Introduction to Your Ministry Day.

The people here at NST will be going into a bunch of different Crusade ministries when they are at 100% with their support. There's us from keynote, campus staff, athletes in action, global media outreach, and more! Yesterday, we broke down into our groups and had a bit of an "introduction" to our ministry....just talking about vision, some logistics, and some question and answer.

We went to Orlando Studio's Island of Adventure. :) We did feel some pain for the other groups...back at the hotel...in the conference rooms...listening to lectures. After all, it was about 73 degrees and sunny the whole day.

We did chat about a lot of different things, and our questions were answered...so we were working a bit amidst the play! The Keynote office in Indy has a big family feel, so it was awesome to have a fun day like that to just hang out and get to know each other more.

I only have a few pictures....our HR director, Carole has the rest. There are some pretty funny pictures. I'll try to get them as soon as I can.

-J

Are we there yet? No.

Ohh, nice car!

Hurray! We're here!

The Hulk. I think that Tony & Dan are riding in the front row.

Aralyn wanted to ride the Hulk!

She's really laughing. I promise.

Last Day of Homework

I was thinking about taking a nap, but thought that I should update this thing since I found out last night that my parents love the Runyon's blog more than ours. :) We can't really compete, though. They have two adorable kids. We have a dog, though....but they do as well. We can't win. Tony's parents' place are very gracious to watch Moses while we're at training. They sent us some pictures of him......not destroying anything, which is a relief to hear!



Yesterday, we were walking to class, and Tony noticed that there was sand squishing out the front of his sandals each time he took a step. It looked pretty cool....like he was shooting sand out from his toes. Later that afternoon, he laid down on the bed and stretched his legs way above his head...all of a sudden, he jumps up and starts shaking his head and yelling: ahhh! ahhh! Evidentially all the sand hasn't made its way out of his sandals and poured into his eyes. I really hope that you can visualize that story. I wish it was on video - storytelling just does not do it justice. You just have to work with me and visualize this funny moment!

Here's a picture from our first day of classes....how appropriate to post it on the eve of our last day of classes:


We miss you all! We only have a little more than two weeks to go......and hopefully winter is done in Ohio when we get back! :)

-J

One Down - One to Go

We finished up our first week of classes yesterday. Next Friday will be our last day of classes and we have one final test next Monday [the other class is project-based]. I feel like I am in overload with knowledge. We're learning great things, but it's incredibly fast-paced. Pray that our minds retain this knowledge! This weekend we're going to be working on a project that's due next week, a little reading, and making some notecards for the test. I'm sure that doesn't sound like a great weekend, but we will be taking many study breaks...especially tomorrow, there's a Settlers of Catan tournament going all day tomorrow! :)

-J

What an interesting perspective.

Hello friends,

As we were sitting in class today, we are now learning about how to read the Bible with a Redemptive Context style. What that means is seeing how what is being said in the Bible fits "between the trees". This is something to me that makes sense, but never knew it was an actual way of studying the bible. Very interesting!

Class is going well, we are very busy it seems, because we are trying very hard in these classes. As some of you know, it takes a lot for me to focus on educational stuff. We just keep reminding ourselves that there are also over 100 other people here taking the courses alongside of us.

We miss home, but it is warmer here. We definitely miss Moses because we drop food crumbs all the time on our kitchenette floor.

-T

The senior staff took the praise band to Buca de Beppo's for dinner on Sunday night.

We had a blast getting to know each other and eating A LOT of food! :)


The pope was there, too.

It was a race for dessert.

Humbleness.

So, yesterday we made so pretty big mistakes on our 'debut' set with the band....we decided that God is teaching us humbleness. It worked. The very first song we did, the vocalist started the wrong song. In her defense, mixing up the two songs was totally not her fault. They both are written by Chris Tomlin, they both begin with the same words, and they both begin with the same chord progression. A prize goes out to the first person who can figure out which two songs were mixed up. :) For you musicians, another one was the classic mistake of one guitarist capo'ing on the wrong fret. All we really could do later was laugh. Laugh & grow.

From just yesterday to today, God grew us as a band - it's great! Of course, there still were mistakes....we all didn't come in after the drummer clicked us in....so we just stopped, laughed, and started over.

Aside from band stuff, NST is going well! We had a great men's/women's time last night, and we're hearing from speakers today and tomorrow, and then classes start up Monday! Yikes! Pray for these graduate-level classes and us as we're transitioning back to students. We thought that after we left BGSU, we were done. Nope!

-J

We'll leave you now with a picture that Tony took yesterday from our patio:

Second verse - same as the first.

The rest of the new staff arrived today. While they were getting settled in all day, we [the band] practiced...all day. It was fun. It was mind-numbing at times. But, we are finally starting to mesh together. We're pretty tired, though, so pray for our strength and memory of what we've already practiced. We had a great chat & prayer time tonight after practice about what it means to "worship" ourselves while leading others and what that looks like. Tomorrow will be crazy with more practice in the morning, and then it's go time with our first official meeting-thing tomorrow at 2 p.m.

-J

We kind of like it here.

Here some pictures! We got in a bit after 3 p.m. today and had some time to explore a bit before band practice at 5 p.m. It was 80 degrees or so, and we enjoyed that.

This is where we're staying - El Caribe.

I really wanted to run into all those birds and make them scatter. I thought that it would have made a fun picture. Tony said no, though, because lots of birds means lots of bird poo.

We like the palm trees.

We also like the view. We see this view out of our room's window! :)

Tomorrow is when all the other new staff are going to arrive and get settled in. We'll be at band practice for pretty much all of the day. We learned two songs tonight...we thought that was good progress considering we are missing a guitarist or two and they're training a new guy on the sound board. It'll be a day full of music-learning! Hurray! :)

-J

We're home [for the next 5 weeks].

We're here! We hope to post some pictures as soon as we take some! [Our camera was packed in the way back of the trunk.] We're in the process of trying to make our little efficiency "home" for the next five weeks. I think my favorite part is looking out the window and seeing the waves of the ocean roll onto the beach! Wow, God is a great creator! :) We'll meet up with the rest of the people in the band in a little bit, here. Hurray!

-J

Road Trip.

We got in to South Carolina last night to stay with friends, Alisha & Pam. It's so great to see them! We're going to go to church with them today and see what South Carolina has to offer. :) We'll be heading out to Florida tomorrow morning. We've only got about 5.5 to 6 hours of driving from here! We haven't taken any pictures yet, because our camera is packed way deep in the car. The car is a sight to see, though. A drum set, 88-key keyboard plus everything else we had to take for the 5 weeks. Let's just say that Tony & Pat are pretty much awesome at packing cars! :)

-J

Prayer Needs.

A few more ways that you can pray for us are:

1 - That God will be glorified throughout everything...through driving down to FL, through learning in the seminars and classes, through meeting new people.

2 - That the praise band would mesh together quickly [we're going to be in the band while we're down at NST]. We'll meet everyone else in the band for the first time on Monday!

3 - That we would easily get back into "learning mode" as we take the seminary classes down there.

4 - That God would continue to provide for our utility bills in full. Praise Jesus as he is already providing!  :)