None Live For Themselves...

Hello, friends! 

This post will be my last post as a single man... Let's think about that for a second...

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Ok, back to it.

The next time you will be reading this blog, I will be a married man.  Imma have me a wife!  =0). 

I've been told that the married life is great.  It's not always easy but it is great.  There are a ton of reasons to be looking forward to marriage. 

- How awesome is it going to be to spend the rest of my life w' my best friend?  Seriously, Meg and I have grown together so much over the past few years that we've known each other.  She's made me a more emotionally mature person and I thank God for every second that I get to spend with her, even when we're having disagreements. 

- I'm looking forward to (hopefully) modeling a healthy Christian relationship for our students.  There is so much brokenness on the college campuses, especially when it comes to relationships.  Folk don't know where to look and they don't know what is healthy and right in the eyes of God.  My hope is that Meg and I will be able to show our students how to love one another in a way that gives glory to God and advances the kindgom. 

- Something that I've been thinking about for a while has been how to really not live for myself.  The idea of marriage is exactly that.  I am no longer just Adam Leong.  I am not Megan and Adam Leong.  My job is not to live for my own desires and what I want.  It is to love and serve Meg, even if it means sacrificing my own preferences and desires.  For some reason, I am looking forward to giving that a shot.  That is exactly how Christ lived and how I want to live.  I am glad that I get to begin that journey with Meg.

There are tons of other reasons why I am looking forward to getting married.  Right now, my favorite though is that I will get first hand experience at not living for myself. 

With that in mind, when I return, there may be some changes to the blog.  You'll still hear plenty from me about the things that are going on at Mizzou, Maryville, Columbia College, Florissant Valley, and whatever else is going on in my life but you may also see the occassional post about some of the great stuff that Meg is doing at UMSL.  Y'all, she's doing some pretty amazing stuff. 

So, sit back, relax, take a few weeks off, and get ready for US (not just me) to come back better than ever! 

Have an excellent day! 

~Adam

A Tiring, Restful Sabbath...

Hello, friends!

Y'all, I am really sore today.  Not just because I've been sleeping on a couch for the past few weeks.  No, I'm sore because I had one of the best Sabbaths in a long time. 

Sabbath is one of those interesting things that goes through seasons with me.  I absolutely believe that it is a biblical truth and that everyone should take regular Sabbath as a part of their walk with Jesus.  A few of the passages that have helped me in my Sabbath journey are Hebrews 4, Exodus 20, and Luke 9.  One of the most formative conference talks I ever heard was when a staff spoke on the Sabbath and one of the best trainings I ever received was on the Sabbath. 

Here's the trick that I've learned with Sabbath: do what gives you life.  Sabbath is not just about sleeping.  It's not about being lazy.  It's about doing what gives you life and finding ultimate rest in God.  So, what made this Sabbath so life giving?  Softball season started.  =0).

Men's slowpitch softball is pretty much the greatest thing ever.  I'm just going to put it out there.  There is no part of men's slowpitch softball that I don't like.  There's competition.  There's male comraderie.  There's athleticism.  There's baseball like motions.  There's strategy.  There's execution.  It makes my heart very happy. 

Is our team very good?  Absolutely not.  We got beat 14-2 yesterday, which activates the mercy rule.  We had trouble hitting, had plenty of miscues in the field, and walked too many batters.  The team we were playing were definitely better than us.  But, none of that matters because we got to play softball.

At the end of the day, I'm sore and we lost big.  But, I had an amazing Sabbath and I thank Jesus for the chance to rest in His rest while tiring myself running around the bases. 

Prayer Points:
- Less than 5 days until Meg and I tie the knot!  It's finally here!  Please pray for all the logistics that need to get done.  My parents' flight has already been delayed a few hours.  Let's pray that this is the worst thing that happens this week. 
- Please also be praying for Meg and my students these next few weeks as we prepare for the wedding then go on our honeymoon.  Please pray that they will continue forward with the mission and that great things will be happening on campus while we aren't there. 

Have an excellent day! 

~Adam

9 days...

Hello, friends! 

Depending on when you read this, in 9 days, I will be married to the love of my life and my best friend, Meg.  That's pretty exciting, right? 

To commemorate the 9 days until our wedding, here is a song by 9 days: 


In case you are reading this on Friday, here is a song to commemorate 8 days:



And, just in case you don't get to see this until Saturday, here's a little something for you:



Hooray!  Here are a few ways to be praying for us:

- We still have some details and preparations to take care of before we walk down the aisle.  Please pray that we will be able to get those things done and stay sane in the process. 
- September leads to October which leads to migraines for me.  Please pray for good health.  I had a bad one yesterday. 

Have an excellent day! 

~Adam

 

Windshield Planting...

Hello, friends!

As you  guys know, I have the pleasure of training 3 interns on 3 different campuses across Missouri.  Robert is working with me at Flo Valley, Wes is scouting Maryville University, and Charis is working at Mizzou and Columbia College.  Hmm, I guess that's 4 campuses.  =0). 

 

Well, Wes just sent me this email and I thought I would send it along.

Wesley,

Sounds great! I'm excited to hear your vision and more about invervarsity christian fellowship. After I got your email I looked it up on the internet....I didn't realize it was such a huge organization! I would be willing to meet up at the Kaldi's on campus anytime, if that works for you. I'm going to try and get a few friends interested as well to bring along because many of them are Christians, but uninvolved in any clubs/fellowships! My schedule is crazy with classes, work, homework, and trying to visit my newborn twin nephews...so let me know what times you are available and I'll see what lines up with my schedule!

Thanks!

K

A missional student at Maryville! That's great, right? Well, it gets better. Here's how they met:

Wesley was in the parking lot at Maryville and saw a car with some Christian bumper stickers on it. He then proceded to write a note that "basically said that I noticed the two stickers on the car and introduced myself as part of InterVarsity. I said we're seeking to potentially start a chapter at Maryville and asked to connect with the owner of the car to either learn more about the campus or share some vision with a fellow believer." He then put the note in a plastic bag to protect it from dew (I love engineers!) and left it on her windeshield. As Wes put it, "It was really sketchy in hindsight." =0).

I love it when folk take risks,  I love it when those risks lead to awesome things.  I love it when God moves unexpectedly. 

 

Have an excellent day!

~Adam

Margins...

Hello, friends!

I know that I have been talking about my crazy travel schedule and such for a few weeks now.  I am still getting used to it.  In fact, today is one of the rare 12 hour CoMO days.  I drove in this morning and will be heading back to Saint Louis tonight for staff meetings tomorrow.  The Rolla is definitely getting a good run.  =0).

One of the things that I have been learning as how to cope with all this craziness is to create margin.  What is margin?  Pretty much, it is me allotting time for things to take longer and go wrong.  Doing so has actually made my life a little bit more manageable. 

Let me give you an example.  On Tuesdays, I have meetings with Jordan, Charis, Tim, and the ACF Leaders.  The most efficient thing would be for me to stack them one on top of the other, going rapid fire through all the meetings in order to have the largest block of free time at the end of the day.  But, instead, I spaced them out a bit.  I meet with Jordan @ 2, Charis @ 4, Tim @ 6, and the leaders @ 9.  What I love about this is that it gives me freedom to let the Spirit move as He does. 

Sometimes these meetings take longer than anticipated.  When they do, I have the margin to let those conversations go, knowing that I have time until my next appointment.  Other times, they run exactly as planned and I get a little bit of time to decompress and prepare for the next meeting.  Sometimes, things even take shorter than anticipated.  In those instances, I can start my next meeting early, get some extended time to decompress, or even get a little bit of time to get some other work done. 

What I love best about this is that when I am more calm and not totally flustered going into a meeting, it allows me to better serve students.  Time to decompress after the previous meeting means that I will not be taking my thoughts and emotions from that meeting into my next meeting.  That leads to better meetings and more time to hear from the Spirit. 

Admittedly, it isn't the most efficient thing to do from a day to day standpoint.  Sometimes I will have 10 or 15 minutes between meetings, which isn't quite enough to do anything well.  But, even in these times I trust that Jesus knows what is good for me.  I must need those 15 minutes.   

Prayer Points: There's just one prayer request for me.  Right now, until I move into my new apartment (after the wedding), I am sleeping on couches.  It's just 18 days until I get a wonderful bed (as well as an incredible wife!) but until then, my back is starting to feel it.  Please pray for healing and comfort in the midst of sleep. 

Have an excellent day! 

~Adam

Exciting!!!

Hello, friends!

Exciting, exciting news! 

On Thursday, Robert and I went tabling at Flo Valley, to try and meet students who might be interested in being a part of InterVarsity.  My last post talked about some of the fun and interesting people that we met while we were tabling.  What came just a few minutes after I posted, was this email from Emma, one of the students who we met on Thursday:

It was nice meeting you guys too, I appreciate what you guys are doing on campus.  I would love to hang out with you guys and learn more about your stories as well, and how and why you guys do this stuff :)  I would love to see more community on our campus, so that is something I would definitely consider being a part of.

I will be on campus on Monday, and am free anytime after 12:15 :)

I am also thinking about going to the fall conference.

Thanks so much,

Emma

For me, the best thing about this email is that I was totally sure that we Emma was a lost cause.  When we were talking on Thursday, there was another guy that was looking at the proxe so I invited him to join our conversation.  He started going off on Christianity and how it was the same telling of the same story that has been told for thousands of years in mythology and such (I wrote about him last week).  I was trying to get the conversation moving and I was certain that Emma was going to check out before things got too weird.  I guess I need a little more work on reading people, eh? 

Have an excellent day! 

~Adam

More fun with Tabling!

Hello, friends!

Today was definitely a fun day.  Robert, one of our InterVarsity interns, and I went to Flo Valley to do some tabling and see if we could get some folk interested in joining InterVarsity at Flo Valley.  One of the fun things about tabling is that you get to meet some of the most interesting people.  Here are some of the folk I encountered today (names have been changed):

- Donna is a 48-year-old student @ Flo Valley, working to get her degree in social work.  Her greatest goals in life are to walk down the graduation aisle (she couldn't afford the cap and gown when she graduated high school) and to walk down the wedding aisle. 

- Jimmy is an agnostic student who has been living with brain cancer for the past 6 years.  By his view, Christianity is the same story that folk have been telling each other for thousands of years.  Belief in self is the most important belief out there. 

- Rick is a student who considers himself a Christian but doesn't go to church because it was too boring.  He believes that the world is messed up but not because of sin, because of the Illuminati that is currently running the government.  Their goal is to erradicate 80% of the world's population to a managable size. 

How can you not have fun talking with these students about Jesus?!  Robert did a great job talking to students and I'm sure that the students he met were just as interesting as the ones I met. 

What I love most about tabling is that you have no idea who you are going to meet and what they are going to need.  Sometimes the students who you would never expect to have any interest in Christianity really open up once you actually take the time to have a conversation with them. 

As much fun as tabling is, now the real fun begins.  Now it's time to follow-up and have those secondary conversations with students, to see if they want to continue to join us in community as we reach the campus with the Gospel. 

Please pray for us as we have these conversations.  Pray that students will be open to what we're trying to do and that this will lead to more connections. 

Have an excellent day! 

~Adam

The Big Lesson...

Hello, friends! 

During my 5+ years of working for InterVarsity, there are a number of things that I have learned about college students, about working with college students, about leading college students, and about caring for college students.  Much of this is intuitive; much of it is not.  I'm not THAT far removed from my time in college so I can see that some things haven't changed much since my time @ WashU (GO BEARS!!!).  There are still the same questions: What classes I should take take, how many classes should I take, should I get a job, should I start dating him/her, should I stop dating him/her, what am I doing this summer, what am I doing next semester, what am I doing with my life, and things of that nature.  When I was going through them, I thought they were the most crucial questions in the history of mankind.  Now that I lead students as they go through these questions, I have a much haughty view of these seemingly great mysteries. 

Through all of it, the one thing that I have learned works above all else is this: no matter what you do, follow where Jesus is leading you.  Students have started dating and it has worked, other times it hasn't.  Students have taken more or fewer classes with varying results.  Students have stepped up into leadership, stayed in leadership, and stepped down from leadership, all with different consequences.  The truth of the matter is that as much as I would love for there to be some sort of secret formula for college students to graduate with vibrant relationships with Jesus, the fact of the matter is that the only consistancy I have seen is that those who earnestly seek to do what Jesus wants them to do, regardless of what the decision is, end up graduating in better shape than those who don't. 

Sometimes Jesus wants us to lead.  Sometimes he doesn't.  Sometimes he wants us to pursue relationship.  Sometimes he doesn't.  The only way that we can have anything that resembles an idea of what God actually wants for us is to ask Him.  And, to ask others to ask Him on our behalf. 

When students come to me with decisions already in their minds of what needs to happen, my first question is always this: How did you come to this decision?  When I hear things like, "I have been praying about it and feel like God is calling me here," or, "I really get the sense that God is moving me in this direction," I affirm the call and talk about where we go from there.  However, when I hear, "Well, it just sort of made sense," or, "This was the only way it could be," red flags go up for me.  If I press a little harder, I usually find that students haven't been seeking Jesus in the midst of these decisions.  At that point, I ask them to hold off on the decision for a few days, surround themselves with folk who will pray for them, and earnestly seek Jesus for direction.  Sometimes the answer is the same and sometimes it is different. 

Understand, these students aren't bad people.  It's not like anyone is intentionally ignoring Jesus.  I think it's more the idea that waiting and seeking are hard disciplines to learn.  I still have trouble with it.  But, it is a skill that is imperative to being a follower of Jesus.  That is my goal.  My goal is not to graduate excellent students or InterVarsity All-Stars.  My goal is to graduate followers of Jesus. 

Have an excellent day! 

~Adam