Ministry can be both sweet and challenging. It is a sacrifice for me to live far from family to serve the college students at Purdue. I also dread being in the cold for half the year when I'm used to Florida's mild winters! I could complain about this, but instead I will focus on the positives. I know this is where God wants us right now and there are a lot of benefits to being here. For instance, a lot of our family fun time during the school year is in conjunction with RUF. It's been a perk to have our kids grow up observing these young adults love the Lord and spending time with our kids.
One of our favorite parts about campus ministry is that Curtis gets to be involved in lots of weddings! In the beginning of September, Curtis officiated the wedding of Tana and Brian Kish. We have spent the last 4 years getting to know Tana in college and we've learned about Brian along the way. It was a beautiful wedding!
We even got a few family pictures at the reception:
There are a few times when me and the kids don't get to attend some RUF activities. Fall Conference is one of those. Though we were sad to miss, it meant that I had some special time with the kids! Sometimes I was in survival mode though because Curtis does so much to serve our family! We played with sidewalk chalk and made a note for him:
Here's the note closer up. I love how Anna made sure to add in his age!
Something that we had been looking forward to for over a year was the 10 year anniversary of RUF at Purdue that happened on October 11-12!
Curtis worked very hard to plan the events and it all turned out very good! It was an encouraging weekend where we were able to see how God has been at work through various people (campus ministers, various students, interns) through this ministry. It was beautiful to see reunions of friends who have dispersed throughout the country all in one room!
We had a really tasty cake!
Curtis's dad even joined us for the celebration!
My favorite moment was hearing Curtis share with all the supporters and alumni about how RUF at Purdue has changed him. Though I am not in RUF at Purdue or on staff with them, I have the privilege of having a front row seat of watching the ministry and all involved. Curtis came into RUF with his own experiences of what RUF at UF (our alma mater) was like and expecting it to be similar. We learned quickly that Purdue has its own culture that is different than the University of Florida and we had to let our ministry expectations die. It was painful and hard at times, but it has been beautiful to see God's plans were much bigger and better than our own. I don't think Curtis and I expected God to change us in the process!
Every year, we try to attract new students to our ministry so that it continues. If we didn't, we wouldn't have a ministry within 3 years when all our current students graduate! RUF at Purdue has become a place where we have slowly learned what works and doesn't work at Purdue. We have had many failures over the years and many successes. There have been huge events that have been rained out and yet God still provides new students. There have been amazing events that just weren't well attended because of other events occurring at the same time. We have learned that success of the ministry depends LESS on us and more on God alone. We used to look at RUF at UF and think that our campus minister was the reason for the growth and we are now seeing that it was actually more of the student leaders! We are so grateful for each person who has been involved in RUF at Purdue over the last 10 years!
The next day, we had a tailgate where alumni, supporters and all our current students were invited to attend. It was well-attended!
Over the last year, we've had a tradition of singing Country Roads as a way to bond our group together. It was neat to see a variety of students join in that don't even know each other!
Kate was just thrilled to see one of her favorite people, Van!!
We went to the Homecoming football game with several people who joined our RUF block, including the previous campus minister, Brian Davis. He was the one who first started RUF at Purdue and he did such a great job during his 4 years here!
It was Drew and Kate's first football game! Anna went when she was about Drew's age, but she doesn't remember it at all. I think they had a great time learning about football. Purdue even won the game!
Kate just hopped around during the game to her favorite people. In addition to Van, she was very happy to see Kaity and Carrie!
Eventually, Drew passed out. He just couldn't handle skipping a nap.
The next week we had our annual RUF Pumpkin Carving event.
Anna chose Morgan to help her carve her pumpkin!
Kate chose Kaity!
I even got in on the action a little bit!
Check out this HUGE s'more that Anna ate! When I ordered the marshmallows online, I didn't realize how large they would be! I think it just enhanced the experience. :)
