Urbana 2009

Thank you so much for your prayers as I prepared to teach at Urbana. They were a good reminder to not be self-obsessed in my teaching and simply trust that God would work through me and honor the months of preparation leading up to Urbana. In the end, teaching was great fun! On the final day, God even allowed me a few glimpses of how the word impacted student's lives - after the study, a handful of students shared how John 4 encouraged them to share their faith with unreached groups on campus. One even asked for study notes so he could go back to his campus and lead an evangelistic bible study for friends who were curious about Jesus.

What else happened at Urbana?
-- 16,000 participants from across the world (representing 2/3 of the worlds countries) gathered to hear and respond to God's
global mission.
-- 2,232 decided to commit or recommit their lives to following Jesus
-- 2,676 committed to serving in long-term (2 years or more) cross-cultural missions. This is the largest number in the 10
years.

It's hard to put into words the worship, speakers and drama, so I'm not going to even try. You can get a feel of these things for yourself! See video of the sessions, photos and get an overview of the conference by going here. Day 1 video will highlight the opening night's session, showing the artistic creativity of Urbana. Other recommendations are:
-- Interview with Patrick Fun (Click through Day 2 videos to find it)
-- Sundar Krishnan's talk on prayer (click through Day 4 videos)
-- Alec Hill's talk on campus impact (click through Day 5 videos)

Some more photos from Urbana:

My teaching room before
participants arrived >>>









<<< My awesome teaching team! (TMo, Maria, Terry, Jarita - not pictured, Simon, Myself)







After each study, I gathered with
my team to debrief and pray >>>









<<< One of the students from the study that I got to meet and chat with! He's a junior at OH State - pray that God would make clear his paths as he discerns the Lord's calling following graduation.



Grant got to experience Urbana
for the first time too! >>>