Megan's New Year's Resolution

Hello, friends! 

My lovely wife, Megan, wanted to post about a resolution that she will be making for next year.  Enjoy!

2014 is just around the corner. As such I have been thinking of New Year's resolutions - what to leave behind from 2013 or what to pick up in 2014. My initial idea was to give up gum - I did it in 2012 and did just fine, why not do it again?

After further pondering and reflection I have noticed that 2013 was a particularly selfish year for me. Maybe it was marriage that helped point it out - you know learning how to sacrifice for someone else and putting someone else before myself. Or maybe it was the transition from moving from St. Louis to Columbia that especially brought out my need to cling to what I have. Either way... I recognize that 2013 exposed much of my selfishness from within.

As many of you know, this summer Adam and I are taking a team of 8 students to Cambodia for an InterVarsity Global Project (Learn More Here). In preparation I am reading the book "First they Killed My Father - a daughter of Cambodia remembers" by Loung Ung, a survivor the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge was an awful regime that killed an estimated 2 million of the 7 million Cambodian people from 1975-1979. In the process, they wiped out most of the educated, teachers, doctors, nurses, and many more. As a result, there university structure is just beginning to be rebuilt leaving a great opportunity for God's kingdom to transform the structures and systems in Cambodia. 


In 2012, our InterVarsity Central region sent our first staff over to Cambodia to start an InterVarsity movement in Cambodia in partnership with OMF. This summer will be our first student team sent over. So why am I saying all of this and how does it go along with my new year's resolution? 

In recent news, there have been protests in Cambodia over workers in the clothing industry not being paid fairly. In the past year, we all heard of the factory collapse in Bangladesh that killed 1,000 people.  I am left wondering, what can I do in all this mess? I feel helpless really do change anything. One idea that I had is, what if I think more critically about the whims that I have to buy a new shirt or about the leggings that I just have to have, and instead begin to think through the systems and structures in our world that take advantage of the poor. So this year I am planning to give up buying new clothing that is from stores or companies that do not pay workers in their factories fairly. 

 

How will I know? Well, I will never know for certain, but this guide is helpful as well as other helpful resources. My hope in doing this is that I would think more critically about how my choices affect others, I would depend more on Jesus in my whims than on quick fixes, and that it would encourage others to also consider making changes to their habits that may enslave or hurt others. 
 

 

Friends, as you consider your New Year's resolutions, would you prayerfully consider joining us in the campaign to do our part to end injustice in the world.  It may not seem like much but it has the potential to have a huge impact. 

 

Have an excellent day! 

 

~Megan (and Adam)

Early Departure...

Hello, friends!

This is my seventh year here at Mizzou and I would say that even though I came from a very different context (moving from a small private, liberal arts school to a large state school) I've done my best to embrace the culture here and am pretty used to how things run.

However, there is still one thing that I haven't gotten used to about life in Columbia: Students graduating early.  At WashU, it was very rare that you had students graduating early.  Not only with the heavy class load but the fact that many folk were hyper-competitive pre-med students, there were course re-takes and such that ensured students were hanging around for a full 4 years. 

Not so much at Mizzou though.  It's much more common for students to graduate a semester, or even a year early.  This semester, we're losing 3 of our student leaders to early graduation.  Each of them was a huge contributor to ACF during their time here and we are sad to see them go but excited for the next stage of their lives.  Here's a bit on each of them.

Sarah Liz is one of those students you just can't help but love.  She is always so happy, willing to serve, and willing to take risks.  She has led an international student small group for us as well as reviving the women's small group this year.  One of the things that I have always appreciated about Sarah Liz is that she is not afraid to go where God is leading her.  She has built up great friendships with Indian students in her apartment complex and that has led to inroads into that community that we would not have had otherwise.  We are definitely going to miss her. 

I'll never forget one of my first conversations with Rachael.  We were hanging out and I wanted to get a sense of how missional our new freshman was, so I asked her a simple question: Who do you want to see come to Jesus?  I don't know if there was even a breath between when I finished the question and Rachael's answer of "my sister."  At that point I knew we had a missional student.  Since then, Rachael has shown how much of a servant's heart God has given her.  She does a great job of being thoughtful in her care for students and has definitely grown in her leadership as she's taken lead of the worship team.  No doubt, we are going to miss Rachael. 

April is Rachael's sister but she's also much more than that.  When April gave her life to Jesus (much to Rachael's delight!) it began a journey for her that has been really amazing.  April has never wavered in her love for her sorority sisters.  It was when she started following Jesus that she saw her sisters as a mission field.  Since that time, she's been working tirelessly to share the Gospel with the ladies of APhiG and we've begun to see some real openness.  It's been really fun to see April grow over this time and absolutely we are going to miss April.  Thankfully, she said she's still going to be hanging around Columbia for one more semester so we're pretty excited about that.  =0). 

Friends, there you have it.  3 more ACF leaders are riding off into the sunset.  Our hope is that ACF has blessed them half as much as they have blessed the fellowship.  Please pray for them, that wherever God leads them next, they will hear his voice and look to advance His kingdom. 

Have an excellent day! 

~Adam