It has actually been almost exactly one year since we sent out our first newsletter. Kelly was in her second trimester, I had just finished CCO’s New Staff Training, and we were trying to learn our way around Mt. Vernon and Kenyon College. We received a phone call inviting us out to dinner with a few students who had been working for Kenyon’s Summer Conferences. We were very excited and very nervous. This would be Kelly’s first interaction with Kenyon students and only my second interaction. We went out to eat at Hoggy’s Bar and Grille – a place with delicious, barbeque meals – as a going away meal because one of the Summer Conference student workers was leaving the next day. We had a great time and were grateful to have met these students, but we certainly weren’t really in their lives at that point.
Well, one full year has passed. Kelly and I have had a great school year here at Kenyon, and
we’ve had a great summer, too! This summer, we worked alongside those Summer Conferences students, most of whom we knew from the school year. And the same student who we went to Hoggy’s for last year, came back after already graduating, and worked one last summer here at Kenyon. Furthermore, we went out to eat at Hoggy’s as a going away party for him – again. Looking at this picture makes me think of how grateful I am for how far God has taken us into relationship with Kenyon students since that first, somewhat awkward, meal, and the awkwardness shown in the after-meal picture from last summer’s Hoggy’s trip.Our first newsletter talked about the first Core Value of the CCO, All Things Belong to God. The CCO’s third Core Value is, We Love College Students. Loving these Kenyon College students is integral to what Kelly and I do, and is made possible with your prayerful support. Whether they’ve always been Christians, or if they’re new Christians, or if they don’t know Christ at all, God loves them and desires that they know him. And we pray that God will use us as instruments of his love towards them. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” ~ Romans 5:8
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