School's Out!!

School is out for the summer. The students are finished with exams and beginning to look toward their summer plans.
We have several students going on stateside summer projects. These are 10 week long mission trips to various locations around the US. One of our students' favorite locations is Santa Cruz, CA. Kim and I spent the summer or 2004 there. It is on of the most beautiful parts of our country. We stayed in the luxurious Peter Pan Motel. I think that AAA rated the Peter Pan a 4 diamond resort...of course that wasn't the American Automobile Association rating. It was the American Association of Anyplace is fine with me. Nine months out of the year the Peter Pan Motel is the type of place where you pay by the hour. The Summer Project comes in and completely cleans out the place and gets it ready for 70 college students to live there. The students get jobs on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. There they work in the game areas, selling souvenirs, operating the rides (my favorite was the swinging spinning thingie that I nicknamed the "Vomitron."), or sell food. The interesting thing about the food at the Boardwalk is that everything is fried. I mean everything; garlic fries, funnel cakes, hushpuppies, and Twinkies. Yep, you read that right...deep fried Twinkies. Just in case you woke up one morning and thought, "You know what? My blood is flowing just a little too freely this morning. I need to tighten up those arteries." The students will then use the relationships they form in these jobs to share their life and the Gospel (I Thess 2:8).
Some other students will be spending their summer in Ekaterinburg, Russia. They will spend 6 weeks helping to establish a campus ministry among the students of that city. Kim and I had the privilege of spending two summers in Russia leading these Summer Projects. God is doing a great work among the students of Russia. The most exciting part is that the students who come to faith in there will be able to go out and share the Gospel in parts of the world where an American can't easily go. God turning that country, who had rejected God for 80 years, into a blessing for the nations (Zech 8:13).

This summer, Kim and I will be spending the summer in Orlando, FL. We are taking some seminary classes to help with our theological development. We are excited about learning more about how to interpret and teach God's Word. We always like to spend the summer with students training them in new ways to share their faith, especially in cross-cultural situations. We know, however, that this summer will help us to be better at our job.

Please be praying for our students and us as we enter into our summer assignments.