a couple little updates for you all...

last week one of my students and i went to a skatepark after house group to hang out some. (the one i wrote about in a recent post). He brought his skateboard, i brought my bike, and we just hung out a bit. Now, I have ridden my bike all too much since my knee surgery, but i told him if he wanted to go hang out, i'd be down. well, there was a little kid there, also on a bmx. and after just riding around a bit, i remembered that every time i see someone else on a bike that I kind of want to talk to them, you know, since we have bikes in common and all. so I went up to the kid, said hello, asked him how long hes been riding and such. we talked, and he told me he thought i was good. it made my week. no joke.

now, more important things...

I found out last week that I was placed on the team that will be taking students to the Domincan Republic during spring break this coming march. I am super excited about this opportunity, and I think it will be an amazing opportunity to grow and experience God not only for the students we are taking, but for myself as well. I dont know really any of the details yet other than cost and that we will be there for 8 days, but I will post more as soon as I know.

Also, Student Impact's vision verse for this year is James 1:27, about true religion being about serving widows and orphans in their distress. With that we are going to have many different opportunities throughout the year for students and leaders to live our this verse by serving widows and orphans.

One of the ways we are doing this: Student Impact is teaming up with a school in Samfya, Zambia. The high school that we are directly working with has about 1000 students enrolled, none of which have textbooks. Now, without textbooks the students do not have opportunities to study and to learn outside of the notes that they take in class. This is a major hinderance to their future, because without having a good education they are unable to find decent jobs. Well, we want to take action and change that.

So, rather than going ONLY on a serving trip there (which is also happening over spring break), we are taking action to get textbooks into each of these students hands. We have learned that for only $25 / student, we are able to put enough textbooks in their hands tol cover their entire 3 years in high school. (for those of you that have been in college, or have had to replace a lost textbook in grade school, you know that $25 doesnt even cover the cost of a half of a book in America). So, with this information, Student Impact is seeking to raise $25,000 dollars by the end of the year to purchase textbooks for each of the students, and enable them to learn, grow, and have the opportunity at a successful future.

We cast this vision at our service this past weekend, and by the time we cast if, the staff alone had already pooled together a little over $4000 dollars, which is enough to cover about 165 of the students out of the 1000.

Fall is in full effect here. leave changing, and falling all over streets and yards. I've never seen a fall like this, and I must say I like it.

Thats all I've got for right now. Hope all is well with my friends and family reading this.