I am realizing the many of our former students will be friends for life. We have had a number of students support us with one time gifts and now we even have students on our monthly support team. One student told Jen that she was applying for a job so that she could earn money to support the ministry each month. We promptly told her not to apply for a job but we loved her heart for the ministry and for us.

Zoe, Vince and Lee are all students that have come through our ministry. Last night around 9:30 I realized that with my schedule that might be the only chance I would have to see Vince. I discovered his phone number on Facebook and gave him a call. I drove up to Liberty and we met at 11:00 which is starting to be late for me now that I am getting older.

He is a little homesick and is discouraged that more people don’t seem to be sold out to Jesus. If you think about him would you pray that he is able to invest in the lives of others and be used of the Lord on that campus. It was great fun and an encouragement to me to see him.

The older I get the more I true I see Mark 8:34-35 to be.

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take us his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.”

Vince is a man who has denied himself and followed Christ but a conversation I had earlier in the evening reminded me that when we start to think about ourselves and try to “save our own lives” our lives start to stink but when we follow Christ they rock. I hope you are busy denying yourself and losing your life for Christ today. When the Son of Man comes in Glory you will be eternally glad that you did.

Please post any of your thoughts on serving yourself or serving Christ and the results in your own life in the comments. I would be very interested to hear from others.

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Chaplain Warner, who was my boss or bosses boss for the last 4 years and Sarah and David came down to visit us. We had a lot of fun catching up and hiking the Appalachian Trail near our house.

Then Rachel Mintz came to visit for a couple of weeks. Rachel has visited us 3 of the 4 summers since her family moved back to the states and we really enjoy her. If you have ever seen the Malachi video she is the one on the video talking about the impact that Jen had on her life.

On the Student Leader retreat before Ted and Lee’s senior year we were all enjoying a great game of paintball. One of the guys had the great idea of playing girls vs. guys even though the girls greatly outnumbered us and all the guys had to play without their shirts on. Ted was one of the last guys alive and as he stormed the girls fort they just lit him up. Even though he was screaming, “Hit, Hit” they kept shooting him on his bare skin. If you have ever been hit with a paintball from 15 on bare skin you know that 7 or 8 hits don’t feel very good.

Grady and I have connected a lot this year and it has been great to see him really strive to be a man of God as he walks through life.

I am going on a Men’s retreat with the Club Beyond and Malachi guys this week. They are meeting me in the middle in Ireland. I have never been before so I am looking forward to seeing Ireland as well as getting to hang out with a bunch of men who are sharing the gospel and their lives with military students.