Copy

A4C End of 2017 Newsletter

Ambassadors
For
Christ


 
A4C End of 2017 Newsletter

Celebrating Traditions

Each year since I have served as Campus Minister here in Tucson, I have hosted a pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving dinner at my house. This started off as a relatively small endeavor, but has now grown to the point we have had to consider moving it elsewhere. With our emphasis this year on building relationships between college students and those who are past that stage of life, this year was exemplary so far as the size of our gathering was concerned. I have never had so many people in my house, and we had to set up tables and chairs in my backyard in order to accommodate all of the guests! Among the guests who attended were several college students for whom this was their first time at an official A4C function, including Tony (one of my basketball/softball guys) and his wife Fiona. Thankfully, with all of the support we had for the evening, there were more people bringing food than ever before. So, not only did we have a vast quantity of food, but an even more diverse selection! College students were sent home with Ziploc bags full of food to keep their bellies full for the approaching finals week, and a great time was had by all! I am so thankful to God for all of the people who have poured their lives into college students this semester, for the college students who have shared the love of Jesus among themselves and with others, and for the entire SEED Gathering and the way they have shared life together. I can truly say that this semester has been one that has caused me to give thanks to God!
 

Baking cookies for our Christmas Caroling Service. We delivered more than 12 dozen cookies to two of our neighborhood Care Centers.
Campus Minister’s Corner
  • Our basketball team made it to the second round of the playoffs where we lost to a very good team. Most importantly, the team is excited to play together again next semester; all of them have said that they want to come back! Please pray that these students will grow closer to Jesus because of the influence of our Intramural Outreach Program.
  • A4C was hosted in the home of Jim and Linda Naylor for our annual Christmas Party. We had an excellent turnout, and a VERY good time! A highlight of the night was a competitive rendition of unwrapping a ball of saran wrap. Inside the ball were various toys, trinkets, and candy – and you had pass the ball off if the next person in line “rolled doubles” with a set of dice. You should have seen the looks on people’s faces when they lost the ball just before they reached a prize!
  • The SEED Gathering engaged in our second community service effort of the semester on December 10th when we went to brighten the holidays for residents of two local assisted living facilities. We were joined by three additional members of Graham Smith’s music fraternity in caroling and offering communion and cookies to the residents; most of whom will not have an opportunity to spend the holidays with their families. I was blessed to get to talk personally with several residents, and to pray over one man who was preparing for open heart surgery the next day. The residents were very grateful for our having come out, and I believe the whole event was a blessing to our group.
Prayer Requests
Your prayers are an important part of our partnership.  Some of the areas you can pray for us: 
-- Pray for the students who we are developing to be leaders in the group and our kick-off leadership retreat. 
-- Pray for the new students, who we will meet during the Spring Semester that their hearts will be softened.
-- Pray for the SEED gathering and our relationships with our supporting churches.

 
Share
Please share our newsletter with others you think might be interested!
Share
Tweet
Forward
Donations
Donations can also be made directly through our website  http://www.a4carizona.com/donate
Ambassadors for Christ is a campus ministry of the Arizona Campus Mission Foundation. 
Student Spotlight -Araceli 
Our student spotlight this time is one of our Freshmen students Araceli. She attended Pima this semester and is not quite sure what she wants to study, but is leaning towards maybe Architecture. We asked her to share a little of her story. 
"I was born and raised in Tucson Arizona by two very young parents which had both negatives and positives. I believe it's on the positive side that I had to rely on multiple different influences in my life apart from my parents, such as my sister, that have molded me to be open minded to the world around me. I was raised catholic, baptized catholic and holidays and random Sundays we would go to our local bilingual Catholic Church for service. The service was mostly scripture reading and didn't put any importance on mixing religion with actual life. Due to this view of religion as well as my interactions with religious people I fell out of my faith around 12 years old. My parents began getting a divorce which led to multiple events that questioned my faith strongly and my faith at the time did not succeed. Fast forward to high school era I had an abusive boyfriend and a bad home life. The abusive boyfriend later turned into an ex boyfriend who stalked me and turned just about everyone against me. Home wasn't welcoming and neither was school with everyone on the ex boyfriends side. I got heavily involved with drinking and drugs by my junior year of high school and eventually I even parted from my work friends to join a more reckless crowd. Towards the end of my junior year I was a victim of sexual assault. Following the assault I had multiple suicide attempts and fell into a deeper depression. I was willing to do anything to give meaning to my life again. Luckily for me I had been invited to play in the snow with a friend of mines youth group. With that at the back of my mind I sent a message to her youth minister Jessica hoping she could help me with some of my life questions. This led to being invited to their summer camp and their mission trip. I was eager to leave my troubles behind and start new. The youth group did not only that but it sparked my faith again. On a mountain at camp I had my God moment. I felt his presence with me and was able to cry out all the pain I'd endured in my life and feel rejuvenated again. 
I love the community of A4C. Everyone is open minded and extremely helpful and reliable in our journeys of faith. It's great to have people that you can talk to about your relationship with God and even more so get help in strengthening it.
God has never failed me in making everything work out. When something goes wrong there's something that comes right after to fix it. For example, due to my upbringing I don't have a good relationship with my parents, but our girls bible study read a book called the five love languages which has been helping me to rebuild those relationships in my life. I was very very broken and I sincerely thought that this life was over for me. I truly believed I was worthless and had no place in this world. But then just at my breaking point, God came through for me with Jessica Knapp and Jesse Warren to help me with my faith again. An old friend named Tanner came up in my life again at just the right time to show me how joyous and alive life can be! God has placed everything in just the right place for me to be in his kingdom and to be happy again.
I would want alumni and potential donors to know that A4C is an amazing community that can become a family for people like me who may not have the strongest at home. A4C gives me the opportunity to help others in our service projects, worship in the way that I connect to God the most: our singing, strengthen my faith by providing multiple outlets to ask questions and get the best answers available to me and have a community of people that I can count on when I need it." 
Copyright © 2017 Arizona Campus Mission Foundation, All rights reserved.


unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences 

Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp