Reflections from the Couch...

There is a good reason that I've been absent from blogland for the last 2 weeks! Truman and I were working 12-14 hour days for over a week and a half straight, preparing to host a conference for 38 Campus Crusade for Christ staff here in Denver. Since the conference ended on Wednesday, I've been resting and recovering!

Monday through Wednesday of this week, Campus Crusade staff all over the US participated in Cross 09, a focused time of ministering cross culturally on college campuses. For years, CCC staff have been crossing oceans with the Gospel message. Countless lives have been transformed because of those staff who crossed cultures. But even here in the United States, there are still “oceans” to be crossed. The number of ethnic minorities enrolling in colleges is continuing to exponentially increase. In fact, Latinos are on track to be largest demographic of school age children by 2050.

As staff who work with ethnic minority students full time, Truman and I, with the help of our Denver staff team, planned a 3 day conference for staff from across our region to join us in Denver for a time a cultural learning. On Tuesday morning, Truman and I gave a 2.5 hour seminar on Latino culture, a snapshot of the Latino presence in America, and how to work with Latino students on campus. As we are continuing to learn about the Latino culture ourselves, all of the research and preparation we did for this time was extremely helpful to us as well.

Nearly all of our time and energy in recent weeks has gone into preparing for this conference. I wanted to share some photos with you of all that we got to be a part of during Cross 09:

On Monday and Tuesday afternoon, we spread out to 5 campuses across the city to engage ethnic minority students in a photo survey that allowed us to learn about their cultural experiences and ask about their personal stories.

On Wednesday, we broke into groups and served with a variety of ministries who work in communities throughout Denver. Groups tutored adults who are taking an ESL class, took breakfast burritos to undocumented workers in the labor line and prayed for them and their families, and worked on two homes with the Extreme Community Makeover project.

Below is a photo of part of the group that painted the exterior of a home, with the proud homeowner. Her face absolutely lit up when she saw her home's "new look"!

We loved having this opportunity to serve the staff in our region and we are so thankful for the ways that we saw God work in the hearts and lives of both staff and students during Cross 09! We are praying that God would continue to use the experiences that took place this week as staff head back to the campuses they minister on across Colorado and Kansas.

Since Cross 09 has been the main focus of our time for the last 2 weeks, there has been minimal cooking and no crafting going on in the Lo household! But, I have several projects sketched out in my idea notebook and plans to break out my sewing machine this coming week (after I get caught up on the piles of laundry and cleaning that has been neglected, of course!) I am looking forward to working on some gifts and enjoying some creative time before Thanksgiving. After long hours of research and planning, I am itching for time to create!