The Seed

I am currently doing the Tim Keller study on Mark and today I'm reading Mark 4:3-9 and this is what TK says about the Kingdom of God:

"Jesus' kingdom will conquer through love and service, not force, through sweet persuasion, not coercion, and it will prodice loving obedience, not slavery, and therefore it will transform completely, not superficially. Jesus' kingdom is more like a seed on the heart than a boulder on the head. The boulder smashes from the outside, the seed penetrates to the inside. The entry of a seed is the most gentle of procedures."

I just love the reality of the kingdom of Jesus. He is patient and loving and I need that!
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why my weekend was marvelous

Saturday:
So, we had a retreat this weekend in Lynchburg with students from Radford, Virginia Tech and Lynchburg schools. The theme of the retreat was "The Pursuit" and Joe Naramore was the speaker. We stayed at a place called Eagle Eyrie, it's a retreat center in Lynchburg and it's beautiful - mountains everywhere!

On Saturday we played a game of "Amazing Race." Students had to figure out a clue and go to a station where they would get a task (or a question), which they had to complete before getting their next clue. I was station #3 and the task they received from me was to take a picture of four different fire hydrants and bring it back to me so they could get their next clue.

After the game a couple of us went apple picking! I had never done that before but it was AWESOME! I didn't really want a lot of apples, but when I saw a beautiful one, I just had to get it...so I left with a bag full of them!

Sunday:

After hearing an awesome message from Matt Bradner at Rivermont EPC, I left Lynchburg and drove to Charlotte, NC. I got here around 5pm and was exhausted, but I really wanted to go to Christ Covenant to see some of my friends who were visiting from South Africa - so I went.

MY HEART WAS SO FULL OF JOY as I began to see all these faces of people that I love so much that I haven't seen in so long.

I got to see Jamie Smith, who has been on staff with CO for 16 years and who I just loved being with while I was in South Africa. I got to see Haley Miedema who is a dear friend of mine and her baby Abby, and Brandon Paschal who I went to school with and who is a great brother in the Lord. I got to see Joel, Michelle and Christy, who I went to South Africa with years ago. I saw Neal Gooch and his wife and Tim Byrd and his BRAND NEW wife. I saw a lot of the staff that I haven't seen in a long time and that overflowed my heart as well! Every time I saw someone else, that I haven't seen in a while, I just got even more excited!! I kept thinking "Lord, what a privilege I've had to serve alongside these men and women whom I feel so honored to know." It was hard to leave, I feel like I could have stayed for a week in that room loving on people and getting loved by them! Which led me to think: Heaven is going to be UNBELIEVABLE! I will see so many people that I will want to be around and talk with and hug and listen to their stories, no wonder its eternity, it will take us YEARS AND YEARS to just catch up with people and to hear their stories!

My heart is full! What a great weekend!

What happens in bible study...

Tonight at bible study I gave away prizes for memorizing scripture. Natalie won these you see pictured. They are "grow in the water capsule monsters."

She decided to stick hers in her mouth.

Turns out your saliva works just as well as warm water, for those of you wandering.

But please, don't try it at home :)

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hello, my name is adriana...

and I'm addicted to coffee...again.

About once every two years I quit drinking coffee. I just get to a point where I realize that I'm addicted to coffee and I don't want to be, so I quit. The last time was last summer. It lasted for MONTHS. It was beautiful! I would wake up and drink water.

Well, one cup of decaf led to another, which led to a regular cup here and there...and well, here we are again.

This morning I woke up and I went to make coffee, but I was out of "the good stuff," so I just made some "maxwell house" coffee and i put some decaf starbucks in there to help with the taste. It didn't help. It tasted terrible, and it didn't have enough caffeine in it so I got a headache.

Maybe one day, maybe one glorious day I will over come. But until then...lets raise our coffee mugs up for a toast to the good coffee!

Bridge

I went on a drive a few days ago with Lauren Schoenborn and we came across this bridge. Its times like these that I really love living in Radford.
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is this for real?

I've been studying the Gospel of Mark this semester with the bible studies that I am leading at Radford. We're doing a study by Tim Keller, and it has been fantastic!

One of the reasons I've been enjoying it so much is because of the way TK asks really good questions that lead you to really examine scripture to be able to come up with an answer. There's something so exhilarating to see something new in scripture, something you've never seen before!

On September 30th I will celebrate my 9th spiritual birthday! I committed my life to the Lord back in 2000, at a retreat that Campus Outreach did in the mountains of North Carolina. The more I walk with the Lord the more convinced I become of how real He is...He knows "the depth of my heart, and He loves me the same..." The Gospel - the good news that has been proclaimed that Jesus, has come into the world to call me out of a life of slavery into a life of freedom in Him - becomes more and more real the more I defend it and the more I walk with Him.

In Mark we see Jesus calling men to follow Him. He says: "come follow Me and I'll make you fishers of men." These men were already fishermen, so Jesus calls them into something greater. They had been fishing for fish...now He's calling them to fish for men. To "pull" men out of darkness and into light. He gives them a calling that is UNBELIEVABLE and then He gives them the "how." He says I will make you fishers of men.

Before I became a Christian there were many things I was living for. I would say the biggest thing was the assurance that I was important in someone's life - that I mattered in the long run. I remember, as a senior in high school, wanting so bad to know for sure that my life was making a difference. My heart longed to know that I was valuable. 9 years ago I was beckoned to trust Jesus and to follow Him, and I did. I said "yes" to Him, I was scared because I did not know what all that would mean for me. I didn't realize He was calling me to be something greater. He was calling me to the very thing I was longing for - to make a difference. I have been following Him ever since, and it is very clear to me that He is the one making me into something.

I used to be scared that if I became a Christian I would be this boring, religious, non-relevant, person, that had none of the same characteristics and passions that I enjoyed about myself. Turns out He has awaken those passions and characteristics even more so.

Thank you, Jesus, for "waking me" 9 years ago.

My summer in pictures!

(Clockwise: Margy, Kate, Eric, J. Nel, Doug, Kaitlyn, Renee, Evan,

Sarah, Me, Nakasha, Clare and Lauren).
The Campus Outreach Virginia students and staff at the Summer Beach Project. Last year Margy was the only representative, woo hoo!

Margy and I at one of the meals at the Summer Beach Project. We had some pretty incredible meals this summer! Margy and I will be living together next year in Radford, couldn't get any better than that!

(L to R: Clare, Margy, Katie, and me)
My friends, Doug and Kaitlyn got married this summer and we got to celebrate by dancing the night away. It was absolutely great!!

(L to R: Marina, Vitor, Me, and Marina)

I got to got to Brazil this summer to visit my family. I got to spend all of my time with my brother, Vitor and his wife Marina, as well as my niece, Marina (right) and my new niece Beatriz (not picture). I hadn't been back to Brazil in six years, it was extremely refreshing to spend time with them!

Here's me and my niece at the mountains: Campos do Jordao. It was winter in Brazil, but not very cold.

This is me, my niece and my brother at the beach, Ubatuba. It was absolutely gorgeous!

(L to R: Margy, Me, Jim Lyndon, and Megan Long)

My friend and staff partner Collin Setterberg got married on the 16th of August. I had a great time at the wedding, we danced a lot and I got to catch up with some old friends!

Me and my friend Julia Bradner at the wedding. Second wedding this summer of the guys in our staff team, it has been a lot of fun to see each other so much :)

(Clockwise: Sarah, Luciana, Emily, Mara, Me, Indy and Isaiah)
On my way back from Collin's wedding, I stopped by to see my sister and her 5 kids! Needless to say, they're crazy!

Me and my sister, Luciana at her house.

All in all it has been a very fun, very busy summer. I have gotten to do a lot of things and see a lot of people. School starts on the 1st of September, I'm excited to see all the returning students. Alright, until next time :)

Street Performance in NYC

I'm going to start practicing and hopefully I'll be able to do this by next year!

Wicked isn't so wicked.

Radford's Spring Break was this past week (March 7th through March 16th). For spring break I went to Southampton and then New York City with four girls from Radford (Clare, Kate, Margy and Beth). While we were in the city we all watched different plays. Beth and I were fortunate enough to watch "Wicked," on Wednesday afternoon.

The story of "Wicked" is the untold story of the witches of the Wizard of Oz. Elphaba, the "Wicked Witch of the West," from the Wizard of Oz is born green, which makes her different than all the other characters of Oz. When Elphaba goes to school she is offered the opportunity to possibly meet "The Wizard." Her heart is so filled with joy, she responds with this song:

"Once I'm with the Wizard
My whole life will change
'Cuz once you're with the Wizard
No one thinks you're strange!
No father is not proud of you,
No sister acts ashamed
And all of Oz has to love you
When by the Wizard, you're acclaimed
And this gift or this curse
I have inside
Maybe at last, I'll know why
When we are hand and hand -
The Wizard and I!"
And one day, he'll say to me, "Elphaba,
A girl who is so superior,
Shouldn't a girl who's so good inside
Have a matching exterior?
And since folks here to an absurd degree
Seem fixated on your verdigris.
Would it be all right by you
If I de-greenify you?"

When I heard that song, I was thinking how that's the longing of my heart too. To be loved and accepted just the way I am. Oh, the freedom, to be me and be loved by the most lovable, most respected, most important Person! I think it felt so real to me because it is real to me and Jesus put that desire in all of our hearts not so that we have that desire there and that's it. He put that desire there for the same reason He gave us hunger and thirst. He put that desire there to fill it with Himself!! He is our "Wizard," the One who loves us for us and frees us to be fully us!

This is a picture of all of us in the Hamptons.
Left to Right: Beth, Clare, Me, Margy and Kate.

New Kids on the Block!

When school ended in the beginning of May, I left Blacksburg and began my summer adventures. I left my townhouse, of which I was the only inhabitant; I left the rest of my team, which included eight adults and three children; and I left the Radford campus, where I had just finished my first year.

Three months later I returned to Blacksburg, and things had gotten a little different. I moved back into my townhouse, along with THREE new roommates; reconnected with my team, which now includes TEN adults, FOUR children and one more child only two weeks away; and back to Radford, where I am starting my second year and have begun to meet a number of freshmen already!

As I have labeled this updated, we have some new kids on the block and it feels so great! School starts today and I am refreshed and ready to meet even more students and begin to be a part of their lives! Please pray for our team as we begin to meet students as well as reconnect with students from last year.


Campus Outreach Virginia 2007
L to R: Collin Setterberg, Doug Rose,
Renee Head, Me, Josh Layfied, Katie
Hobson, Matt, Isaiah, Julia and Toby
Bradner, Andrew, Maria, Tera and Ava
Schwartz. Megan Long not pictured.

We are Virginia Tech by Nikki Giovanni

We are Virginia Tech.

We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning.

We are Virginia Tech.

We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly, we are brave enough to bend to cry, and we are sad enough to know that we must laugh again.

We are Virginia Tech.

We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did nothing to deserve it, but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by the rogue army, neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devastated for ivory, neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water, neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy.

We are Virginia Tech.

The Hokie Nation embraces our own and reaches out with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong, and brave, and innocent, and unafraid. We are better than we think and not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imaginations and the possibilities. We will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears and through all our sadness.

We are the Hokies.

We will prevail.

We will prevail.

We will prevail.

We are Virginia Tech.

Click here to listen to this talk.

Bigger and Better!

There is a game that I used to play when I was in college called Bigger and Better. The idea of the game is to start with something insignificant, like a penny or a paperclip, and trade that for something bigger and better. The game goes on for a certain amount of time and the person (or group) that comes back with the biggest and best item, wins. Well, Kyle McDonald decided that he would try to play bigger and better using the internet. So on July 12 2005, he went on Craigslist, a website that allows you to post things you are selling, trading or giving away, and he posted "one red paperclip," and said he wanted to trade if for something bigger and better.
His adventure began when someone offered to trade his paperclip for a fish pen and it ended one year later on July 12, 2006 when someone traded him a part in a movie for a free house!!

L to R: Clare Diamond, Me, Maria Schwartz, Haley Devine, Sarah Hollister, Beth Jans and Mel Messler.
This was our second Bible Study, we talked about the story of Jesus at the wedding feast. He was invited to the wedding, He came, and He made it Bigger and Better. But don't worry, that's sparkling grape juice!


In the same way, Jesus has come to make our lives bigger and better. In John 10:10, Jesus says: “I have come that you may have life and have it to the full. The word “to the full” in the Greek is translated as “perissos”. This word is an adjective and it means: exceeding, going beyond, abundant. In other words, BIGGER AND BETTER. In this passage, Jesus makes claims that through Him, life is bigger and better. You bring Him what you have and He gives you something Bigger and Better: Himself. So a challenge that we gave the girls was to do just that: Allow Jesus to make their lives Bigger and Better!!

At Radford there is a term that the students use called “pre-gaming.” What it means is that they go and start drinking before they go to a party. Another thing that the students do on a regular basis is they watch the show “Grey’s Anatomy.” So we’ve combined these terms and created “Pre-Greying” as the name of our Bible Study. So every Thursday before Grey’s Anatomy we get together and do some “Pre-Greying” by investigating the claim that Jesus has come that we may have life and have it “Bigger and Better.”

The Great Outdoors!

One of the first things we noticed as a team when we moved from Charlotte, NC to Blacksburg, VA is that the pace of life here is a lot slower. Blacksburg is the largest town in Virginia, but it is not considered a city. In Blacksburg, I don't have to worry about traffic jams before I head out the door, even if it is five o'clock in the afternoon. Granted, the students are not here because it's summer, but as a whole, the town seems to travel in a slower pace than the city of Charlotte, which is what we're used to. This gives us a chance to enjoy what the city has to offer.

Since we've been here (it has been one month and two days!) we have enjoyed going on hikes, riding our bikes, playing tennis, going on walks and running through our neighborhood. That doesn't seem like a lot, but for someone that has always lived in fairly big cities, this has been a great treat! My favorite hike was when we went to the "Cascades." We hiked for two miles and then we reached a beautiful waterfall. We were determined to dive in, even though it wasn't a very hot day and we had been told that the water would be freezing.

This is our (Haley and I's) second time jumping in, because the first time we did it we did not get a good picture, and what's the point of jumping into freezing cold water if you don't have a picture to prove it? You can click on the picture to see more of our trip.

The students are not going to be here till August, so we have a few months to get to know our surroundings, our teammates and ourselves. I told you a little bit about the surroundings, and it has been a joy to look out of our windows and see layers of mountains! But another thing that has been great has been getting to know my teammates. Because we live so close to one another we get to see each other almost on a daily basis. The Schwartz' are not going to be with us until the first week of August, so we are looking forward to have them with us full time. In the picture below you can see our whole team (minus baby Tera and baby Toby) when we crossed the Virginia state line.

Top Row (L to R): Andrew and Maria Schwartz, Me, and JoshLayfield.
Bottom Row (L to R): Doug Rose, Haley Devine, Collin Setterberg, Julia, Isaiah and Matt Bradner.
Click on the picture for our NEW website!

One of the ways in which I have seen our team's unity has been through the eyes of the children. Isaiah, Toby and Tera are getting more comfortable with us and that reveals an intimacy in our team that has increased since we've arrived. I look forward to seeing how the joy of our team overflows into the community around us.

As we continue to learn about our surroundings and to be impacted by what Blacksburg has to offer, we hope that it will be a two way relationship and that as we receive from this community, that they also receive from us.

Celebrate Good Times - Come On!!

On my last update I shared that my brother (Claude) was getting married on the 29th to Joy Vance. Well, it happened, they tied the knot at 5pm and it was a beautiful ceremony - click here for some photos. Having our whole family together was a great joy and we really enjoyed each other. I got to spend a good amount of time with my brother and his wife (Vitor & Marina) who came from Brazil. We stayed up late, woke up late and spent a lot of their money on gifts for people back home - it was great!
Another exciting thing that happened is that I turned 24!! YAY! Yesterday was my birthday (the 1st of May) and I got to celebrate it with my family before they left on Sunday (April 30th). We had a brunch, which consisted of fresh fruit, cold cuts, bagels, orange juice, coffee, and lastly ICE CREAM CAKE! It was a great surprise and I really enjoyed it, but it did not end there, on Monday - my actual birthday - my friend Mary Beth came to Raleigh to surprise me, and she did. I have felt very loved from all of my friends and family on my birthday, it will definitely be remembered in the years to come.
Lastly, as of today I have raised 76% of my support and feel like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Please join me as I pray that I will be done by the 19th of May so that I can depart with the rest of the team to Blacksburg, VA. I am excited about Virginia and what God has there for us in this next season of our lives. Thank you so much for your love and support!



Joy & Claude Pariz
at Raleigh Moravian Church
on April 29th at 5:00pm.
Marcelo Pariz (Claude's twin) was the
best man, and Catherine Vance, Joy's
sister was the Maid of Honor.

Radford, Here We Come!!

So it has been a while since I have posted my last blog and some great things have happened. One of those things is that the COVE Team spent a week in Virginia. We stayed at a lake house about one hour and a half away from Blacksburg, VA. It was a great time of catching up with each other and building vision for the upcoming year. During this time we found out who our partners will be and what school we will be going to individually. If you click here, you will see some pictures of our weekend, during this weekend we found out our partners and which schools we will be going to. My partner is Collin Setterberg and we will be working at Radford University. Radford is a medium size school, about 10,000 students, but the town is really small - it's definitely a college town! Haley Devine (my future roommate) and Douglas Rose will be working at Virginia Tech, which is a little bigger (about 26,000 students). While we were in Virginia we got to go to RU and walk around for a little while, it's a great campus. The students were very friendly and easy to talk to, we also noticed that a lot of the students smoke, this might seem like a random comment, but considering the fact that we had just been to Virginia Tech and saw ONE, then we went to RU and saw a lot more than that, we took notice.
Besides checking out the campuses, one of the best things about the week was getting to be around the whole team. I loved being around the kids and feeling like we were a family, thinking for each other and watching the interactions. Another thing that was great was getting a theme for this season of our lives, our theme will be "Authentic." We will look at three different angles of this word and what it means for our walk with the Lord. 1 - That God desires to have an authentic relationship with us, 2 - That He desires authentic changes in our lives, and 3 - That He desires for us to have authentic relationships with others. I am really excited to dive into this theme and understand more of God's character. It is VERY refreshing to understand that God has created all of us differently and that He deals with us differently. It makes me feel so special to understand that He doesn't just respond to my needs in the same way He responds to all other believers, but that He listens and responds according to who I am, and how He has design me.
On another note, my brother (Claude) is getting married on the 29th of April, which is right around the corner, and my brother (Vitor), who still lives in Brazil, will come with his wife (Marina) on the 21st and stay until the wedding. This is really exciting because I never get to see him and I miss him a lot, he is very joyful and refreshing to be around. This time can become very hectic for my family and I just ask that you remember us in your prayers and that this will be a time of rest and joy for all of us and not an overwhelming and frustrating time. The opportunity for my immediate family to come together (which makes up eight of us, six kids plus my parents) is very unique and has only happened twice in the last 14 years!! Most people have family reunions with their ENTIRE families, we have family reunions with our immediate families, that's pretty funny! That's all folks, I hope you all enjoyed this brief update!


Left to Right:
Collin Setterberg, Me, Haley Devine
and Douglas Rose in front of a
fountain on the Radford Campus.
Haley will be my roomate in VA and
Collin will be my partner on the
Campus.

Limbo: An intermediate place or state.

"An intermediate place or state," that is the definition I found for "limbo," which best describes the way I feel right now as I raise support to go to Virginia. There is a sense of tension in my heart, a feeling of not wanting to wholly give myself to the things in Raleigh because I know I will not be here long, but at the same time not wanting to have my mind be in Virginia because I'm not there yet - I'm here, in Raleigh, but not really. I've gotten accustomed to my lifestyle of raising support, a lifestyle that is unique to any other season I've ever gone through in my life. Sometimes that lifestyle gets interrupted by reminders of the past or anticipation of what the Lord will have in the future. Those reminders are usually very sweet, but also very brief, leaving me longing for more of it. I'm hoping that as you read this you can relate to that feeling of wanting to be "back there" where things were easy (or the things you remember as easy overwhelm all other things in your memory), or as you look forward to a place you are going you think that you will reach utopia and that FINALLY you will be where you have been longing to be for a very long time. What I am realizing during this season is that the hardest place to be is here, today. It is becoming more and more clear that it is more likely for me to be in "limbo," as defined above, than in any other place. So what does that tell me about the God that I serve?
This past weekend I went to Charleston with the rest of the Virginia team and Matt Bradner (the director of our team) was the speaker for a retreat that Campus Outreach Greenville was having. One of the things Matt said is that we get so caught up with wanting to get to our destination that we miss the reality that our God is about our relationship with Him, not about getting results or getting us to where we think we need to be. So this season of my life is not about raising all of the money I need in order to get to Virginia, it is about meeting with the Lord and being transformed by Him. Here is a verse that summarizes what Matt talked about this past weekend: "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you" Matthew 6:33.
Tomorrow we leave for Virginia, and we will stay there till Monday (27th of March). Our purpose for going to Virginia is to look for places to live as well as visit Churches that we might connect with when we move there. By the end of our trip I will know which school I will be going to and who my partner will be. This coming trip will stir up a lot of things in my heart about what God has in store for the next couple of years. On Monday I will head back to Raleigh and get back to my normal routine of raising support and learning that the God I serve is a God whose delight is found in the growth of my intimacy with Him and my satisfaction in Him, not about my percentage in support raising.

Silence and Longing

So as I told you all, I went on a Silent Retreat this past weekend. Here are some pictures if you want to check out the place where we stayed. It's called the Avila Retreat Center and its in Durham, NC. As you will notice in my pictures, I have a picture of a clown playing the guitar. I have to admit, I love this picture! Most people are scared of clowns, I guess because of all the make up - you never really know what they look like and they're always smiling - that's a little freaky! The thing I've been learning lately is that I'm very much like a clown and only a few people really know what I look like without any "make-up" on. So, like a clown, I get up and put on my "costume," then I go and entertain people. Only those who stick around long enough will know the real me.
The reason I'm writing all this is because I really want to be known completely. I want to be loved without the make-up and costume, I want the freedom to walk around in my "normal" clothes, with my "normal" face. That retreat really opened my eyes to realize that my Creator loves me for who I am, without the dressing up. I've also been noticing that men that are married are so confident, they don't really try to impress you, they just are who they are. I don't know if any of you have ever noticed that, but they have such freedom and, on my end, I feel free around them because I know that they're married, so I don't have to impress them either! I want to experince that, I want that freedom - that confidence - to be who I have been called to be and be free - because I'm taken, and I don't have to impress anyone, I've already been wooed and won!
"For your Maker is your Husband,the Lord of hosts is His name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called." Isaiah 54:5

It's been too long!

I has been WAY too long since my first blog. I want to apologize for the delay, and I also want to give you a quick update from the last few months.

November: Nothing too exciting. I was still living with Matt and Layna and working at Gray's College Bookstore, as I raised support. One thing that happened during the month of November was that the Lord began to make clear His desire for me to move to Raleigh, which He confirmed over Thanksgiving break. Family Pictures.

December: I began to pack up my things to move, which didn't take long since I had just moved in October. The reason I moved was to be able to really concentrate on raising support for Virginia. I moved to Raleigh on the 18th and left again on the 27th. I spent Christmas with my parents and three of my brothers. Over the New Year I went to Atlanta for the 2005 Atlanta New Year's Conference. It was a great time to be around a lot of great people, great speakers and great worship. I was reminded of the Lord's compassion for us, and was challenged to be more like Him in that area. It was an incredible time of renewal and joy for me. Christmas and Atlanta

January: As soon as I got back to Charlotte, the Campus Outreach Virginia Expansion team had a retreat. We did a lot of logistical things, but it was a great time of perspective building. We also found out that we will be going to Virginia Tech and Radford University and that we will live as a community. I have to admit, one of the most exciting news for me was hearing that we would all live as a community, I love the idea of having such intimacy with my team-mates! As we transition to a new city, new state and new jobs, we are going to desperately need the body of Christ! After the retreat I return to Raleigh and kicked it up a notch. I began going to Bible Studies and different Churches trying to meet as many people as possible. I also had friends come to visit me - Friends and Fondue Lastly, I traveled to Charlotte last weekend (the weekend of the 27th) to see the new member of our team - Tobias Robert Bradner. Tobias was born to Matt and Julia Bradner on the 26th of January at 10:33pm. He weighed 8lbs. 11oz. and was so cute. They are all doing well and I had a great time visiting them. Tobias Robert Bradner

February: This coming weekend I am going on a "Silent Retreat" along with all the other Campus Outreach Women. We are going to a retreat center in Durham, NC called the "Avila Retreat Center." I will let you know how it goes! Besides that, I am 32% done with Raising Support and 68% still trusting God. I have enjoyed this time of support raising a lot and look forward to the ways in which He will continue to make me more like Him!

First Blog

I am sitting in a coffee shop called "Koko Mo's," which is about two minutes away from my current residence - The House of Matt and Layna Stafford (and Bacon - the pug).
I've been living with Matt and Layna for about a week and a half now. It has been very restful, which is great because I've been sick this past week, which isn't so great. The reason I'm living at Matt and Layna's is because I am raising support to go on staff with a Christian Ministry called Campus Outreach.
I became a Christian through this ministry my freshmen year in college and have been involved with them ever since. I graduated from UNCC on December of 2004 with majors in Communication Studies and Spanish and worked for a semester as Associate Staff with Campus Outreach. Now there is a team of 8 of us (pictured below) that will be moving to the state of Virginia in May to start a new ministry on one of the campuses there, we don't know which one yet, but we are eager to know where God is leading us.
This past weekend I went to Denver, NC for a Women's Retreat with the UNCC students. It was a very encouraging event for me, Amy Alexander was the speaker, Heidi Nyholm was the MC for the weekend, Mary Beth Smith Patterson shared her testimony and Layna Stafford did an amazing job of leading us in worship on our way out, Saturday morning (these girls are all pictured bellow). These are a few of the women that were there this weekend who have played a key role in my life. From leading me in a Bible Study to being in a Bible Study that I led to being beside me ever since I've been a Christian, they have supported me and continue to do so.
That's all for now - welcome to my blog!


From Left to Right:
Layna, Me, and Amy at Cheddar's
Restaurant in Charlotte. Amy led Layna
and I in a Bible Study while we were in
College. Amy is now on staff with
Campus Outreach at UNCC. Layna is
a teacher in Charlotte, NC.




From Left to Right:
Heidi Nyholm, Mary Beth Smith, & Me
at Atlanta New Year's Conference '05.
These are the girls I led in a Bible
Study during my last year in College.
They are both graduating in May '06
from UNCC.




The Virginia Expansion team:
Back row (L to R): Haley Devine,
Me, Maria Schwartz, Julia Bradner.
Front row (L to R): Collin Setterberg,
Doug Rose, Andrew Schwartz,
Matt Bradner (Isaiah).
We will all be living in Blacksburg, VA.