Hello family and friends. Forward Ho! I feel this year is zipping along. Did you make any resolutions? I chickened out! We are trying to walk and eat well. Note the word, “trying.”
Rachel just turned 21! (See the P.S. below about Rachel and her lacrosse team.) Cady will be 30 in May. It is our 35th year in ministry. Our grand girls are growing — Khloe will be 3 at the end of February, Rylie will be 2 in mid-April.
Forward Ho to a new experience: This month I helped out at the Destino Winter Conference, Cru’s conference geared for Hispanic students. It was a chance to work with Cru staff — some from San Diego to Minneapolis to Miami. Destino mainly works with college students. The staff have found that many students are still active in their local churches, so have formed partnerships with (and invited) pastors and community leaders. How exciting to see more than 400 attendees worshipping God, hearing from great speakers (in two languages) and growing in their faith. The kids were sweet, it was refreshing to meet them. I spent several hours with two staff women from Boston (my favorite city!).
This was the first year Destino had more than 200 students in attendance. See more numbers below!
Throwback — I was there with two of the four writers I worked with in California in the 1980’s. Wendy, now my boss, previously served with Destino; Laurie works with students in Dallas after years ministering internationally. We shared San Bernardino stories and laughs.
Destino Winter Conference by the Numbers
- 225 Community leaders and pastors attended
- 242 Students attended (Several flew for the 1st time)
- 73 Campuses represented (including UCF right here in Orlando)
- 135 Cru staff worked the conference
- 306 Spiritual conversations were initiated during the day of outreach around Orlando
- 30 students indicated interest in summer missions.
- 15 indicated interest in a vocation in ministry.
The Mountains are Calling and We Must Go.
This will our family’s 12th summer in Colorado, and could be our last! It will be our first summer without our children living with us.
Cru (both the leadership and the staff) values these national conferences: time for our staff to be together to encourage one another, to hear from our leaders, to align ourselves with God’s Word and share best practices.
Things change over time and Fort Collins is not exempt. Colorado State University and its leadership have changed. Off-campus housing availability has dropped below what we need to hold summer-long programs. The local school district (we use two elementary schools each conference for our childcare) has changed their rental fee structure, increasing the costs. We have almost outgrown CSU’s basketball arena.
The national conference operations team, of which Andy and I are members, is working hard to incorporate the changes as we can, and overcome the shortages where they are happening. One of our summer-long training programs has moved to another location, one has had to scale back, and the seminary program is having to offer several classes online.
Andy and I are quite nostalgic. We have so loved our times in Colorado. Please join us in praying for the logistics of the conference this summer, and pray for wisdom for the summers to come, for whatever God has in store for us.
P.S. Proud Parent Corner:
Every year (fall and spring) Conference Carolinas puts out an article ranking their sports teams. We are bursting with pride over the write up about North Greenville’s Women’s Lacrosse Team:
The Crusaders of North Greenville are ranked fourth with 73 points from Conference coaches [the coaches are the voters]. North Greenville finished last season 7-3 in league play and 13-6 overall. A trio of all-conference selections return for the Crusaders in Rachel Kellogg, Hannah Hawkins and Sydney Taylor. Kellogg is one of the best players in the league and could be a dark horse for Offensive Player of the Year in 2019.
Forward Ho NGU Crusaders!
The Kelloggs 