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benandmandiwood
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Name: Ben & Mandi
Country: United States
State: Ohio
Metro: Toledo
Interests: We love to play Settlers of Catan! We enjoy watching movies together, eating ice cream and drinking coffee. Ben loves disc golf and Mandi loves to stamp cards and crochet. We also love to travel and hope to stay at least one night in every state in the US.
Expertise: Visit http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/unfinishedwood/my_photos
to see pictures we post of different things.
Message: message me
Member Since:
2/19/2006
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| Hey all! It's been a long time since I've updated. As you all probably know, we have one month until the big move! And today is the first day I've started gathering things to send over. We have some friends going over lighter than how they'll be coming back. So they've offered to take a few things with them, but we need to have it ready by this Saturday. Thus I'm beginning to think about packing. I'll probably send some winter and toiletry things that we won't need right away. But that's a huge blessing cuz it means we won't have to pay for the extra luggage...BLESSINGS!
We're getting in all of our doctor's appointments this week and trying to get our medications squared away so we can bring a year's supply with us. The finality of everything is really settling in. And at times, it makes my stomach a little queasy, but other times I just want to be there and settled in. Another blessing today--I found some nice, cheap coats at Sam's Club that will help us blend in over there and that are thinner and will pack better. YEAH! We have friends looking for an apartment for us now too (another finality). We asked for a certain area of town close to the offices we'll be working in, an apartment that's furnished and has a large living room. So pray that they find a great one within our price range!
This Monday we fly one more time out to Colorado. That's where we'll meet our team and get some training for living overseas. I'm looking forward to it, cuz I know it'll be one of the last relaxing opportunities for us for a while. Well, here's a pic of us at the top of the Rocky Mountains from our last trip to Colorado. Hope you're all doing well!
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| I apologize that our updates have been so few and far between here! Today we are leaving for Camp Michindoh for a short spiritual retreat. As many of you know, we've been in the process of trying to figure out what we should do next year and where we should be. We hope to make a decision in the next week or two and hope that this time away will be helpful in pointing us in a certain direction. We're considering 2 options: Turkey and Toledo. We LOVE both options, which makes the decision that much more difficult. A large part of the puzzle is figuring out how Ben will complete his seminary degree in either place.
Pray for us as we take this time away to seek God and to see what He's placed on our hearts. Pray that we could reach a decision together and that it'll be one that we have joy about and a specific vision for.
We'll also be heading to Panama City Beach, Florida soon for our Spring Break. Right now we're taking 14 students with us and are trusting God to provide around $3,000 for the conference costs and travel down there. Ben and I will be helping plan the men's and women's times for our region while down there; and the other staff guy, Brad, will be training our region's students in how to share their faith and providing the Scriptural motivation each day. Pray for us as staff to have the energy to live out our roles well and that students will truly develop a heart/desire for reaching the lost with the Gospel while down there.
This Thursday I'll also be speaking at our weekly meeting CRU. Remember those classes we took last summer? In one of them we were given a passage to write a talk on and that's what I'll be using on Thursday. It's based on the story of the Tower of Babel and I'll be talking about the pride of man. One of our students is making a video to go along with it...I'll see if I can find a way to post it online so you all can see it.
Well, thank you for partnering with us in this ministry! We're aware everyday that we're not out here by ourselves-and that there are hundreds of you standing beside us every step of the way! Thank you!
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| Nick Heath
Nick is a junior who has just gotten involved with us this last fall. He has only been a Christian for two years and has stepped up to help co-lead a co-ed Real Life Group Bible Study. I got to go sharing with Nick for the first time this last fall the third week of classes and we saw Justin accept Christ with us. It was a very exciting and teachable moment. At Christmas Conference just last week he saw another person become a Christian. Nick is wrestling with what direction God is leading him concerning his major and if he should work next semester. He is very involved with his church and with us.
- Pray for wisdom for Nick as he discerns what to prioritize and what career path to choose
- Pray for the group of about 20 men and women he co-leads
- Pray for his own personal growth as he is a young Christian
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| Hope Mendola
Hope is a junior with a crazy, fun personality! I don't know anyone else like Hope-she's always fun! Always hilarious! Always truthful! And loves the Lord with an honesty and passion that you don't always see. She's an RA in one of the dorms called the Ottawa House, so you can imagine how busy she is keeping track of her residents and doing floor programs and going to school, etc. Hope is also helping with a church plant in Toledo called the Ten Mile Vineyard-which I think is cool for a college student to have the vision for.
In addition to all this, Hope is leading a dorm study in a dorm called Carter. So please pray:
- that Hope will find time to build relationships with the girls coming out to her study.
- Pray too that she'll be able to get every contact followed up with in Carter and that God will lead her to students who are seeking the Truth.
- Pray that the women in her study will be vulnerable with each other and grow close as a group--oh! And have fun together!
- Pray also that Hope will find time to draw near to God and keep Him as the number one priority in her life.
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| I wanted to let you know about a fun outreach that just happened last night on campus. We had a training time after CRU last week for students intersted in learning how to be better prepared in sharing their faith with others. We had roughly 12-20 new students there who had never been trained before. Then we thought it'd be a good idea to have an outreach scheduled for those who'd just been trained to have a chance to live it out. So Wednesday night at 8pm around 60 students went into the dorms on campus to follow up contacts from the beginning of school. One of the girls I got to work with during spring semester of last year, Angel, was able to lead someone in placing their faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins! What an awesome privilege! Angel just accpeted Christ in her life back in February, so that was exciting to see how God was already using her! Many other students went out for the first time and, if nothing else, found out that people really are thinking about spiritual things and willing to talk about God. Ben and I just returned from being at a conference this week (Mon-Wed) in Indiana for all the campus leaders in our region. There were around 60 people there and it was a great opportunity to network with other leaders and find out how their campuses structure their ministries. Steve Douglas, the president of CCC, came Monday night and shared about a test he's been running at the Univ. of Central Florida with small groups. In order to actually work towards every college student knowing someone who truly follows Jesus, he is working on sturcturing small groups in a way that rapidly produces student leaders who can lead groups of their own so more students can be exposed to the Bible and biblical community. It's hard for me to put this all in words that make sense and paints the whole picture, but it was a great chance to give him feedback AND to see our President willing to get his "hands dirty" along with us in reaching more college students with the Gospel! We're pretty tired; and tonight Ben is giving a talk at CRU for our world vision night where we'll be talking about why students should care about lost people around the world and how they can make a difference through our partnership with Turkey. Pray that he will be sensitive to the Spirit and that students hearts towards the lost will be changed for God's glory. | | |
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