January Opportunities...

God has really been working in my life recently, and I have tried to stop and actually listen.  What I am hearing is that I work in a "mission field" every single day and there are so many opportunities right at my finger tips every day I walk onto campus and into my office.  

Sam and I have talked a lot about this, and she told me one thing that has stuck in my head more than anything.  She said there are students like her who need to see a "family" in something as simple as sitting down at the table for a meal.  And then there are those students that are just so homesick and are wanting so badly to sit down at the table with a family. 

I am going to continue to look for opportunities and ways to serve the students, but I am going to start by taking at least one student a month to lunch and have at least one student a month over for dinner.  

It just so happened that this past week I did lunch with a student and had two students over for dinner.  And honestly, I'm not sure who enjoyed it more...me, the students, or my family.  What a blessing it was with such little effort to make it happen.

I didn't take a picture when we went to lunch, but I had this fun picture...this is Katie, who I took to lunch this past Wednesday. She plays basketball and has come to me recently to just "talk" so of course, she was the first one that came to my mind.  Some students will be so easy to take to lunch...others will push me out of my comfort zone.  But...really doing missions is going out of your comfort zone so I do plan to do that as well...just maybe not the first time.

Not necessarily out of my comfort zone either, but we had Kim and Benton over for dinner Sunday night.  If you cannot tell, my kids were SUPER excited.  The other thing I love about this is that my kids can be a part of this "ministry" with me.  I want them to grow up seeing that we "cared" about people and opened our home up to others with hopes they will do the same when they have families and homes of their own.

It was a fun night with special students as well as athletes.  These two work their tails off in their sports and in the classroom.  Loved getting to invest a little time in their lives and hopefully even when times are hard they will know there are others that care besides their families.