Hey everybody!

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm so excited about it! This is easily my favorite holiday and I hope it finds you with family and friends and big piece of pumpkin pie. Just before we plunge into the holiday season though, here is a report on the campus ministry events last month.

October was a fairly standard month for us around here. We had four of our weekly Bible studies and they all went over well. We are reading through the Gospel of Luke this semester and trying hard to get the rest of the book in before finals next month (it is hard to cover 24 long chapters in one semester). We are averaging about 10 people at each for our studies right now and building a pretty tight-knit group. Vanessa is still making us desserts each week and everyone is enjoying that immensely. Here she is posing with her triple chocolate cake and three hungry students:

We also enjoyed a costume party around Halloween. We got all dressed up and shared some good laughs. Here is a bunch of us smiling for the camera. If you have a hard time figuring out what we are dressed as, that's okay, several of us didn't know either.

We hosted another area church leader eating meeting that was enjoyed by all and I headed back out to Faith to help with their youth night again. Both of these standing monthly events are being received well and I think together they are doing great things for the unity of the area.

We did have three new and exciting things happen in October. One of our students, Jayce, did a radio interview with me about the campus ministry for one of her classes. We got together and recorded a little interview and it turned out really well. There is some talk of airing it on the local college radio station, but whether or not that works out, I got a copy and put it on our website's home page. It was a lot of fun to put together.

The second new and exciting thing was the official start of our next big mission trip. This summer we are sending a team of college students on another “Let's Start Talking” mission trip. I plan to make that something we do every two years from here on out. We are still finalizing our team, but it is currently Bailey Hoeft and Rachel Munce. These two young ladies went last time and are core members of our ministry. They can't wait to go again and I have no doubt they are going to do great things in the name of Jesus, both on this trip and after. They are headed back to the same site as well, Natal, Brazil, so they will be well-prepared to hit the ground running when they get there.

Last time we had a team of five, so fund raising was a difficult challenge for us. This year the smaller team is going to make fund raising significantly easier, but if you feel so moved to support these young ladies, I'm sure they would appreciate the help. They each have to raise $3,900 and are stepping out in faith that God will provide it. In fact, would you mind taking a moment right now and praying for Bailey and Rachel, that God may use them for His glory on this trip? Thanks!

“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

- 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

The third new and exciting thing was my very first trip out to the Prairie City Church of Christ, which was a fun experience. The Prairie City Church of Christ is great a little country church located two hours off into the plains. It is so remote that Dwayne and Zona Vig kindly met us at the interstate to guide us in. Their building is an old one room school house and they have probably 10 or 20 members. They talked about years ago when they only had three members and they were celebrating a recent baptism or two. Sarah and my boys came with me and that church was so sweet to us. It was a wonderful day for encouraging and being encouraged.

Thanks for reading and you have a great day!

-Silas