Mike Garcia Baptized

This morning Mike Garcia, one of our Kats for Christ students, clothed himself with Christ in the waters of baptism at the church building. Many praises go up in heaven for an agnostic turned Christian! He confessed this morning that he wanted to do this to turn away from his sins and walk a new life in Christ. I love the reminder to live up to our baptism in dying to ourselves today and living for God today.

Chris <><
Campus Minister
Kats for Christ

christopherblair.blogspot.com

Website Redesign

We have just updated the Kats for Christ website. It is much more interactive and informative than we've had before. Throughout the rest of the summer we will be tweaking, adding, and enhancing the features on the website so the new students in the fall will be blessed by it.

Please help us with this process by spending a little bit of time (maybe 10 minutes) on the website. Besides becoming better informed about what is going on in our ministry, you will aid us in making this the best place it can be for our students, alumni, friends, and parents.

Let us know if there are major oversights, unclear explanations, misspelled word, or broken links. Also let us know what features would be beneficial for YOU personally. What would you like to see on the website?

LST Party

Hey everyone,

I wanted to let you know about our Let's Start Talking teams preparing for their summer projects. As part of their training, each of our 4 teams is responsible for putting together a party. They will do the same thing during their projects this summer, so they are learning now how to do that by actually putting on a party.

The first team up is SHSU Team Italy (Travis Esquivel and Jonathan Rowe). TONIGHT is the night! The party starts at 8:30pm so there is time to get to the KFC Building after church. There is a facebook event (http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=115333001815259&index=1) to which you can respond if you must let everyone know you are coming.

If you haven't met these two guys (and the rest of our teams!), join us for a great time of fun! Your support will go a long way in helping our teams be prepared to share Jesus and share themselves this summer. I hope you make it!

Chris <><
Kats for Christ
Campus Minister
christopherblair.blogspot.com

PS-the other teams will also have a party on April 14, April 28, and May 5. Put these on your calendar!

PPS-have you heard about our class: Going Deep in a Shallow World? Go to podcast at www.katsforchrist.com

KFC Let's Start Talking Projects

The spring semester is in full swing and we are loving it! God is moving in students' lives, bringing them to various levels of commitment. Some are learning to go deeper in their faith through all our service opportunities and others are making the ultimate commitment to put on Christ in the waters of baptism. Even more students are learning what it means to truly be a Kat for Christ as they mature in their being Jesus' disciple.

One of the huge parts of this spring semester involves training FOUR teams to go on a Let's Start Talking project this summer. We've never had so many making this commitment to go overseas to help people with their conversational English using the book of Luke. These 12 students are meeting weekly to get ready for what God is going to do through them this summer. This is a huge commitment for them!

Here is where you can be a tremendous help and blessing to our ministry. Each worker must raise $2,975 for the Let's Start Talking Ministry to go on a project this year. They must have half their funds in next Monday, February 1! A few students have already passed this mark, but many still have a long way to go. Will you partner with our KFC ministry in helping them raise the necessary funds to go to Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany this summer?

You can contribute a couple of ways. One, you can go directly to one of the student's team LST pages listed below and contribute securely online with any amount. If you know any of the students that is probably the best way to help them directly. If you don't know which student to give to we have another option. Two, you can go to our KFC LST page and click on the LST KFC Contribution button that will send you to our secure KFC PayPal site to contribute any amount. The money will then be distributed according to those students who need it most to fulfill their commitment.

Our challenge to our KFC alumni and KFC friends is this: we want to find 40 people to give at least $100 this year that goes directly to our students' LST fundraising commitment. Will you help us with this challenge? Know also that any amount will be accepted and is tax-deductible! We praise God that you want to partner with us in sending students all over the world through this ministry.

Here are the teams you can help with any financial contribution:

SHSU Team 1 (Belgium)

• Austin Atwood
• Jeremy Baggs
• Lindsey Montoya

SHSU Team 2 (Italy)

• Asia Kopp


• Jonathan Rowe


• Travis Esquivel

SHSU Team 3 (Switzerland)

• Alicia Carter


• Monique Bertrand


• Samantha Allardyce

SHSU Team 4 (Germany)

• Jamie Lenz


• Jessi Pitt


• Travis Knight

I thank you in advance for your continued support of our ministry. Let me know if you have any questions. If you want suggestions as to one particular student, please let me know that too!

Chris

Discovering Our Design

Last weekend was our annual fall retreat. We focused on Discovering Our Design. God has given every person a unique design that we cannot change. We spent the weekend seeking to begin discovering the way that God has wired us. I am excited about seeing these designs working in our ministry helping it function the best it can.

Oh yeah...we also had a ton of fun. It wouldn't be a retreat without it! Hanging out. Playing games. Staying up late. We did a high ropes course that really pushed some of our students faith! Overall, God was glorified, and we had a chance to get away from the routine to refocus on him. Thanks for you prayers and support for this weekend.

Chris <><

KFC Fall Retreat

In just under two weeks (Oct 16-18) we are having our annual Kats for Christ Fall Retreat. This year we are going to be making some good progress on one of our major goals for the year: to allow at least 20 students the opportunity to discover their ministry gifts. The process is pretty involved, but here is what is behind the goal. Rather than trying to fit students into a particular ministry slot, we are trying to fit our ministry to the areas in which God has gifted us. During the weekend, we hope to discover (and allow students to discover) their gifts as a first step in achieving this goal. I'm seriously excited to see what God does at this years' retreat.

Here is where you can help us. I love hearing stories of God working at retreats through the years. It seems like He takes advantage of people choosing to get away for a weekend to get closer to him with other Christians! Will you consider sending me a short story of how God worked in your life at one of the Kats for Christ retreats? I want to share these with our current students so they can see our God more clearly!

Also, will you consider contributing to help one student go on the retreat this year? The cost is $35 per student. We have a temporary online retreat payment option where even students can pay for their retreat. If you want to help make the retreat a possibility for a student unable to pay this year, just go to http://www.katsforchrist.com/retreat.php and make your contribution as long as this option is available. God is good all the time.

We appreciate your continued support for this ministry. Let me know if you have any questions.

Chris <><
Kats for Christ
Campus Minister
christopherblair.blogspot.com

PS-As always, you can also make one-time or recurring online contributions here.

KFC ARK Efforts

The semester has gotten off to a great start! We have an incredible group of new students (some freshman, some transfers). They have a contagiously gregarious and welcoming attitude. There are a lot of new friendships happening!

We have begun with eagerness a new service-oriented approach to blessing our community that we are calling ARK after the idea of acts of random kindness. People in the community (mainly at church right now) contact us about service needs they have. We write down all the important information on an ARK card and tack it on our cross. Students take it down, get a group of students together, contact the person directly about meeting that need, and then go serve!

What is cool about this is how we are able to use the youth of college students to serve like Jesus! Students get the benefit of learning the way of Jesus. We have also developed a little reward system to give a little more incentive for our students. While it is not about the points, we want to help students have some benefit for serving others. They receive points for their service. If they have a certain amount of points, we give them a discount on the retreat or with our Let's Start Talking expenses. Even when we go on our Spring Break Service Project next semester they will need to have a minimum level of points to go.

All in all, I'm excited about seeing how students are being formed into the image of Jesus. We are trying more and more to train and mature disciples of Jesus.

We thank you for your continued support of this ministry. Please keep us in your prayers!

Chris Blair <><
Kats for Christ
Campus Minister