Wow - what a busy time!

Hi Friends! Here is the latest in a series of updates. I think so far in Waco I've done better about actually sending "updates" on my activities and life than I did in Greenville. In Greenville I was more philosophical. Now I only have time to be that philosophical on my essays. :) But don't worry... I'm sure I'll still wax poetic pretty regularly. Especially the more I learn big words and how to write, I anticipate that someday these web updates will be high literature.... kidding, kidding.

OK - so its been about a week since my last writing.
Quick news/notes:
* My youth ministry team went out last Wednesday for the first time. They are AWESOME!!! Here's the deal (because I don't think I've articulated this before) - Baylor has a program where they create teams of undergraduate students (with a few grad students on board, too) and then send them to youth groups around texas (when invited by churches) and they put on a youth night in place of their regular youth group evening. Each team has a worship band, speaker and then any combination of others who give their testimony, run games or do dramas. The youth get a chance to see students in ministry and hear from someone other than their pastor (and these churches are small and may have a pastor who has two or three roles and is not just a youth pastor, and their youth group may be small - so its a blessing for the pastor, too). Baylor gets a chance to have high school and jr. high students exposed to the University.
* So anyway, my team is comprised of the Chapel worship band (they are a really neat bunch, who've been together for a while and have a sincere love for Jesus and fun, great attitudes), a friend of mine (Marquette Bugg - how cool is her name?!) who is our speaker, and then a bunch of great women who take the other various roles. My job is to organize the group, make sure we have all the tools we need and then drive the van and just hang out with them on the way, while we're there and afterward at dinner. I love it. I get to pray for them and support them and enable them for ministry and then just watch them fly. SO FUN!
* Last weekend, I went to San Antonio and visited the Fergs again. It was a great weekend... partially because our friends Dawn and Taylor Swendsen were there, with their small son: Ezra. It was great to see them and get caught up. It was even BETTER that we were together at John and Karen's - kind of surreal for all of us to be together but be in Texas. We had a great time together and the Lord blessed us all through the opportunity!!!
* Right now at work I'm planning a gathering of all the chaplains of Greek Life and I'm hoping to figure out a time that will work well for most of them. The difficulty is that "Pigskin" is coming up soon - which is an evening of full-on musical performances by select student groups (those who were in the top 6 or 10 from the spring "Sing" competition) and many of the groups are Greek and have practice ALL THE TIME so I'm trying to schedule around chapter meetings, Pigskin practice and costume fittings and voting nights (because at the same time they are also doing fall rush!) I'm also trying to pray about and plan a ladies bible study for the women in that group. Hopefully I can get that started in October.

So with all those things, I'm also going to class (I love class - so nerdy, but I don't even care. I like my cohort a lot, and I'm enjoying what I'm learning.), trying to do homework (I have my first "research" paper due this Friday - yikes) and also cultivating a social life (lets just call this what it is: an Amazing Race support group).... God is good. I'm coming out of the darkness of my sad week (last week's post) and moving more confidently in the Lord's plans for me.

God bless you this week!


Jim McGreevey