Dear Friends,
It’s cold outside! If your folks are coming down for homecoming, now is the time to have them bring your heavy coat! But it is also a beautiful time as well. The leaves are changing and there is a crispness in the air. It’s all good; at least if you can stay warm.
This week is a different kind of week because of the Homecoming festivities.
We are partnering with the BCM (Baptist Campus Ministry) to build a float for the Homecoming Parade this Friday. You are invited to work on the float with us Monday – Thursday, 3pm till midnight at the WKU Ag Center whenever you can make it. Be sure to bring a pair of scissors!
HOMECOMING ACTIVITIES!!!!!
Tuesday Night—Movie Screening and Float Preparation!
We will meet at MMTH for the screening of our film that was entered in the Two Day Film Challenge 2006. For those of you who worked on this project it will be a fun time. For those who are just curious it should be awesome to see what your friends have been up to. Afterwards we will go to the Ag Center to work on the float.
Thursday Night—Meal and Program (Prayer of Dedication for Float) and Float Preparation!
We will meet at our usual time (6:30pm) for our meal at the Wesley Foundation. Then after a short devotional time and prayer we will head out to the Ag Center to work on the float together with BCM. Come and join us for free food and fun!
Friday Night—Parade, Street Fest, Big Red’s Roar!
The Homecoming Parade is at 5pm. We will meet at 4:15pm at the Wesley Foundation and go watch the parade together. You can call the Foundation at 842-2880 for more info on where we will gather to see the parade. After that we will enjoy the Big Red Street Fest (5:30pm Preston/South Lawn) and then go to Big Red’s Roar @ 8pm. Be sure and wear your Wesley Foundation T-shirts!
Saturday Afternoon—Tailgating and Game
We will be camping out in the Valley with a couple of vehicles on Friday night to reserve a space in front of Gilbert, McCormack, and Rodes for Saturday’s Tailgating. If you are interested in parking your car with us, let me know! On Saturday at 11am we will gather in front of the valley to begin cooking burgers and dogs. We will hand out as much as we’ve got until it’s gone, so stop by for some free food!!!! We will stay until about 3:30pm, and then we will pack up and go to the game!
Now for Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:
Water. It’s important stuff. Since I have been pregnant this time around, I don’t go anywhere without my water bottle. And I find that things go a lot better with me when I am drinking water on a regular basis, which reminds me, I’m feeling kind of parched! If I don’t get enough water during the day, my legs and feet cramp up in the middle of the night. Or my big belly with a baby in it (and I do mean BIG!) will tighten up on me and make any kind of movement difficult. Or I will find myself out of breath and lightheaded, and I will have to lie down on my side until it passes. This is just an amazing time in my life when the extra physical demands upon my body MAKE (as in “He makes me to lie down in green pastures”) me aware of how much water is necessary to keeping everything going. Our flesh needs water. We cannot do without it. When we neglect that need, serious consequences take place. Our bodies start to kick us.
Likewise our spirits need water. We cannot go without the water of God’s Holy Spirit without serious consequences happening in our lives. And what affects our spiritual selves, affects everything else we are connected to. I love the promise that Jesus gives to the woman at the well:
If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. . . . Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. John 4:10-14
She says, “Give me this water.” When was the last time you heard the promise of what Jesus offers and asked Him to give it, to be it for you? I think all too often we settle for the water of the flesh, and never even realize there is water of the Spirit, unquenchable water that gushes up from within us, sustaining us, equipping up, empowering us, uplifting us, and connecting us to God Almighty who loves us more than we could ever know. As I look at the way most of us live our lives (by doing a bunch of stuff to live up to impossible standards), I see so much cramping up of the spirit, difficultly of real movement, running out of breath, and incredible fatigue. This is not what Jesus promised when He offered us Himself!
I have been under so much conviction in the last few months to return to that place where God’s Spirit flows freely within me. I cannot experience it when I am bull-headedly trying to live up to some standard or unrealistic expectation. In fact, the Spirit doesn’t flow for me where I am trying to earn anything. It only flows from within me, in the way Jesus describes, when I purposefully expose myself to grace . . . God’s grace. That place where I am loved, and I don’t have to earn it, I don’t have to live up to it, I don’t have to manufacture it, I don’t have to manipulate myself or others to get it. It is that place where I must simply sit in it and ENJOY it, letting Jesus’s love fall all over me. And then the serving part isn’t such a struggle. It just naturally results. I want to share His love with others because I have been given His love to share. I know myself as loved. I know how to speak value into other lives because I know my own value, apart from what I do and totally connected with what He does for me. This is the water that never runs dry. It is the Water of His Holy Spirit.
My heart for you is that you would experience this artesian spring of Life welling up from within you too. That you would know it is okay to not be perfect, it is okay not to have it all planned out, it is okay to be human after all. It is okay to just . . . be . . . His.
You are His. The blessing comes in knowing it. Gosh you are so loved.
Peace on the journey from another pilgrim.
Sami
Sami Wilson
Campus Minister/Director
WKU Wesley Foundation
United Methodist Campus Ministry
842-2880 www.wkywesley.org sami@wkywesley.org
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