Christmas Food Court Flash Mob, Hallelujah Chorus - Must See!

This actually made me cry at the end! Hallelujah.

Last Day on Campus in 2010

Students are finishing finals * some of our co-workers have left Milwaukee to get to their families before the snow hits * Ben and I drove in from Downers Grove, IL this morning after visiting my family for the weekend. These are signs of the end of the fall semester, and yet we have made appointments with students on campus today. I'm not going to lie-I was a little unmotivated to drive to the East side today for one appointment, knowing it is supposed to snow around 3pm and I would have to drive home in it. This is the week I get to work from home and don't have to leave my apartment all day for meetings or Bible studies. I can send emails and plan for next semester in my pajamas, while listening to music. Ahhh...

Ben also made an appointment to meet for the first time a guy who had come to our October outreach. It can seem impossible to follow up with students who attend these, especially months later, but even during finals week, this guy responded to Ben's last attempt to get together. I'm at a nearby coffee shop waiting for the girl I am meeting to finish her last final, when Ben excitedly calls to tell me that this guy he met with put his faith in Christ! Our outreach had given him the opportunity to reach out to someone who follows Christ and ask the questions he needed to ask to help bring him to the point of making this decision. I am so glad this is how Ben spent his last hour on campus!!

Though it seemed like coming to campus today was inconvenient and not how we "should" be using our time with just a few planning days left, clearly God had something better that we didn't know about. I can't wait for my appointment in one hour!

Proverbs 19:21 "Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails."


Us with Jim Monroe, the creative mind behind the MAZE Outreach we had in October. To learn more visit www.whatisthemaze.com.

Men's Conference

A couple of months ago, I (Ben) was humbled when I was asked to emcee the 2010 Upper Midwest Regional Men's Conference for Campus Crusade for Christ...long title I know. The conference happens once every two years, and the focus is on calling men to step out in faith and think about how Jesus can be Lord of their lives now, as well as after college as they consider where He may be leading them.

The only other time I had ever emceed was my junior year at the University of Iowa at the weekly CRU meetings. It was really encouraging hearing Troy Shirley, the conference director, tell me that he asked a number of men who they thought should be emceeing, and my name came up again and again. It was a lot of fun just being myself up there, helping cast vision to men to be "dangerous" for Jesus.

The reality is that a lot of men talk about serving Jesus with their lives. A lot of guys sing songs about investing their lives for God's Kingdom. Tons of guys think about going and bringing the gospel to the world....but the reality is, very few actually "man up" and go. I loved being able to talk about this, as well as other things the speakers touched on.

I would say the highlight of the conference for me was this: Jesse Guerrero, a freshman at UW Parkside, put his faith in Christ earlier this year, and he decided to come! It was awesome seeing Him really think for the first time about how he could live his life sold out for Jesus, and even wrestling with what that really meant. One of the days at the conference (it went Friday to Sunday), all of the guys went out and shared the gospel with neighborhoods in Minneapolis of churches that we had connections with. I was paired up with Jesse, and it was so amazing and humbling to think about the fact that Jesse was already multiplying his life and sharing his new-found faith in Jesus.

I hope this conference was more than just an experience for the 200 men that attended, but that it would part of what God is doing to spur them on to use their lives to invest in the Great Comission.

Winter Wonderland!

At the first snowfall, we enjoyed a chilly walk through the Washington Heights neighborhood which has beautiful, old houses and picturesque landscapes.

New Life at Parkside

God is taking the movement (ie: college ministry) at UW-Parkside to a whole new level. In the Spring students were asking for more one-on-one discipleship and opportunities to share their faith and talk to people about spiritual things on campus. During our two days a week there we have been meeting any student we can that seems to want to have a ministry at that school. A typical meeting in the past consisted of around 25 people. Last week we had 43, the most that have ever attended!

Ben regularly meets with four guys, and I meet with two girls, all of who comprise the leadership team for our ministry. I know Ben loves the guys, and he will just have to get on here and talk about them himself, but I want to brag about the girls: Stef and Steph. Two totally different girls, two very faithful women who have a heart for students at their school to know Jesus and live lives that reflect his goodness. They lead a Bible study together, and God is using them to challenge the girls who attend to take steps of faith and apply what they are learning to their lives. Steph has started meeting one-on-one with one of the girls on the softball team who is wanting to grow in her relationship with God and become more involved in helping others grow.



Four weeks ago Ben was in the dorms with Luke, a wrestler at UWP, when they saw a guy sitting in the lounge who had been coming to Cru events but Ben really didn't know. They talked about his spiritual background as they got to know him, and were starting to go through a booklet that outlines what the Bible says it means to be a Christian, when his girlfriend came in. They continued the conversation and Ben asked Sarah what she thought about all of this. She didn't grow up in church, and had never been given the opportunity to respond to Jesus' invitation to have a personal relationship with God. That day, she prayed with Ben and Luke and put her faith in Jesus as her Lord and Savior.

After finding that out an hour later, I got Sarah's phone number and sent her a text to invite her to my first Bible study that night. When I arrived ten minutes early, she was there waiting! The past month she has come to every study and we have also been meeting one-on-one in the afternoons to help her gain a foundation to help her grow in her faith. It is awesome to see her reading her Bible for the first time ever, and asking questions about topics all across the board. She is learning a lot and I am excited to see how God will continue changing her has she walks with Him.

Fallen Behind

If you've come here looking to see what the Newtons have been up to, you may have concluded that there is nothing exciting to report, which would be the reason for my absence from blogging. Our lives are boring, and there's just nothing worth writing about. It's just the opposite, and if you're in our line of work you know exactly why!

"The first six weeks" or however long before your fall retreat are the busiest weeks of work. This weekend is our fall retreat, and it has been more than six weeks since school started. Needless to say, we are spent. But there are so many stories I want to share with you. The fact that we are writing our monthly newsletter several weeks late has only given God more time to do sweet things in students' lives! Following are some recent accounts of what God has been doing through or ministries at UW-Milwaukee and UW-Parkside.

"Firefly"

On August 1st we stopped being nomads, and we have been celebrating ever since! We had some great help from our family who traveled from IL to help us load and unload our truck, and had a very successful moving day. That is, until Ben and Bud went to return the 24 ft. rental truck at 6pm. Just a half mile from our apartment is an overpass that is 12 ft. high. The truck we rented was about 13.5 ft. You can see where this is going...

"Like a sardine can" was how Bud described how the top of the truck was ripped off when Ben drove under the bridge. To my surprise, the hit felt to Ben like he was driving over a large pothole. He had no idea what had happened until Bud (who was driving in front of him) pulled over to see if Ben was okay. Thankfully no one was behind Ben when this happened, as the entire top of the now convertible truck flew off into the road. I felt so bad for him because he had done such a great job driving the truck the entire day, which is not an easy feat! While they waited for the police to arrive, passerby's stopped to talk to them and disclosed that this happens about 5 times a year and agreed the signage for the bridge should be more obvious to rookie truck drivers.

The next day played out differently than expected as we spent a good amount of time with our new State Farm agent and on the phone with the rental company. We are praying that we will only have to pay the deductible for our collision insurance. (We bought all of the "insurance" through the rental company, but this is the one thing they don't cover!) Hopefully we will find out soon. The whole event really put our value on finances into perspective: We could freak out that we suddenly had this large sum of money to pay and would have this much less saved up for a home, or be thankful that we have money saved for times like this. We were also reminded that when our value is in God, who is Lord over everything, we won't be shaken during times like this, because our money is not what our hope or value is in. Ben felt this particularly strongly those first 24 hours.

Now that we have been in Wauwatosa for almost two weeks, we can confidently say we love our new place. At first we could only say that about our apartment, but after exploring downtown and running on one of the many amazing parkways our county has, we are excited to be a part of this community. We have already made the 1.5 mile walk to the Farmer's Market, visited an art festival, and played a few games of tennis on some public courts we found. Alterra, Milwaukee's local coffee company, is just 4 buildings down from us, and it doesn't take us long to get to the lake. The town of some 44,000 people is named after the Potawatami word for "firefly."

Here are some pictures:

Of our place:

Love the built in cabinets!

The office:

Jersey Girls! (kind of)

Going into this summer I had hoped for two things: To grow in confidence leading women in Bible study and discipleship, and glean from the people around me. Knowing I would be around 30+CCC staff and 115 students, there would be a lot of wisdom and life experience I could learn from. I highly underestimated how God would use the students to grow me.

Each of the staff were entrusted with a group of students we would meet with individually and as a group for the summer. Above is Meredith, Maggie, Amanda, and Emily. Four girls I knew nothing about May 18th, and who are near and dear to my heart today. I'm really not just saying that. (If you know me, I don't just say stuff like that. In fact I don't really ever say things I don't mean). I love them!

These girls live together in the smallest room of an old boarding house in New Jersey with no air conditioning and 80 other students. They work jobs they might not be working normally, because their purpose for the summer isn't to make money, it's to fall more in love with God and experience healthy community with each other. Now that Ben and I are back in Milwaukee, and all of the other staff have left-the students are in charge of the rest of the summer project. They are leading each other, having big outreaches on the beach, giving weekly talks, and Amanda is cooking for everyone! (With the help of Nick).

The hours I spent with these girls each week made my summer a blast, and taught me about God's grace above all else. God allowed the pressure to be taken off of me to teach them, as I relied on Him to help me plan, and reminded myself that I am just one person coming alongside them in their journey with God.

Having been off campus for 7 months, it was SUCH a joy to meet with them and hear about their passions, how God has loved them each specifically through different seasons of life, and be able to go with them to share with others about the freedom Christ offers to those who believe in Him.

We laughed, sunbathed, painted pottery, ate crepes (and sand) together this summer. They might think our time together was primarily for their benefit, but I want them to know it was for mine just as much!

"Let no one look down on you because of your youth, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity." 1 Timothy 4:12

Isn't Life Beautiful?

I've been sick since Thursday, and am at the tail end of this nasty cold. It's really hard to be sick on project, because there is so much to do all of the time. We had our staff vs. student softball game Saturday night, which I of course attended but didn't plan to play in. When I saw my name on the batting roster it was hard to resist going up for just a few swings. I struck out :) We beat the students by a ton, which Ben was excited about because he planned the event and had worked hard to make sure the staff would have the victory. That's not even why I'm writing though. I'm writing because on Monday I received a sweet package in the mail. Ben's church he grew up in had a women's supper on Father's Day, and instead of having a speaker they gathered information about their women missionaries and learned about them...and made cards for them! Take a look: They are all so beautiful and unique-they just brightened my day right when I needed to be cheered up! It was such a great idea for a women's conference-and the most meaningful part is that they were all praying for me as I gave my talk at our conference the very next day. Thanks CLCBC ladies!

Lead of Love

I'm in the process of writing a talk to give at our womens' conference tomorrow night, and I came across this picture a friend made for me four years ago. I had sent out an email update for my internship at Iowa and included the lyrics to this song by Caedmon's Call called "Lead of Love", and he responded with this sweet picture of the lyrics. I love the song because it shows the artist's hindsight understanding of God's hand in the things he went through, which were hard to understand at the time.

My aim for tomorrow night is to help the girls I'm speaking to remember how God has worked in their lives in various ways, (and continue to be aware of this), and catch glimpses of how He might want to use their lives. The theme of the night is 'catching a glimpse', and I've had what seems like an impossible time getting my talk nailed down. When I think about the different ways God has brought me out of situations that seemed hopeless, totally changed my defeated mindset, or redeemed dead parts of my heart, I am hopeful that those stories will encourage my listeners and help them believe Him in their own lives.

The Best Way to Start My Morning

I often go back and forth in my mind: "What really is the best way to start my morning?" If I work out first, I'll be more alert when reading and praying for my day. If I put those things first, which seems ideal in order to make sure they actually happen, I might spend most of my time fighting to stay awake. It's still a battle, but while on a different 'summer' schedule, I opt for exercise first. Mainly because Ben gets up early to work out, so it's motivating to do the same and be able to do it with him, and then sit out on the porch to read before staff meetings start.

This morning I had a new experience. One of the girls out here that I've wanted to get to know better said she was going to run 5 miles, and I wanted to run with her to spend time with her so I decided to join her. I wouldn't call myself an experienced runner, but I can push myself to go for a long time. We started in the middle of the 2.5 mile long boardwalk and I quickly figured out that my pace is not very fast! I fought to keep up with Erin and Emily, who was also with us, so I could talk with them as we ran. It was hard but worth it because it kept my mind off of the running. The boardwalk is so lively even at 8am! It's divided into sections for pedestrians, bikes, runners, and surreys (none of which are usually out that early). It was fun to see families biking together and jogging couples spurring each other on. And it was HOT, which I really liked. Emily cut out after 2.5 miles, but I wanted to see if I could finish the 5. I told Erin I would follow her, but I wouldn't be able to keep her pace. Thankfully I had my ipod (thanks for the birthday present, family!) so I turned it on for the last leg of the jog. It was so hard, but such a great feeling to finish. I did have to hurry to get ready before everyone showed up for staff meeting, but I would say running on the boardwalk has been the best way to start my morning so far this summer. I'm hoping for many more to come!

East Coast Summer

One of the beauties of our job is that we get to travel...a lot. About a week ago we began our road trip to Ocean City, NJ, and life has not slowed down since we got here. We drove with Brandon and Amy, good friends of ours that we spent last summer with. After stopping at Notre Dame in Indiana (Ben and Brandon in front of 'touchdown Jesus), and spending our first night somewhere outside of Toledo in a not-so-worth-the-low-price-hotel, we headed for Gettysburg, PA. Pennsylvania is by far the best state I've ever driven through. It's so beautiful! The mountains are an enjoyable drive, even in the dark, which makes it a little more adventurous.

We toured Gettysburg in the rain, imagining what it must have been like to experience the whole thing. I wish I would have appreciated history more and paid attention in school, but Brandon acted as our encyclopedia, recalling dates and events from the civil war.

Despite our best efforts to arrive in Ocean City 'early', we showed up at 9pm to get our keys and unpack our cars. Our house has the biggest living area, so we were deemed the hosts of all staff meetings. It's a mixed blessing, but the positives have far outweighed the negatives. It's fun to have everyone over, and we never have to worry about being late! Our week has been full of staff meetings with training and a time for everyone to share their story of beginning a relationship with God. It's the best way to get to know 40 different people in a single week. I have been blown away at some of the lives in the room that God has shaped and is now using for His purposes. So many have experienced death of loved ones, and just really hard things that I can't relate with. But their hope in Christ exceeds the difficult things they have seen and known, and they are willing to be used to bring the truth of the gospel to others so they too can find hope. What an exciting summer we have ahead of us! We have the names of our students and we can't wait to meet them this week. We will each be working with four from around the country. There are also a few students from Iowa that are coming so it will be fun to see them.

Tomorrow we have the day off before students show up on Tuesday, so Ben and I are going to explore the local shops and eateries and walk along the boardwalk. I'm going to try to keep my mind off of my job, which is House Manager, along with another staff member. We have a lot of responsibilities in this first week as we will be leading our work day at The Ambassador's Inn-an old boarding house that was bought for our project 46 years ago and needs a good Spring cleaning this time of year, as it's not used for anything else. The Ambassador houses 80 students and the rest stay in a house down the street that's affectionately called "The Mansion". (We live down the street in a rented house).

Well this is long enough. It's late so it was more factual than anything, but hopefully it was fun to read. Here's a view from The Ambassador. The streets are lined with these huge beach houses for miles and miles. I apologize for the choppy text and randomly placed pictures-I'll master these layout skills some day!

Birthday Week

Monday was Ben's 25th birthday, and it was the culmination of a packed week. We celebrated by playing catch and frisbee on Lake Michigan after being on campus all day, and then explored a path we see from the road when driving to UWM several times a week. We then visited our first shopping mall in Milwaukee-Bayshore-and are pleased that we are finally close to some great stores. OK maybe I am more pleased, but we had fun popping into a few before heading to dinner. Ben loves Hu Hot, a do-it-yourself-stir-fry place we went to a lot in IA, so we went to Bd's Mongolian Grill to see how it measured up. Though the food wasn't as good, we were in for a treat. A local church was having a fundraiser that night and brought in some high school kids to do some interpretive mime dancing. It was hilarious and a perfect way to finish our meal. Here he is with the dancers, wearing the Tim Tebow jersey I gave him.


Since our anniversary is the 25th and we are going out for dinner and dessert that night, we broke out our wedding cake for dessert. It was still pretty good! Other birthday festivities included going to the historical Pfister Hotel, downtown with Ben's parents. Here are a few more photos


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We Moved!

Now that 99% of our friends are long distance I'm going to take writing a blog a little more seriously. There is already so much to share! We have been in Milwaukee since Thursday, and are getting a good feel of the city. We have to drive by Miller Park to get downtown, which is really fun. Today was opening day so we enjoyed seeing fans cross the bridge on their way there. It reminded us a little of Melrose Ave. in Iowa City before a Hawks game. Since dropping off our moving truck and filling our storage unit (we are temporarily living with friends until the fall) we have enjoyedexploring our new city. The first thing I fell in love with is Jackson Park, which is a huge park right across the street! I went on a run half expecting there to be little else than a bunch of trees and a path to run on. I was surprised to see a large pond, numerous shelters, bridges, and a public swimming pool. Later Ben and I discovered tennis courts, too. We anticipate spending many sunny days here.
We are living with Neil and Bri, a couple our age who works for our company and has graciously allowed us to live with them until we leave for Jersey this summer. It's been fun having roommates. Bri is a great cook, and Ben and Neil are enjoying living with someone who is excited to watch basketball with them! They hid Easter eggs for us and gave us free passes to the Milwaukee Public Museum. We used those today and saw the Dead Sea Scrolls. It was really incredible. We dyed Easter eggs together, which Ben and I used in his family's annual Easter egg tournament...Wednesday we start working on campus full time. We will shadow other staff working at UWM (near the lake) and UW-Parkside (35 miles south of Milwaukee). We're excited to get on campus and start doing what we have been preparing for all year! I'll let you know how it goes!

Reunited With An Old Friend

this was supossed to be BLACK frosting! I had my work cut out for me.

It has been a long time since I've had a reason to think about Mickey Mouse. So when my dear friend Erin asked me to make a cake for her 2-year old's Mickey Mouse birthday party, I had to really think about what kind of cake this was going to be. Here are the results!