The students this summer made a newsletter, and I helped them design it.  It is written from a student’s perspective, to a prayerful and financial supporter of theirs for the summer.  Each student had to raise their own support to be on project.  This is their “thank you” to those supporters!  We added a blurb to YOU!

“What did the Lord teach you this summer?”

The words taunted me from the page as I filled out my post-project staff evaluation.  I felt a wave of insecurity wash over me as I realized I hadn’t gotten some big revelation this summer.  Maybe I didn’t pray enough.  Maybe I should have spent more time reading my Bible.

In summers past, the answer to that question has taken some form of “I used to think _________ about God, but this summer He showed me _______________.”  Some new way of seeing a passage of scripture, or some new way of relating to God.

This summer has been full.  I’ve said that in previous posts, but I am confident I’ve never had more things crammed into each day than I had this summer.  I’ve been forced to meet with God… differently.

That’s when it hit me.  I have been relating to God differently this summer.  I’ve gotten some extended time to spend with God, but more importantly I’ve met God in the midst of my life.  I’ve learned (in small, gracious glimpses) what it looks like to be a full-time husband and father and a full-time minister, with a side of full-time follower of Christ.  I’ve also learned how worthless my attempts at ministry are if I am not making any attempts to be a good husband and father.

I’ve learned the spiritual value of sippy cups.  As a dad, the most spiritual thing I did at times this summer was refilling a sippy cup, or crawling on the floor “tackling” my son. In other summers I’ve met with God on my down time.  This summer I found “down time” in the strangest places.  Rocking a boy to sleep, or walking to downtown to buy dinner, or answering emails.  Down time.  I met with God all summer long, and often holding a poopy diaper in my hand.

That, I suppose, is what the Lord taught me this summer.

You might have recieved this letter (click the link above) a week or so ago.  But many of the readers of this blog aren’t on our mailing list.

Mike and Sharon Mehaffie have been on staff for 33 years with Campus Crusade for Christ.  They directed our summer project this summer in Santa Cruz.  I greatly enjoyed learning much from them about what it means to lead and what godly parents and directors look like.

Mike offered to write a letter to our ministry partners after I shared with him how things have been going financially.  We wanted to send the letter for two reasons.  First, as the title of the above link indicates, it is great from time to time for someone else to wave our flag.  You get letters twice a year from us asking for money.  Mike has an interesting perspective on raising support, having done so for so many years (he raised his salary in the midst of the last major US economic crisis!). We thought it would be good for you to hear from someone else about the impact that your giving has had, and for someone else to encourage you to continue taking financial steps of faith with us.

The second reason we wanted Mike to write a letter is that we wanted to show folks that there are people who do this as a career.  Many of the folks we challenge to join us financially may be of the impression that we are going to be in ministry for a few years and then go get “a real job.”  Our heart, however, is to be in this for the long haul.  I’m now on the verge of 30 years old, and I feel like I have learned a lot about myself and about ministry in the past 7 years.  I am just now hitting my stride.  I’d love to be in this ministry until I’m 60 years old.

The letter was not in any way meant to be just another appeal for funds.  We want to sucessfully navigate the tension between being bold in asking folks to join God in what he is doing in this ministry and being sensitive to the fact that many people are in serious financial difficulty now, and we’ve already asked for money once this summer.  Our heart is to be honest in our need (which is significant) but also fully acknowledging that God has been so faithful to grant our every need, and even many of our wants!

As always, if you have any questions or concerns about this or any other issue, please don’t hesitate to call or email me at ben.meredith@gmail.com

If you feel like God is calling you to respond to Mike’s letter, you can do that here.

Students hanging out with the internationals downtown. The 2 girls in the middle on the right are 2 of our students.

“Even as we were coming here today, I still didn’t have a good grasp on what exactly you guys are doing here”

As I shook the sand off of my foot to put my flops back on, I reflected on what Perry had just said.  Perry and Natalie are avid readers of our blog.  They typically check out our goings-on at least three times per week.  (Go ahead and comment, already!)  And even they weren’t so sure exactly what our summer was all about.

We were walking down the boardwalk, watching their kids ride roller coasters and enjoying a brisk July evening by the bay.  They drove over an hour from their house to see us.  It was great hanging out.

There’s something to be said for coming out and seeing for yourself what a summer project is all about.  But for those of you who (unlike Perry and Natalie) live thousands of miles from here, you’re relying on our blog and newsletters to communicate what we are doing.

Perry was interested to find out, for example, that the students are here for 10 weeks, and that the staff leave after 5 weeks.  That’s right, on Tuesday morning we are stuffing the last few items into our then-fully packed Windstar and heading out.  We’ve appointed and trained our replacements in every area of the project, from the student directors all the way down to Action Group Leaders of each individual study.

Once the staff leaves, the project can really start.

I don’t even remember the last name of the staff guy who discipled me on summer project in 2000.  That’s because the best part of project is once the students take over. If it wasn’t for facebook, the students here would forget my name, too.

It’s humbling to think that God is waiting for me to leave to really take my students to where he wants them.  But it’s so satisfying to know that the whole reason I am here is to set the stage for the real play.  Just because I’m not the one who gets to fire the cannon doesn’t mean it’s not exciting to load it.  I think I’m done with conflicting word-pictures.  By the end of this paragraph we’ll be firing actors out of a cannon.

So, swing by sometime between now and Tuesday.  We can get you a pass for free rides on the Boardwalk, and I’ll be able to really explain what a summer project is.

They have really big trees in California.

Why yes, that is a sidewalk-chalked spongebob. Courtesy of Dana, one of the students. Dang.

“I’m just trying to figure out why God has me here, working at the Boardwalk this summer…”

Pretty typical line to hear from one of our students.  But it didn’t come out of the mouth of one of our students.  It came out of Audrey’s mouth.

Audrey is an international student from Singapore who is involved with Campus Crusade for Christ back on her campus.  She’s here for the summer with an international exchange program that brings in students to work at the Boardwalk.  Her friend Pei-Yi is here with her.  Audrey was invited to dinner here at the Peter Pan Motel by one of our students, to meet some other Christians.  That’s when Rachel met her.

“I wasn’t expecting it, but God just dropped her right in my lap,” says Rachel, a rising sophomore at Texas A&M.

Over the course of dinner, Audrey asked Rachel if she could be in her “Action Group” Bible study this summer.  Since that’s not really an option (our studies have specific material that is geared toward summer project participants), Rachel suggested that Audrey bring some friends and they do their own study once per week.  Later that week, when Rachel and Audrey invited Pei-Yi, she was quick to respond “…but I’m not a Christian…” expecting to be told it was a believers-only party.

It wasn’t.

Rachel, Audrey, Pei-Yi, and Yi (a young believer from Malaysia) are meeting each week as an unlikely and cross-cultural Action Group.  They are going through a study called “Creation, Fall, Redemption” that clearly explains the storyline of the Bible, and points them to Jesus.  They’ve already been through week one (creation) and Rachel was pleasantly surprised that even Pei-Yi has been participating and contributing interesting points to the discussion.

“It’s not that she’s a non-Christian because she’s rejected the message of Christ—she’s simply never heard the message of Christ clearly presented,” says Rachel, adding with a smile, “I’m so sure she’s going to trust Christ this summer.”

For Audrey, hopefully it’s becoming clear why God has her here for a summer working at the Boardwalk.

Learning to walk, at the Boardwalk.

“Dude, [Anonymous Student] snores like an injured rhino.”

This past week has meant the official end of the honeymoon.  Students are coming to grips with the fact that they have over a month and a half left to live with each other, and that (contrary to first impressions) they don’t actually like everyone here.

The guy that leaves his socks on your bed is tolerable, for the first week.  By the second week, you are daydreaming about creative ways to get on his nerves.  The girl that has that “unique” laugh the first week is the girl with the “annoying” laugh the third week.

And this is precisely why I like summer projects.  We get to build into students in a “real-life” environment here in ways that you just can’t simulate anywhere else.  Nothing highlights our need for growth like exploding at a roommate because they left their dirty dishes on your beach towel, again.

Pray for this week, as we begin to teach students an option somewhere between fist-fighting and passive-aggressive facebook messages.  Resolving conflict (and learning how to resolve conflict) now will literally change the family tree of these students, as they set patterns of Biblical relationships.

If you are wondering where we take students to learn this, Check out Matthew 18:15-20.

Until then, we’ll just keep waking up the rhino, or just go ahead and put it out of it’s misery.

This has been the summer of Urgent Care.

Mike, our project director, has been to urgent care taking different students so many times this week they are starting to recognize him. From Chicken Pox to a nasty virus to fainting and head colds, we’ve seen a lot, and taken several trips to the hospital.  But it appears this isn’t the first time we’ve been around this particular block.

Julie, one of the staff from Texas, went in with one of her girls who ended up having a mild case of pink eye.  While in the room, she got into a conversation with one of the nurses.  It turns out this nurse had cared for a person from the summer project last year.

That person (we don’t know who it was) had encouraged this sweet nurse in her faith, and the nurse had gone on to rededicate her life to Christ, and has been actively pursuing Him this year, gotten plugged into a local church, and is growing.

All because some sick student had taken a step beyond their comfort zone in an attempt to make Christ famous.  It’s so fun to see the sapling from someone else’s seed!

While we don’t want to have to take any more trips to the Urgent Care, it’s our prayer that we will continue to be available to go and share the love of Christ, wherever he might send us.

John-Michael (that’s one guy) and Spenser, two students from the University of Arkansas, had no idea what to expect when they set out.  Their assignment: get into spiritual conversations with folks in downtown Santa Cruz on a cool, summer Saturday night.

They walked slowly down the busy sidewalk, tentatively glancing around in search of the least intimidating group of people they could find.  Two older gentlemen caught their eye, and they decided to initiate a conversation.  John-Michael introduced himself by mentioning that they were with Campus Crusade for Christ, and interested in learning more about the spiritual beliefs of people in Santa Cruz.  Quickly, one of the older guys piped up, “Well, what do you believe?”  Taken aback, John-Michael tried to briefly and comprehensively explain his worldview.

“Well, if you are religious…” the old man interrupted, “then you must believe in the talking rocks…”  Spenser and John-Michael looked at one another and silently came to the decision that nervous laughter was the appropriate response.

It was not.

See, this guy really believed in the talking rocks (whatever they are) and spent the greater part of 20 minutes berating Spenser for his disrespect of the speaking stones.

Meanwhile John-Michael had gotten into a much more civil conversation with the other gentleman.  Civil, but no less fantastic.  This guy was convinced that many years ago he met God while naked and on a Peyote trip in the forest.  While Spenser “got the shaft” for carelessly addressing the talking rocks, John-Michael was busy hearing the therapeutic and spiritual benefits of a good naked romp in the redwoods with mother earth and the spirits (which sounds like a great name for an up-and coming rock band with a female lead… mother earth and the spirits).

Fellas, we are not in Arkansas anymore.  Welcome to Santa Cruz.

Benjamin doing a little couponing with all of his mom’s expired ones.

I was paired with Patrick, who interned with Campus Crusade along with his wife Molly this past year at the University of Texas.  We took turns sharing how we could use prayer.  I shared how I need wisdom to balance ministry life with family life on project.  I know how to do ministy (or at least I know more about that than I do about how to be a husband and father…) and so my tendency is to default to the campus minister version of a work-a-holic, pouring myself into ministry activity at the expense of my family.

I guess it’s a good thing he prayed.  Who knows how poorly I’d be doing finding balance otherwise.

It’s been a difficult time so far balancing things like staff meetings, meeting with the two students I have been assigned to, helping Jacqueline set up and tear down for meal times (our portable high chair is paying for itself many times over), helping give leadership to the praise band, running sound at various events, spending quality time with my wife who feels most loved by quality time, changing diapers, and finding time somewhere in there to cultivate a relationship with Christ.

The speaker we had come to our “Monday Night Live” meeting two nights ago might as well have been reading from my journal as he described his walk with the Lord in his 20’s and 30’s.  He confessed that his passion for ministry at times eclipsed his passion for his family, not intentionally, but slowly over time. He let his “one thing” become ministry instead of Jesus.

Walking by faith is tough, and scary.  It’s much easier to find a counterfeit and follow after it.  It helps me to understand how the Israelites, just days removed from the Lord’s leadership through Moses, could build a golden cow and worship it.  It’s easier to walk by sight.  My heart is so quick to build counterfeit deities to bow down to, like successful ministry, or a full bank account, or a good appearance to others.  It’s tempting to only blog about the good stuff.

The Christian life is impossible.  How often I forget that the only way to be victorious, to keep all the balls I’m juggling in the air at the same time is to surrender to Christ.  I long for the day that I will selflessly serve my wife.  I long for the day that my interests will be the last thing I think about.

One of the things that I have forgotten hundreds of times since I first heard it is the fact that Jesus, through His Holy Spirit, longs to give me the power I need to live this Christian life.  He has placed in me a new heart, with new desires and new power to fulfill those God-honoring desires.  I’m like a soldier using a knife to fight with, unaware of the assault rifle strapped to my back.

So, keep praying, Patrick.