Quick Update From The Coast...

It's been a very busy couple of weeks at the Whaley house. We were blessed to be able to take a small trip back to Arkansas (more on that later), a couple of quick things going on around the house, you know the drill.

But the fun news of the week was that Mrs. Denise and I went to see the opening of the new Indiana Jones movie, 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'. UNBELIEVABLE! I grew up on all those Indy movies and I must say I love this series more that anything else. But this one caught me off guard. I've never been a Shia LaBeouf fan, mainly because of that crazy 'Even Stevens' TV show. But since he's made the switch to the big screen, this young man is really making a name for himself. He was really OK in "Holes", really good in "Transformers", but after last night, I'm an official Shia LaBeouf fan. And to pair his performance with my favorite actor of all time, Harrison Ford, I was in movie heaven. This is certainly one for the history books...hope you get to see it.

More coming soon...

He's My King...

The Year In Review...The Finale

The Spring Semester turned out to be everything it was predicted to be...and more.

Christmas Break brought about the launch of h2o's Internet Radio. This was major steps in, not only reaching our campus & community, but being an internet radio, we're able to reach literally global. Amazing how God works...

Our spring semester for h2o, we themed 'Spring Awakening'. I just felt that God was drawing us to Himself in such a way that we needed to understand how God uses common, ordinary people for extraordinary things. I taught through a series entitled, "The Original Dream Team"...the 12 Disciples. We took an in depth look at the character analysis of each of the chosen twelve. Absolutely amazing.

February brought us Valentine's Day, which we put together 100 candy bags with Valentine's Cards from h2o. We used this opportunity to pass out these candy bags all over campus with the simple message, "h2o loves you!". We did this exact same concept for Easter...another 100 bags! These were great servant evangelism projects for our students. The harsh winter that we had gave us another significant opportunity for servant evangelism. We set up a table in our Student Center and passed out cups of hot chocolate for over 3 1/2 hours! No strings attached...just simply free hot chocolate. The reactions from the students was priceless!

We came out of spring break with a big bang. h2o sponsored a campus wide concert featuring The Mighty Underdoggs. MU is a regional Christian rock group, made up of college students from all over Ohio. They did a fabulous job, and our students loved them. We're already planning on bringing them back next year. Great job MU!

With the end of the semester in sight, we really wanted to finish strong. We successfully completed our first-ever Dorm Blitz. Hundreds of flyer's were distributed 'underneath the doors' of our dorms in the middle of the night. Attendance continued to increase as the semester moved forward.

The students literally blew my mind when they approached me to begin a Sunday Morning Bible Study. Kind of like a cross between Sunday School and Small Group. We were blessed to be able to use one of the private dining rooms in our cafeteria on Sunday mornings at 10:00am.

Our biggest campus outreach promotion was our campus wide Guitar Hero II Tournament! We secured Osceola Theatre to hold this ridiculous event! Imagine playing a video game on a screen the size of a normal MOVIE SCREEN! It was crazy! We had almost 100 students participate in this with us. We were told by TU staff that this event was one of the largest attended events EVER at TU! We're already being asked by TU to do something like this again next year...what do you think we said...

Monthly outings to McDonalds for ice cream was extremely popular. At least once a month, we would crash Mickey D's after h2o for McFlurry Madness...or at least the McDonald's employees thought it was madness!

We passed out flyer's in our community as an evangelistic outreach for The River Church. We passed out over 300 flyer's in Tiffin's apartment complexes.

The last thing we did was a Digital Camera Scavenger Hunt. Talk about crazy...check out some of the pictures.

Our year was accentuated by h2o receiving the Outstanding Campus Service Award from Tiffin University. What a way to end the year.

Friendships were formed...relationships were forged...memories were created...but most importantly, lives were changed.

Our campus ministry name says it all: h2o...for all who thirst.

The Year In Review...

The 2007-2008 school year is almost over. But what we've seen God do over the past 9 months is surely to go down in the pages of history...

We knew one year ago, that God was up to something incredible. What we didn't know was that we were given front row seats to a supernatural performance of a lifetime. Our prayer is that we will be privy to Act II, beginning this fall. I simply cannot wait for the curtain to rise...

August 27th, 2007 was the birthdate for a vision of a lifetime. I remember it like it was yesterday. I had already moved my family to the Northcoast of Ohio from the Delta of southern Arkansas. Me, I felt like I was on a neverending racetrack back and forth from Arkansas to Ohio...fifteen hours each way. I had driven back to Ohio for the start of classes on the 24th, spending as much time on Tiffin University's campus as I could that first week. I was full of excitement in anticipation of what our first meeting was going to be like. I wasn't dissappointed. Five students & four adults later, h2o was born. Now, nine months later, we're seeing anywhere from 50 to 70 students in our worship gatherings. Currently, h2o is the 3rd largest organization/group on the TU campus.

The goal of the fall semester was simply to make our presence known on the campus. I met as many of the faculty and staff as I possibly could, we put out hundreds of flyers, made numerous phone calls, and established a critical imprint in world of Facebook. We learned extremely quick that the greatest avenue of communication with our students was going to be Facebook. I can honestly say, that the single greatest weapon in our ministry arsenal is Facebook. If you are serious about reaching collegiate students, please contact me and let me show you how this tool can work for you.

By the time the Christmas Break rolled around, h2o was beginning to leave it's mark on the campus. The fall semester brought about steady attendance growth coupled with lifetime relationships being developed. We were invited by the university to participate in their Spiritual Life Fair, as well as their Organizational Involvement Fair. We also participated in Operation Christmas Child which gave our students an opportunity for international missions. Our largest ministry/missions project came at Thanksgiving. Our students gathered enough food and raised enough money that we were able to provide Thanksgiving meals along with two weeks worth of groceries for three families in our community. We also partnered with another local church to provide, prepare and serve Christmas dinner for many of our underprividged families in Tiffin.

December was marked with a year-end Christmas party for our students at our house, along with the launch of our new church plant, The River Church. The River is designed to reach the 18-35 year old age group in our community, along with focusing on the students on both of our college campuses. The River was blessed to be able to also meet in Chisholm Auditorium on the TU campus, which is our home for h2o. It was great to see a brand new group of students reached with the addition of The River. Our church meets at 6:00pm on Sunday nights...perfect for reaching those students that are returning to campus from their weekend home trips.

Christmas brought about a needed time of rest and relaxation for our family. Even though I continued to work at my secular job, and maintained communication with our students, I sure enjoyed spending some much-needed quiet time at home with my family.

Our break was a good thing...the spring semester loomed in the distance...

...to be continued

Quick Update From The Coast...

Hey!

The past several days have been extremely hectic! I've just finished up leading worship at a revival in Amherst, Ohio...and our semester at TU is drawing close to the end. We've got so much going on campus, free time to blog has been at a premium. We're less than 2 weeks till the end of the semester, graduation is on May 3rd. Then, I'm planning on doing a lot of catching up on my blogs. Hope all is well with you! Stay tuned for more from the 'coast...

Sometimes, Seeing Is Believing...

Check Out THIS VIDEO!

Hot Chocolate Day...

Today was an incredible day for our servant evangelism project at Tiffin University. We set up a table inside our Student Center and gave away Hot Chocolate! WOW, did that ever go over good! Our original plans were to set up outside in the courtyard on campus, but the dreary weather drove us inside. It was incredible. We had information about our Campus Ministry available, but we let the students make the initial conversations about it. If they didn't, we didn't....they saw the info, but we didn't want to come across as though they HAD to hear our spiel about us BEFORE they could have their Hot Chocolate. It gave us a great day for simply lovin' on, and showing God's Love to our students. We gave away over 100 cups of Hot Chocolate...and yes, we DID have marshmallows!