Fall Retreat

Last weekend we held our annual Fall Retreat at Lakewood Park Bible Camp in Devils Lake, ND.  It was a really fun weekend as we had students from every area in our scope there with us.  There were about 100 students that joined us, including about 10 from Mayville, as well as two from Crookston and Northland!

The weekend was great!  Our speaker, Dusty, was extremely passionate in bringing us to God's Word and challenging our hearts.  We were challenged with the ideas of where our Identity lies, what it looks like to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit, God's Character and why he is worth pursuing over everything else in our lives (including school work and our major,) and finally how there is a crimson cord running through all of scripture about Jesus and God's desire for all people to know Him.  We even ended the weekend on Sunday with a call to go, really a call for students to surrender their summer to the Lord and go on a Summer Mission or to surrender their life after graduation to give a year to Intern/STINT or join staff with Cru.  It was so fun to watch students grow closer to Jesus and allow their hearts to be challenged to pursue Jesus above all else.  Many of the things that we heard were even good and challenging for my heart as well.  About 20 students surrendered their summer to the Lord and two also surrendered to give a year after graduation.

This week I (Kamaya) met with Emily who came to Fall Retreat.  She has been coming to Cru and Bible study in her dorm, and I had met with her before and shared the gospel.  She said then that she wanted a relationship with God, but wasn't ready.  After talking with her about her fall retreat experience she shared with me that she fully surrendered her life to Jesus at Fall Retreat.  Praise God for what he did in Emily's life and the lives of others at Fall Retreat.

Here are a few glimpses of our weekend at Fall Retreat:

Arriving at the Camp for Fall Retreat

Blowing some Fruit Loops on a String for a game during a Session.

Blowing Fruit Loops was pretty hard work.

Staff Women creating small groups.

Jacque Running Registration.

Worship

Carissa sharing her testimony of how she gave her life to Christ at Fall Retreat last year.

Dusty sharing with us from God's Word.

Taking a stroll during free time.

Football During Free Time.

More Football.

Football

Volleyball During Free Time.

Football

Volleyball

Watching Football

Football

Hanging Out & Watching Football

Football

The Whole Group

The First Week

The week before school began we started with a staff retreat!  It was fun to hang out with our team and bond with them a bit before the year began.  This was especially fun because three new people were added to our team this year...Jake & Jacque (Jake went to school at NDSU with Todd...and it's fun to have another Bison on our team) and Cody, who recently graduated from UND and is interning with us this year.  Praise God for our team!

Our Team at Staff Retreat!

One day after staff retreat, we left for our leadership retreat at Turtle River State Park.  Our student leaders came back a few days early so that we could have some quality time together for them to bond before school began and so that we could equip them to meet students and share the gospel the first week of school.

A good old fashion game of Alaskan Football at Leader's Retreat.

More Alaskan Football.

Training and Equipping Time.

Some fun hang out time in the park!

Most of our leaders and staff (Some students left before this picture was taken.)

And then the year was off and running.  Sunday night was the student organization fair, that got moved indoors because of weather.  It was a great time to meet students and have them fill out surveys...especially since they could win a $250 Target Gift Card!

The Student Organization Fair.

Taking Surveys at the fair.

More surveys at the Fair.

Monday afternoon we had a party in the quad where we played volleyball, bag toss, spike ball, and ladder ball with anyone who wanted to join us.  Tuesday night we had our first Cru Meeting and it was packed!  It was so much fun to see so many new faces that we didn't recognize.

First Cru Meeting

First Cru Meeting

First Cru

First Cru

Wednesday afternoon we did some more surveys in the Dining Center.  This time we gave away a UND Hockey Jersey in a drawing for those who filled out a survey!

Dinner Line Surveys

We ended the week with a Character Challenge Grill out at University Park.  It was so fun to have over 80 students join us for food and fun!

Character Challenge Time in the park!

 It definitely has been a busy couple of weeks!  But it was so much fun.  In between all of these events we as staff and students spent many hours meeting students that filled out surveys and sharing with them about Jesus!  So many students heard the gospel this week and at least six of them put their trust in Jesus.

Leaving NMB & National Cru Staff Conference

 It seems as though the rest of the summer has been a blur!  Our last few weeks in North Myrtle Beach went so fast and were so full that we didn't have time to give an update.  And it seems since we've been home, the same has been true.  With all that has gone on, I will try to do my best to briefly share about the rest of our summer.

I could tell you about "Killing the Giants" week and how our staff and students were trusting God to use us to give 3,000 people an opportunity to hear about how they could have a personal relationship with God.  It was a great week of learning to be stretched and to take initiative in sharing our faith in all of our free time.  Although we fell short of our goal, God did some amazing things that week and many people trusted Christ.  There were even 3-4 student that called their parents and shared the gospel with them...even some of their parents trusted Christ!

Here's a few pictures of students sharing their faith during Killing the Giants Week:

Kamaya & her disciple, Elayne, sharing their faith.

I could tell you about how the students came together during "All for One" week, learning to rely on each other and help each other out in order to accomplish simple tasks as well as big tasks.  This is always one of our favorite weeks, as we get to watch the students learn and grow to become a unit.

The students marching as ONE

Even the staff team became One during "All for One" Week

The Great Staff Team we got to work with in NMB!

The whole NMB Summer Mission for 2015 (80 Students)

I could tell you about our final banquet when we got all dressed up and said good-bye to the students, and handed the leadership over to four student directors.  It's always a fun, sad, and encouraging night all at the same time. (It's hard to believe that these student directors have been leading the summer mission for almost 5 weeks now and that they students will be coming home in about a week.)

Here are some pictures from our final banquet in NMB:

Us with our friends Desi & Kevin!  Our sixth summer on the same summer assignment!  I'm not sure what we would do in the summer without these two.  They definitely bring a sense of fun and adventure to our lives!

Sunny, Desi, Becca, and I were running buddies this summer.  We ran about 3 times a week!  Yes!  We did run in the humidity of NMB...at 7:00 AM when it wasn't too hot and humid!

These are the lovely girls that Rose and I had in our Bible study this summer.
(Karenna, Rose, Kelsey, Autumn, Katie, Elayne, Kamaya, Brooke)

Kamaya got to disciple these women this summer! (Autumn, Elayne, Brooke, & Kelsey)

Todd with the guys he discipled this summer! (Riley, Chad, Phil, Justin, Todd, Ben)

We can't forget the two students that represented UND with us this summer, Heidi & Nolan!

There are so many more things I could tell you about how God worked, how we saw students grow and change, and even how God showed up in the lives of people on the beach who put their trust in Him.  But, for now I'll just show  you a few last pictures of us on the beach!  

I mean...you can't spend the whole summer on the beach and not take some great pictures there! ;)

My best friend for life, Desi!  She's sweet, loving, caring, adventurous, honest, vulnerable, and wise!

After leaving NMB, we drove home extremely fast so that we could spend some time at Crystal Springs Camp for Family camp over the Fourth of July.  It was fun to see friends, family, and celebrate my (Kamaya's) birthday there.  

After camp, we spent a few days in Grand Forks before heading out to Colorado for our National Staff Conference, called Cru15.  It was a great time of learning and hearing vision about where we are headed as an organization.  Our time was centered around the theme "Together."  We focused on continually being people share the gospel, moving towards ethnic diversity, moving towards partnership, and continuing to be people who take the message to the world.  It was great to hear from people like Frances Chan and Andy Crouch on these topics, as well as Cru Staff Leadership.  If you want to hear some of what was shared check out the conference link at: cru15.cru.org 

Here we are in front of Moby Arena at Colorado State University.

Moby Arena, full of about 5,000 Cru Staff, listening to Steve Douglass (Cru's President.)

Worshiping with Run51, the Impact ministry band!  It was pretty fun!

Hearing from Frances Chan.