Hey Parents!

We hope you are enjoying your holidays as much as we are! Our vacations will be over before you know it, so join me in enjoying every moment of rest you get!! (unless of course you didn’t get a vacation at all, in which case you can ignore that first sentence, and I’m sorry!)

EDL is back in action on Sunday, January 4th and also on Wednesday the 7th. We’re meeting on every Sunday and every Wednesday with no interruptions for the next few months.

Melissa is going to be teaching on Wednesday nights for the entire month of January and I’ll be teaching on Sundays. She’s got a series planned full of “hot topics” that the church doesn’t usually like to talk about. She’s starting things off by addressing DEPRESSION. I’ll be kicking off a teaching/LifeGroup series based on Colossians. If you’re interested in reading the book that has inspired much of what we will cover you can pick it up here. It’s probably not what you’d consider an “easy read“, but it’s definitely worth the effort.

Broomball is right around the corner too on January 9th!

“Train a child in the ways of the Lord, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” – Proverbs 22:6

Made me laugh

Hey parents,

We weren’t able to secure the same location for next year’s ROMP, so… anyone out there have any ideas? We have a few thoughts, but you guys are always coming up with great ideas so we wanted to ask!

The spot needs to cater to about 120 people, trailers, boats, bathrooms, showers would be nice, not too far from emergency services, etc…

Email one of us if you have an idea! I’m sure we’ll nail something down

Hey Parents,

We launched a new blog for the students! It’s chock full of info/pictures/videos/links and all sorts of stuff.

Click HERE to check it out at edlstudents.com

Today was a FANTASTIC day serving the homeless in Santa Ana. About 20 students met at Calvary at 8am and prepared 200 sandwiches, which were the main course in 100 brownbag lunches.

We drove down to Main Street and Broadway and had no difficulty at all finding people who were hungry. There were probably 75-100 people down there who lived right there on the streets of Santa Ana. We handed out every bag we brought, and not only that, our students were so quick to start conversations with the people they met. Some of the students just sat and talked, others even prayed with the people they met. We heard a ton of stories, and our hearts broke for many of them.

I’m so proud of our kids. They want to go back as often as possible. I think we can arrange that

Thank God for what he’s doing at Calvary, not only with the renewed passion for community involvement, but for STUDENTS who are mature enough to engage those in our city who are less fortunate than them.

Well done, moms and dads!

Hey parents, Ryan Guard here.

I just wanted to say a couple quick things about our trip coming up this February. There have been some concerns about safety in Tijuana, based on some news stories that surfaced over the past few months.

Our college ministry just returned home from a trip to the same ministry site a couple weeks ago. They felt safe the entire time, mentioning that the location of Baja Christian Ministries isn’t in a dangerous area.We also have a trip to this same location planned with a group of families from Calvary on board.

I can never guarantee the safety of anyone on a trip (I can’t guarantee much in this crazy world), but I can definitely guarantee that safety will always be my top priority when working with students. I will pull the plug in a heartbeat if there is even a moderate chance that we’d be in any sort of danger.

We handed out applications for the trip last Wednesday (and a LOT of students took one).

Please feel free to share your questions or concerns with Melissa or myself any time!

Last night I started things out with a sweet, calming, delicate video about the birth of Christ, and then began to read from Luke 2. I got about three sentences into the text when my voice was joined together with a repeated cash register KACHING, as well as a looping track of a very loud crowd. I just kept on reading through the text until I finished chapter two, pretty much ignoring the chaos of sound that I was competing with. The illustration, as you’ve probably guessed, was about the difficulty in experiencing the story of Christ in the midst of so many distractions. The crowd and the cash register made me think of the mall.

And the story of the man trampled at Wal-Mart.

And the story of the two men who shot each other at a toy store the same day.

And it all made me think that we may have completely missed the point about Christmas.

So this video helped us remember:

And we gave the students a handful of ways to do Christmas differently this year. We encouraged them to go home and figure out ways to spend less and give more. I told them about the five “World Changers” organizations listed on the right side of my blog, and a few of them have already gone and checked them out. And we told them about three or four different things they can do right here at Calvary in the coming months to give back.

We started the application process for the Mexico Mission Trip in February. Applications are available now!

We also let students sign up to come and serve on December 13th. We’re meeting at Calvary at 8am, making meals for the homeless in Santa Ana, and then heading out to hand them out. Transportation will be provided (let us know if you would like to drive).

We have a small group of amazing freshman boys who need a LifeGroup leader! They’re coming to EDL every week, and right now we have them set up with a temporary leader (me). The commitment is to meet with the students every Sunday morning at EDL, as well as during the week from time to time in hopes of developing Godly relationships/mentorships with them.

Right now we have 33 LifeGroup leaders right now who meet with students on a weekly basis, and that is an AMAZING number! But we need one more.

Do you know someone who would be a great leader for these guys? They deserve the best.

Let one of us know! Or… go tell that person who came to mind that you think they would be a great LifeGroup leader

-rg

December 10th is the Christmas Banquet for EDL, and we need your help!

We have two ways that you can plug in:

1. Help us set up the room that morning any time between 8:30am and 3:00pm.

2. Put on your black pants and white shirt and come be a food server from 6:30pm to 9:00pm!

Let us know if you can help by either leaving a comment right here or emailing Melissa at mbrosch@calvarylife.org.