreat. We started with some crazy games…hunt the seniors. I decided to be a senior for this one and go hide in the woods while I waited for the juniors to come find me. I got all into it if I do say so myself…crouched down in the fetal position under a dead tree…even put sticks down the back of my shirt to “blend in”. They actually passed over me a few times…but to my dismay I was eventually caught!
(Cait and Adie are seniors this year...they hid under the tree with me!)
As fun as I’m sure that sounds, I had an even better time at our next event. A time of prayer…there were four stations to go to. The time was meant to pray by yourself…just get some good time with God. First stop…confession. Second stop…communion. Third stop…time to be silent and listen. Fourth stop…a time of corporate worship. The third stop was my favorite. We asked the students to ask God what He would want them to do this year…who to reach out to, who to pray for, etc. Take some time to dream with God. Words can’t quite do the scene justice. I had the chance to sit behind a bunch of students…and while I dreamed I must say I was a bit distracted. Distracted by the fact that I was looking out over a group of our men and women praying – preparing themselves for what they were about to embark on. Thousands of other students were preparing for the semester by dreaming of the parties they would go to…but these students in front of me were thinking about how they could impact the campus for Christ. I’m not their parent, and yet I felt like a parent…I was so proud of them!
We like to start things at Penn State with a bang…so the night before classes began we had a BBQ at my house. How is that a bang, you ask? Well, I’d say because we had between 180 and 200 students in our yard and in the street! Classes hadn’t even begun and we had at least 30 freshmen come! Those poor freshies…they had no idea they would be walking into a group that large…I mean I was overwhelmed and I knew a large number of the people there!
Later that week we overheard some of our neighbors as they walked by our house: “Dude, this house had a sick party on Sunday night”! For those who don’t know…sick is a good thing :)
(Cait and Adie are seniors this year...they hid under the tree with me!) 
Later that week we overheard some of our neighbors as they walked by our house: “Dude, this house had a sick party on Sunday night”! For those who don’t know…sick is a good thing :) 
