Highlights from the 2005 NAD Campus Ministries Conference

Top Ten Highlights in NAD Campus Ministries Conference (IMHO, of course):

10. having long breaks (over an hour) between meetings

9. playing Mafia until 3:00am (okay, I didn't participate in this but it must've been fun)

8. getting to choose between pizza, sandwiches, and chinese food at the Oakwood College cafeteria

7. experiencing the friendliness of the students at Oakwood College

6. seeing someone laugh when she caught herself making a request to God during the two-day challenge to only give thanks

5. staying up until midnight thanking God and reading His word aloud with the Southwestern leaders

4. hearing Jose Rojas' insights on thanking God in the Thursday night meeting

3. feeling energized and grateful after thanking and praising God in that same Thursday night meeting (I was pretty tired before that meeting)

2. meeting people from the other schools who inspired me spiritually because of their passion to serve God and people

1. taking the two-day challenge to only give thanks when praying

Other random highlights:

• so, who's the "real" CUC?
• sitting and eating with five other campus ministries leaders and realizing that five schools were represented at the table
• meeting someone who eats way too much but has a tapeworm :) and/or a super-super-fast metabolism so he's still relatively skinny
  
• Clive's English accent
• "Ohhhhh Ceeeee"
• Granola bars
• sitting at a caf table with a bunch of people and finding out that two of the girls helping out with campus ministry were taking Theology and were also from the same school (way cool!)
  
• "whatchu gonna do about it?"
• Oakwood has two chaplains and twelve chaplain's assistants; Southwestern has one chaplain and one student chaplain; hmmm, I gotta talk to my chaplain about this...
• Jose's accent
• "Swaaaaa Oooooo"
• cool names: Fidi, Sonam, Cale, Beamie (sp?)
• What I got from Jose's last message on the samaritan woman: the campus whore in the hands of God may be our most powerful evangelist, so we must reach out to "sinners" like her like Jesus did
• consistently praising and thanking God takes practice; it's hard work
• And finally, one of the best prayers you can ever pray: "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

Later,

dee