Lately

I'm stealing this from you, {Anne Marie}, because just thinking about writing a full post on all that's happened this month makes me hyperventilate a bit.

School has begun.

As God's blessing causes our ministry here at Southern to grow, Andrew's responsibilities grow with it. So while most days I am wondering when I'm going to see my husband again, we are incredibly grateful for what God is doing at Southern Miss. Last night we had our biggest weekly meeting at 70 students. During the meeting, we skyped with our recent alumni, Paula, who is serving in East Asia. It was a full-circle moment of what we are hoping to see happen here. Students understanding how to walk well with their Lord in college... and then leave to be a blessing to the world. 

                              

Andrew has started seminary.
Yikes! (It's a scary and exciting thing.) Our church is graciously providing the means for Andrew to drive to Jackson, MS one day a week to take classes at RTS. Andrew is already learning so much from his classes and reading; we are ever so grateful for this opportunity that was obviously a gift from the Lord. However, taking a load of classes and leading a ministry/shepherding a team is quite the balancing act. We need lots of prayers and grace to be able to live life well these days.

                                                    

Wilson and I are at home. Mostly.
I have to be candid here and say that all the instagram/facebook pictures of children being sent off to preschool has left me as an emotional push me-pull you most days. It's better for us to stay at home. Is it better for him to stay at home? I want to be his teacher. Am I equipped to be his teacher? I can shepherd him well here. Will anyone find out that I sat him in front of the TV for an hour while I took a shower and got ready? This decision to keep him home is partly financial and partly this inclination to keep him longer. I'll be honest and say that I wrestle back and forth if that's a selfish desire, making an idol out time with him... or is it just the call the Lord has on my life right now--that the way he wants me to nurture Wilson is to live life day to day with... minute by minute. With lots and lots of prayer.

                                   

Also, I could be enrolling him in preschool tomorrow.

The Jaegers had their baby boy, Levi!
This is big news for our little team of five that just became a team of six. When he reaches a month, we are going to send Levi out on campus to lead a Bible study. Only kidding, kind of, but he really is the cutest TINY thing with a head full of hair and Wilson can't wait to be his friend. Levi, he was only pretending at the hospital when he said he didn't want to touch you. I promise he will be your best friend once you learn to play with legos.



Wilson is not napping. Which is causing Mommy a lot of gray hairs and clothes get rewashed in the machine about three times because I keep forgetting they're done and they get hot and mildewy before they reach the dryer and YES that is all a direct consequence of Wilson not napping.

               

I am entering into some ministry on campus.
Another insecurity that instagram/facebook offers up on a silver platter is my involvement in ministry. Is every Cru staff mom going to their weekly meetings? Are they all meeting with 30 girls a week? Do they all get to have quiet times over coffee and muffins every morning? I'm thankful the Lord gives me great truth to combat the lies of comparison. I only get to see a fraction of peoples' lives on social media (which never gives the full picture) and it doesn't matter anyway! I have my own race to run. With that said, I have been blessed to dip my toe into the water of college ministry this year and I am loving the moments I get. Specifically, I'm getting to meet with our staff/student staff girls weekly to train and encourage them and I get to meet bi-weekly with the best group of leadership girls you will ever meet. Seriously, they are awesome... taking the gospel of Jesus near and far.

This season of life is fast and furious. I'm prayerful that the Lord will teach us to number our days so that we may have wisdom (as Moses prays beautifully in the Psalms... yes, there is a psalm of Moses!). If there were no God and no eternity, then each day would be swallowed up in meaninglessness. What would our days really matter? But I am grateful to live in light of the truth that my days count for something. They are marked and written. My love for Wilson, my obedience to Jesus, my dying daily to myself, my service to Andrew, my teaching the Word to a student... these are gathered up and stored for eternity. Lord, teach me to number my days.

Fall Beginnings

Every first week of school hits me like a gush of wind when you open the door on a windy day. It's like we are walking out of the slow-paced last weeks of summer and open the door to the fall and WHAM... Hello, fall! Hello, freshmen! Hello, dinners and meetings and small groups and discipleship and where did my husband go?

But we love it. Each fall brings with it the hopeful question of, "Lord, how will your kingdom come to Southern Miss this fall?" 

Andrew and I heard a story from a different ministry in town. A man working with this ministry asked a child, "Do you know Jesus?" The child answered, "No, where does he live?" While many or most of the students walking on Southern's campus know about Jesus, he has just as much relevance to their life as this little boy. "Where does he live? I think he lives outside of my day to day living. I think he lives on churches on Sundays. I think he lives in the future when I want to settle down and have a family. I think he lives only for the put-together, for the pure, for the shameless." 

Would you pray with us that this fall we would be able to communicate the real Jesus to these students? That they would know He is for the broken. He is for their coming and their going. He is for the depths of despair they feel and He is the author of the joy that springs up in their hearts. 

Last week we had several leadership students in our house for two days helping us to think through and plan what ministry will look like this year. Andrew and Mitch are the only full-time staff this semester, so the need is great for students to step in and take leadership roles. We were so pleased with our students' excitement... not about a group called "Cru", but about the opportunities they would have to invite their friends and other students to come behold Jesus. 

On Friday we helped freshmen move into their dorms. Today and tomorrow Andrew will be manning a booth on campus to hopefully meet new freshmen and invite them into our fold. Tomorrow night we are hosting a leadership dinner challenging and training students to facilitate small gospel-centered community groups all over campus. On Thursday we will be hosting a freshmen cookout that will be a kick-off to a three week co-ed Bible study. Next Tuesday will be our first large group meeting. 

It is a busy week ahead, but one we enter into with great joy and hope. Lord, may your Kingdom come at Southern Miss as it is in heaven.

Weeds

It's amazing what can happen to your yard from a month of ill-attention. Andrew and I spent most of the morning pulling and digging and cutting and sweating (and complaining).

I kept looking longingly at my new chair cushions and thinking , I just want to sit with an iced tea and and a magazine and enjoy my yard. 

But there was work to do before the enjoyment came.

And it made me think, this is why we work with college students. 

We didn't plant these weeds or cultivate them to grow, they just did. They are indigenous to this soil. Your average student (present company included) just wants to live an organic life. I'm not talking about eating chia seeds, I'm talking about living "free" and letting what grows in their heart, grow.

They (I) don't want to cultivate their hearts or weed out the things that could be harmful.

But some day... maybe ten years down the road... their heart is going to be overgrown.

With greed. With discontent. With financial problems. With anxiety. With apathy. With broken relationships. With addictions. With regrets. With unforgiveness. 

With a desire to have a purpose but no desire to pursue the One who gives it to them.

They will want to sit back with an iced tea and enjoy their life, but there will be no time. There will be too many weeds to pull. It certainly can be done in ten years, and with Jesus there is always redemption. But it will be painful.

Our hope, as we walk alongside these students, is that they would start now to understand the plan that their great Creator has for their heart. And that they would start weeding and cultivating and start enjoying the abundant life promised to them by Jesus himself.

JHSP 2013, the end.

Well, this morning we put all the students and staff on airplanes and waved goodbye to Jackson Hole Summer Project 2013. There was both a sigh of relief and a tear of sadness on my face. This month was so very sweet for our family... the students and staff were so dear. But when it's time to go home, it's just time to go home.

I have to brag on my husband for a minute. This was his first state-side project to lead. (We led the East Asia one together our first summer married and YIKES we did not know what we were doing.) He did so well shepherding our staff and students and leading us all to the good, green fields of the gospel... amidst the stress of watching over 40 wandering sheep.




I was just looking over the students' evaluations of the project and thought I'd close up this blog series with their words. They are why we came, after all. Here are some of the ways they said they've grown over the past month:

"I matured in my faith, gained a deeper understanding of the depth of the gospel and how it applies to situations in my life."



"I grew in understanding how much the Lord loves me despite me."



"God taught me that being a Christian is not about works, but about the relationship with him. I truly learned why Jesus died on the cross for our sins."


"God is asking me to leave all idols and things behind so that I can fully depend on him."



"I am confident and excited about sharing the gospel and better equipped to do so."



"I grew in my walk with the Lord in so many ways. I have grown in my desire to study the Bible and pray consistently, build a community, and grasp unconditional love."



"I've grown in my awareness of how big the cross is and how Jesus covers all my sins, not just the small ones. Also, I'm learning more and more to be content in all kinds of circumstances, not just the ones I see as 'good'."




"I really learned foundations in reading the Bible, praying, and starting a small group! Very pivotal in my growth."



"I really grew in my understanding of the gospel. I learned what it really means to trust in the Lord and walk with him."



"I have fallen more in love with the gospel and put a stamp of 'worth it' on it."




"I have really grown in my faith and really developed a personal and intimate relationship with the Lord." 

It's always so hard to say goodbye (cue Boyz II Men) to our students from summer projects, but I love knowing that we are sending them out well equipped to pursue Jesus at home and share Him with others. And we know that ultimately this equipping is not our doing, but that of our good Father... because:

"seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence." 2 Peter 1:3

We are praising God tonight that these 28 students are not in our hands... but the hands of a Father who loves His children so well. 

A mistake and the last week ahead

That last entry was a mistake. We did not go to the lake in the middle of our summer project! :)

The girls on staff 

We are nearing the final week of our summer project in Jackson Hole and as usual it is bittersweet. It almost feels like the last week is when you really build trust and a relationship with the students, so I'm left wishing we had four more weeks with them.

The "Moose Room" where we have all our meals

At each lunch and dinner we have a couple of the students share their story of understanding the gospel with the group. We have had several students express during their stories that being out here for the summer is the first time they have understood what it really looks like to walk with Jesus. That it's not about a checklist of dos and don'ts or just turning away from everything "bad." They are understanding that because Jesus lived out all the dos and paid for the donts, they now have the freedom to have a relationship with the One who made them.

Some of the guys

It is a sweet thing to be on the front row seat as some one gets the beauty of it all.

The students have spent the past week figuring out and learning what it looks like to communicate their story of redemption to others. We are hoping to send them off well to bring words of hope to their friends at their respective campuses.

We appreciate your prayers and love! We would especially appreciate prayers for health and protection. We had a student break her finger this week and, as a result, had to have surgery Wednesday. Pray for Autumn's healing and also for the protection of everyone else! (I'm always concerned about a bear taking off with one of the students who might want to pet it.) (I know that sounds sarcastic, but it is an actual fear I have.) (They saw a bear this week and a few students went into the woods to find it.) (I'm done with parentheses now!) 

Jackson Hole Update

After 1,800 miles, we arrived in Jackson, Wyoming last Friday. Wilson did well on the drive if well means awake, talkative, and needy. :) 

We made stops in Kentucky to see my family, St. Louis to see some dear friends (Robert & Katherine), and then a boring two days of Nebraska and nowhere, Wyoming. We were all ready to get to Jackson Hole by the end.

Pulling into JH was so sweet because it felt like another home. (I feel like we have a lot of homes.) I'm a lover of consistency so it was nice to walk into a summer project and place that feels familiar to us.

The first few days were just us as a staff team (there are 13 of us) getting acclimated and preparing for the students to come. Andrew is directing the project with a staff girl from Georgia, Whitney. Our staff team is awesome and we are so thankful that each of them are here. 

It was clear from the beginning that Wilson would acclimate just fine.

On Tuesday the students arrived and OH are they precious. I helped with the girl's applications and briefings, so it was so fun to be able to put faces with names that I had been praying for for so long. I know Andrew felt the same. We have 20 girls and 8 guys from mostly the southeast but also a few from other states like Virginia and Iowa. 

 They come from all different backgrounds and all different places in their walks with the Lord. Some are already leading small groups and discipling others back home at their colleges. Some are just understanding what it means to follow Jesus for the first time. I said this last year, but when we told our stories in our small groups the first night, I couldn't help but think that this is how the disciples must have felt when they started to hear stories that Jesus had risen from His grave. He is REAL. I have seen Him! He has tangibly entered into my life and made sense of the chaos.

 

One of the many blessings of our job is being up close and personal with college students' life stories and how the gospel turns their life upside down. It is so refreshing.

We do all meals together in the most stereotypically Western kitchen you have ever seen.

I love this aspect of the JH project, because it really adds to the feel that we are a family for the summer.

In the mornings, the students enter a classroom like setting and hear from one of the staff as they share a talk on things like "The Gospel Story" or "How to share your story" or "How to study the Bible." This is a discipleship project, so our hope is to train students in how to walk well with the Lord and create gospel-centered communities when they return home to their campuses.

After lunch we do a fun activity, normally a hike. (Because we are in the most gorgeous spot in the United States, after all.)

W slept the whole way up this hike and sang the whole way down.

On Monday nights we have Small Groups (We are going through a study called Gospel Growth). Amy (who is on staff with us at Southern Miss) and I are leading a group together. On Thursday nights we have Men's and Women's time. The boys are going through Thoughts for Young Men and the girls are going through Calm My Anxious Heart. Throughout the week we meet with students we have been assigned to disciple to make sure they are tracking with the incredible amount of information they are being given and to just check on their hearts.


I'm pretty much in love with my girls, Liz & Elisabeth. Yes, we are the Eliz(s)abeths and isn't that great?



Overall, we are loving ministry here and we could not be more thankful for those of you who sent us here with prayers, finances, and love. We hope you know that you really are making an eternal difference on these students' lives and ultimately the world as they walk what they believe when they return home. Much love to all of you from the Harwells!

Seagrove 2013

One thing that I look forward to every year is our spring conference with Cru in Seagrove, Florida. This conference is for the staff of the southeast region... it's a time of teaching, vision-casting, and rejoicing in what the Lord has done all over the southeast that year.

It's also really fun to catch up with the staff from different schools. Our life can be so different from everyone else's life, so it's good to be with people who understand what it's like to pick up your family and move somewhere for a summer. Every summer.

I'm certainly not complaining about that, because who would really complain about WORKING in Jackson Hole, Wyoming?

The weekend was a little work and a little play... but I didn't take any pictures of the work.

W is at a really fun stage to be with at the beach. He mostly loved digging holes and finding sea creatures and other very boyish things.

And he talked to everyone trying to lay out and have a peaceful day at the beach. "What's your name?" "Want to build a sand castle with me?" "My name is Wilson and I am two!" 

Thankfully we work with a bunch of extroverts, so they kind of loved that.

W and I spent some time in Seaside one morning while Andrew was in a meeting. If we had all the money in the world, it would be  the first place I would pick to buy a vacation home.

But we don't have all the money in the world (or close to it), so I'll count my blessings that I have to be at a work conference once a year in little town next door. :)