Stranded in Sweden

The local news covered a story about our coworkers and friends who are currently stuck in Sweden due to volcanic ash from Iceland.  They Skyped in from Sweden.  It kind of makes me laugh how epic the news made it.  I guess that’s what news does.  :)

Fayetteville Missionaries Stranded in Sweden

Anyway, please pray for them to be able to make it home, especially since both couples have little kids that probably miss them a lot.

get together, wedding, and more

(Back, L-R) Bob, Andy, Kyle, Joe (Front, L-R) Kristin, Kim, me, Luke

The Every Ethne get together at the beginning of November was fantastic!  We had a great time getting to know each other better and discussing the current direction and future of Every Ethne.

Kyle and Kara at their shower

Kyle, my national office Every Ethne counterpart, was married to Kara, who works with Clarion Consulting (another USCWM ministry) on November 14!  It was a great wedding at a little place at the Fayetteville airport, and they left the reception in a Cessna airplane!  Super fun.

Autographing the first copy of the XPLORE study.

The XPLORE books came in!  Here I am with co-worker Joe Michie, giving an autographed first edition.  :)  Joe is currently raising support to come on staff with Perspectives to work as the Creative Director.  He’s got some fantastic ideas, and we can’t wait to have him on board!

Old Main, a landmark at the UofA, decked out for Christmas

My biggest project right now is preparing for Urbana ’09, where several other staff members and I will be representing Perspectives, the US Center for World Mission (they have a newly redesigned website, you should check it out!), and The BodyBuilders. I’ve been doing a TON of design work for promotional items.  It’s crazy to me that in about 4 months time, I have had to learn the Adobe Creative Suite and am now in charge of designing things.  Sometimes I feel a little like a kid that ended up in the deep end of the swimming pool before they quite figured out how to doggie paddle, but I’m doing my best to learn and keep up.  :)  Urbana is the largest student mission conference in North America.  It’s hosted every 3 years.  I went in 2006, and it was an incredible experience.  I’m excited to be able to network with students from around the country (and world!), and be able to share with them about the exciting experience of Perspectives.

And, speaking of Perspectives, have you checked to see if there’s a class in your area this spring?  Many alumni have stated that taking Perspectives has been one of the most influential things they’ve ever done in their entire Christian walk.  Check it out and register for a class at www.perspectives.org!

Birthday in an American Home

Since I haven’t posted in so long, I’m trying to get you all caught up on the things I’ve been up to lately.

On Thursday, Oct. 8 one of my co-workers had a birthday party.  He and his wife invited all of our staff and many of the international students from the UofA to come.  There were a TON of people, and we had a lot of fun.  Click to see some photos from that night!

In other news, the first test run of the XPLORE study went to print today!  :) (yes, I’m pretty excited about that)

I need your mug shot!

These are my roomies at the Shadpad. (Kelli, me, Meredith, Dani)

So, I’ve decided that I would really like to decorate my desk area at the office with photos of my supporters. This is first of all, because I want pictures of my friends at the office, and secondly, so I can remember to pray for you!  So, if you’re one of my supporters (prayerfully or financially), I would LOVE to have a photo of you! Please email one to me: christina.jerrett@gmail.com. Thanks!

update in photos

Well, as I’m working on my newsletter for this month, I thought I’d get a few photos up here from the past month.  These first few are from staff conference in Pasadena, CA last month.

All USCWM staff in Pasadena, CA

Northwest Arkansas staff

Every Ethne staff

Every Ethne hanging out at the Cheesecake factory in Pasadena

Leading worship at staff conference with Kim

Last Tuesday, most of the Arkansas staff went to lunch together to celebrate August birthdays, anniversaries, and new staff arrivals.  Here we are at Mariachi’s, a Mexican restaurant near our office.

Arkansas staff lunch

Coming together

So things have really begun to come together here in Arkansas.  All of my other housemates have moved in, so there are four of us girls living here with the Shadrach family (Me and my roommate Meredith – another US Center staffer, and Dani and Kelli, two UofA students).  They are all great girls, and it’s going to be a fun semester.  So… housing and people to live with… check.

The biggest thing I’ve been doing the past two weeks is looking for my secondary part-time job.  I know that many of you have been praying about this for me.  Well, I’ve found one! and it’s so much better than what I thought could happen.  One of our sister ministries that’s based at the Center for Mission Mobilization, the Body Builders, (not muscular guys lifting weights, think building up the body of Christ) has hired me to work on a project for the fall.  So I’ll be able to be right there in the office!  This is a HUGE answer to prayer.  God is so good, even when I sometimes doubt that.  :)  So, second job… check!

So God has really been bringing things together over the past few weeks/months, and I FINALLY feel like I’m at a point where I can start to settle in.  I’ve started working on some things with Every Ethne.  The biggest is revamping the XPLORE booklet.  (I’ll post more on that later.)  But I just wanted to praise God for his sovereignty and grace towards me.

an arkansas update

I need to change my location on the sidebar to Currently writing from: Fayetteville, AR!  While I’m still pretty exhausted, overwhelmed, and still have a lot of lose ends, one thing is for sure… it is SOOO good to be here!

So, let’s start with what I do know.  :)

I have a place to live! I’m living with a family from the US Center named Steve and Carol Shadrach.  They have a large house near campus and often have college students living with them.  This year there are going to be two girls from the UofA, and then me and another staff girl.  While the introvert in me is a tiny bit aprehensive about all of the people, I’m looking forward to it. :)  I think it will be a good way to be thrown into the mix of both things going on at the campus and US Center life.

I had my first day in the office today! The new office building is incredible, and such a blessing.  There’s not a ton for me to do right now as I’m just settling in and most of us are heading to California for staff conference tomorrow, but it was good to just be here and a part of what’s happening.  I had a few conversations about some of the specific tasks I’ll be doing, and I’m really excited about it.  I’ll be sure to write about them in greater detail once I know a little more.

And so, just in case you didn’t think my life was crazy enough, driving two days from South Carolina to Wisconsin, packing up two houses, and then less than two weeks later driving two days from Wisconsin to Arkansas, tomorrow I leave for California!  Our US Center for World Mission national staff conference is next week, and we’re all flying out for it.  I’ll be out there from July 10-20.  As crazy as this much movement is, I’m really looking forward to being in California again.  And, it will be a wonderful chance to spend some time with all of the Every Ethne staff (our Iowa, Oregon, and Alabama teams) and have some great brainstorming and vision casting time.  The goal is to walk away with a pretty good understanding of what we can do in the Every Ethne  national office to aid our campus mobilizers and further the vision of connecting college students to strategic involvement in the Great Commission.  And, let’s be honest, I love watching the ocean.  Especially the Pacific in southern California.

I’ll have some photos soon of the office, staff, where I’m living, etc.  In the meantime, please be praying for me to transition well and form some deep relationships quickly. Also, when I get back from CA I’ll be looking for a part-time job, so please be praying for God to provide the right one (and, it would be really nice if it happened easily and without a lot of stress… :) )  And thank Him for what He has already provided!

Center for Mission Mobilization

I wanted to let you guys know about some exciting things happening at the office in Fayetteville right now.  The staff has had a very busy couple of weeks moving into a new office building on the square in downtown Fayetteville.  We’re calling it the Center for Mission Mobilization.

Here are a few videos about what’s going on there, and the exciting things I’ll be jumping into.

Walking tour of Center for Mission Mobilization on cleaning day.

Steve Shadrach on the Center for Mission Mobilization

John Patton’s vision for the Center for Mission Mobilization