South Africa bound!

As many of you know, we will be leading a group of 18 students to go to South Africa for the summer! There is a Campus Outreach over there & so we will be helping their ministry during our stay. We are both so excited for this opportunity! This will be my (Kaye's) first trip out of the country! Ben actually got to go visit S.A. for a week last year & absolutely loved it so we feel very privileged to be leading this team. We LOVE the group of students we are taking (12 girls, 6 guys--those #s look pretty promising for the guys, huh?). We have had 2 retreats to prepare for our trip & they have both gone great. We have been so encouraged by how quickly the team is connecting!
Ben will be leaving this Monday, along with our director, G'joe, to go to South Africa to get everything set up for our time there. Please pray for safety in their traveling & that they would be able to get all the things done that they need to. And pray for jetlag...it is about a 20 hour flight!
Here are a couple of pictures of the team!

This one is at our first retreat...we met at Zaxby's for dinner. See how well they are bonding?!

Here's the whole team. All the girls thought it would be cute to do a side-pony-tail for the picture. Just wanted to say that in case you were wondering if this picture was taken in 2008 or 1980?!

Winter/Spring Retreat

Sorry we have been so bad at keeping up with the blog lately! Two weekends ago we had a winter (felt more like spring) retreat down in Charleston. About 40 students came with us & we learned about "Making History" and how we can either write history, or be written by history. Our speaker talked about how we, as Christians, are called to make history as witnesses for Christ on this earth. We had a great time, our students really connected & the weather couldn't have been more perfect. On our free afternoon some played paintball, while others of us just strolled around downtown Charleston. Enjoy the pictures!

This is just before the dodgeball game. Ben is explaining the instructions (or destructions!). Shortly after they began playing, one guy went to throw a ball (& the guys throw the balls REALLY hard) & his forearm landed on another guy's nose...and it broke--his nose that is!

These are some of the girls playing it safe & watching the dodgeball game from a safe distance away.

This is a pole right in front of the market in Charleston. Those colorful little patches is everyone's chewed up gum. Pretty gross if you ask me, but colorful nonetheless.

The pretty fountain at the battery.

The pretty fountain hiding behind the pretty girls.

It was such a beautiful day!

New Year's Eve/ATL Conference

Of course, we were at our New Year's Conference over New Year's, so about 400 of us walked the streets of Atlanta about 15 blocks over to the Hilton, where a lot of other Campus Outreaches were having their conference & we rang in the New Year with Steve Fee (from the passion band), then headed back to our own hotel for a little dance party 2008 style!!
The conference was great overall. If you would like to listen to any of the talks or seminars from the conference they will be posted on our website www.cogreenville.org by the end of the month. Check them out! (I would highly recommend Ben's seminar!)


Getting ready to head over to the Hilton!


It's so hard to get a good picture when you're short! Steve Fee is somewhere up there behind all the tall people!


Some students getting down at the dance party...this dance is called the "peanut butter & jelly!"


Got a little excited! Happy New Year!

Cousin Eddie

We know most of you have seen National Lampoon's "Christmas Vacation" & if you have seen it, then you all remember Cousin Eddie--the one who shows up in the RV. This is the second year we have had a Christmas party for students in honor of Cousin Eddie. You must wear your best 80's Christmas attire to attend this party & you must bring a Dirty Santa gift. We decorate the building where we hold our meetings & set up tables family style & we all bring food & have a meal. We hope that this will continue to be an annual tradition for years to come! It is a hilarious time! Enjoy the pictures!


We had some creative thinkers in the group!


I think Cory (on the right) wins the prize for best dressed!


The whole clan

Girls' Getaway

Back in November we had our women's retreat. It was a great time of fun & fellowship. We had wonderful speakers--our Campus Outreach Greenville women's director Kelli Kirkland, and our Campus Outreach Greenville director's wife Aimee Joseph--both PC grads. They spoke to us on "Satisfied" & what it looks like for the longings that we have within us to be SATISFIED in God through Christ. I'm still thanking God for this weekend thinking of our approaching New Year's conference, because many girls that came that weekend are also coming to Atlanta with us this week! I'm so thankful for the way God uses events like these!!

Monster Bash '07

Yes, we are a little behind on the updating. Our internet is finally running smoothly after 3 months. But, here are some pics from our 1st annual Monster Bash (Halloween Party). I'm not sure why we've never done it before because it was a hit! We had costume contests, food, games, a haunted trail and ended with a few games of mafia. It was a great opportunity to draw more people into fellowship with us!

So we realize this calls for a little explanation. Bobbing for apples is a little out of style these days so we made something a little more grotesque...bobbing for poo. That's right. Those are snickers bars floating in mountain dew!


It was a relay race where students had to bob for the poo, then chew it up completely before the next person went.


The girls were a little grossed out. The funniest was when one girl held her nose going in!


A "gold-digging..."


Ben & I were "peace & quiet" since we barely get that working with college students!

Hard Man Challenge Weekend

Well, we call it a challenge because we don't want to call it a retreat. It kind of contradicts the idea of being a hard man if you go on a "retreat". Nonetheless, we had about 25 guys come up to Brevard, North Carolina. The weekend was filled with camping, building forts, fires, capture the flag, paintball, tackle football and other "manly" activities. The weekend was a great opportunity to spend some informal time with guys and just connect and build friendships. Devin (our staff guy) had a friend of his come & share his testimony with the guys on Saturday morning which was great. Most of the guys that came have been involved in our freshmen guys bible study which ends this week. Please be praying for the comings weeks as we talk with these freshmen guys about being apart of a more committed bible study group.