July Update

It's hard to believe that the school year starts in less than 2 months. The past month has been full of planning and meeting with students, spending time on campus in the IV office, tracking down people in coffee shops throughout the Twin Cities, and a lot of time spent with open Word documents and papers scrawled with marginally understandable notes outlining a semester's worth of programming, outreach, and discipleship. It's all building up to the first week of September when we try to tell as many students as possible about the opportunities available through InterVarsity's ministry on campus. It's all starting to come together into a comprehensible form, but there's still plenty of work left to do.

I have been able to meet with most of the student leaders for this coming year. They're an exciting group (to say the least), and I'm starting to understand what they're passionate about and how they are preparing to contribute to God's work at Hamline. The specific roles they will take on in the coming year are pretty much all figured out, so please be in prayer for them as God works to prepare them over the next couple months.

On the funding front, over 90% of my initial goal has been committed! Quite exciting, I know...it's been a real blessing to not only have so many people coming alongside this ministry, but also to share what God has called me to for the coming years. To all of you, thank you so much for all your support.

Over the next few weeks, a few things that can be prayed for:

-Continued guidance in the planning process. I am brainstorming with the student leaders about many different topics for this coming year. Small group structure, Vision for ministry, Events, Scheduling, all that stuff.
-New students. We're still a few months away from school starting, but I believe God is right now preparing students for ministry on campus at Hamline.
-Funding. Prayer is always appreciated for this aspect of ministry. Just a few more percentage points to go right now, and I'm always looking for new opportunities to share about this ministry with others.

Think that's it for now. Hope you all have a beautiful weekend.
-Deron