This last week we officially closed out our 2018-2019 school year with our graduation ceremony. I was asked to share a few words about the journey I had gone on over the past 10 months. I had already wanted to write a blog about this very thing to share with you so I felt like it was fitting to just give you guys the speech that I gave at graduation! A little over a year ago God gave me a vision of myself. It looked like a movie. I could see a 9 year old version of myself walking on a dirt road at sunset. I was holding someone's hand but I couldn't see who it was. Suddenly, I realized that the person was Jesus. I then saw my face: 9 year old me was laughing and experiencing pure joy. I was delighting in simply being with Jesus, delighting in his presence with me on the road. This vision came during a time when my walk with Christ had grown stale, I was desperate to see Jesus like I had when I was a child: with wide-eyed wonder! 10 months ago, the students and staff of Emmaus embarked on a journey. God called us all to journey together to a city called Emmaus, a road that the resurrected Jesus walked on with two of his disciples. As they were walking he showed them how the whole story of Scripture pointed to himself. As they reflected on their time on the road they said, “Did not our hearts burn within us when he opened up the scriptures to us?”One of my favorite parts of my job is that I get to continue to walk on this Emmaus Road every year with our students. I get to journey alongside them as they see each book of the Bible come alive. I was asked by Caleb to quickly share a little bit of what my Emmaus Journey has looked like for the past 10 months. This turned out to be a really difficult task. The last 10 months of my life have seen so much movement and change. Many times it felt like I was sprinting, not walking, on this Emmaus road. In the last 10 months I taught 10 books of the Bible for the school, and I moved off campus into my first apartment. Most importantly, on January 19th, I got married to the love of my life. As I have reflected about the last year I feel like God has done two things in my life. Specifically, he has shown me his love for me in two major ways. I would like to share those with you.

First thing:

God has shown me his love for me through the books that I taught. Each book this year has been God wanting to gain more real estate in my heart. It was never me imparting knowledge to the students. It was always God speaking to a direct timely need.[gallery ids="329,330" type="rectangular"]Jonah taught me that I am like Jonah: bitter and resentful to people that I think don’t deserve my love; people who I believe are my enemy. God is patient with me, sits with me and challenges me to love unconditionally like how he loves his enemies. Deuteronomy showed me the choice that we all have between life and death. The one I have so commonly chosen wrong. So many times what I think will bring me life is really death with a disguise. No matter how many times I chose death God was offering me true life. Ezekiel: God is in the midst of my suffering, pain and loneliness. He enters into my Babylon. In fact he enters into our darkest times and is present with us. This came at a time when my father was in bad health and I had to go home.Zechariah showed me how to walk out life when our expectations don't meet reality. Corinthians taught me to make Love my aim. Peter taught me to be gentle and kind. So often I wrongly envision myself as leading the students down the Emmaus road - like I’m playing the part of Jesus. But in actuality, it’s that I’m still on this Emmaus journey. I’m 9 years old, delighting in Jesus and every now and again I look back and see these guys walking behind me. The first way God loved me is by giving me these books to teach.

The second way I have seen God love me is through Lauren.

[gallery ids="325,328" type="rectangular"]I knew marriage was going to be fun and awesome. But man, I didn't know that it was going to be this good! There has not been one single other person who has taught me more about the love of Jesus than Lauren. Not because of lack of godly mentors, that's just how awesome Lauren is. When I feel dirty, gross, and unlovable she has been the one to speak love to me. Too many times she has picked me off of the floor and said, “try again”. She has spoken truth to me when I have needed it. She has challenged me to look more like Jesus every day. She Demands my love for her, she pulls my heart back to her and reminds me, “hey, we are in this forever.”. She has seen the ugliest sides of me and said, “I think I can love that.”. She only learned that from Jesus. When I spend time with her and have her love on me, it’s God’s love for me through her. Lauren you are teaching me more about the Gospel than I could ever learn from just studying it in a book. God sent you to be my best friend, because he knew I needed you. Thank you. In many ways I am still on this Emmaus road, and I’m thankful that it will never stop. I’m also so thankful to have these travel companions for this leg of the journey. Class of 2019, your time here at Emmaus is coming to a close, but your journey on the road to Emmaus is just beginning.

Prayer Requests

The Summer ahead- I will soon share with you what we are doing this summer. Please pray for productivity for the staff and travel mercies as we all journey around. Future Students- We are currently accepting student applications. Pray for those who are getting ready to do the school and for those who are still yet to apply. Pray that God would draw in future students to our program. Support- I am hoping to use this summer to get ahead in support raising. I really need to double my monthly support base. Please pray for divine appointments and people who are excited about the mission.

Hello, Partners in the Gospel of Jesus Christ!Catching Up:I try to do a blog update once every 2 months, but March and April were so jam-packed with teaching that it was hard to find time to sit down, process the season, and give you an update on it all! In the span of 7 weeks, I taught 5 books for our SBS, 3 different seminars and was a guest speaker for my own church. Needless to say, it was probably the busiest I’ve ever been. I wish that I could share everything about these lectures. Each lecture had a different impact on me as I prepared, and I pray a lasting impact on those who attended my classes, lectures, and sermons. In this update I will be sharing some of the highlights, telling you about what God is doing in my heart, then talk about what we are currently working on here at Emmaus. Teaching Books of the Bible: In the last few months, I taught 1 and 2 Corinthians, 1 and 2 Peter, and Jude for our students in our 10-month school. All of these books have heavily impacted me as a teacher and leader. Corinthians taught me to lead out of my weaknesses and humility, and to seek my neighbors needs instead of my own. 1 Peter taught me that I am a priest both in word and action, because of this I’m called to a holy life. 2 Peter and Jude showed me that it's easy to be a false teacher, say what’s popular, and stay comfortable. These books challenged me to contend for the faith and stand up for the truth.Teaching Seminars:Many of you know that we offer several different seminars. This spring I was able to teach a few. The first was a seminar that we call Bible Overview. We break up the Bible into different “acts” and teach people the overarching story of Scripture. My Lecture covered Acts to Revelation!The second seminar was a historical background lecture to the Gospel of Mark. The Gospel of Mark is my favorite book to teach, so to be able to help a church better understand this amazing book was so awesome! I also taught one of our Biblical Narrative Series. I had the pleasure of talking about Hebrews, 1 and 2 Peter, Jude and James in a 2-hour seminar. This was honestly one of my favorite lectures. The seminar is part of a series where we teach each book of the Bible and how they fit into God's bigger story!Lastly, I had the distinct pleasure of teaching Sunday morning for my church, Grace Oviedo. This was my first time teaching on a Sunday morning at a church ever! I have never been so nervous and so excited to teach. I was asked to teach in the middle of our series on marriage, where we were going through the book Song of Songs. My sermon was on chapter 7! I taught on Nakedness and Vulnerability in marriage. If we want true intimacy we must first be vulnerable and open. You can listen to my sermon here!  https://discovergrace.com/media/?sapurl=Lys0ODk0L2xiL21pLytrczVnajZjP2F1dG9wbGF5PXRydWUmZW1iZWQ9dHJ1ZQ==Current work:We are in our last few weeks of school so we are shifting our attention to the Fall. There are a few big things that we are focusing on.

Here are a few of our favorite pictures from the big day. Don't worry, more will be coming soon!Pictures by Old Pine Pictorial. 

Hello, partners in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I’m super excited to be writing you! This year has been a great year of change already, with much more to come. As we enter 2019 we have a lot on our hearts for this ministry. I wanted to take some time to vision cast with you, to show you what we are hoping to accomplish this year and all that we have going on.

General Ministry Updates!

This year is really exciting for two big reasons: We have just welcomed two brand new staff members to help run the school! I want to introduce to you, Kristi Marsh and Morgan Phaneuf.Over thMorgan was a student with our SBS program this last year. Morgan really let Scripture transform and mess with her life. Even when she was a student she had a passion for helping people engage with the Bible. We are thrilled to welcome her husband, Justin, and their children Drake and Tannis, to the Emmaus Family. Please pray for Morgan as she is currently support raising and preparing to teach her first book: Colossians.

This spring we are back in the New Testament. This semester is our second time teaching the New Testament with our revised format. This makes it so much easier to not be creating the curriculum as we teach. We feel like we have hit a groove and now we can focus on fine-tuning our school to be the best experience it can be. Vision for the future: We first changed the program because we believed that God was calling us to make the school more accessible. We took the program down to 20/hours a week by eliminating some “busy work”. We also designed our program to be more commuter friendly so that our students didn't have to live on campus. We are exploring even more ways that we can remove barriers and make the school even more attainable to more people. We have a few ideas that we are considering, Stay posted!

We have been blown away by the response to our Biblical Narrative Series. We created this monthly night class as a way for people to learn the overarching story of Scripture. We have been seeing great engagement from those in attendance. People are getting quick and easy tips and tricks for tackling each book of the Bible. Vision for the Future: We want to reach more people with this great resource. We are currently looking into ways that are going to make the monthly night class easier to attend. We are even praying through multiple nights and locations. Our hope as always is to help as many Christians feel less intimidated by Scripture. We want to see Orlando know their Bible in a way they haven't been able to yet. We believe that the Biblical Narrative Series will play a big role in seeing this vision come true.

We started 2019 the best way ever! On January 19th Lauren and I got married here in Orlando! It was a beautiful service lead by Tom Phillips. We celebrated with family and friends at First Baptist Orlando. Lauren and I were blessed to spend our honeymoon in Hawaii. We spent most of our time on Maui. I have never seen anywhere so beautiful! We are home now and getting back into the swing of normal life. Lauren and I have been looking forward to getting into a rhythm! We only have the rest of our lives together to figure this thing out! (wedding pictures by Old Pine Pictorial)

Emmaus- Please pray for me as I prep for the books that I'm teaching this semester. Please also pray for our new staff as they support raise and teach for the first time. Support Raise- Now that we are married I am feeling the pressure to get fully funded. I'm starting to close the gap, but I'm still in need of more monthly donors. Please pray for God to move in the hearts of people and to set up divine appointments.If you would like to join me as a financial partner in ministry, Click Here.Grace Oviedo- Pray that Lauren and I will have a real impact on these high schoolers. Pray that God will use us to break into their lives.

Hello Partners in the living Word of God. It has been a little while since I have been able to spend any time updating yall about life here at Emmaus. I wanted to just take some time sharing with y'all what is happening here at the school, what I am doing here at Emmaus and what is going on with our wedding planning. As I write this Lauren and I have less than 100 days until we tie the knot! We are so excited to kick off our life together! Currently, we have sent out all of our invites and are now working through everything for the reception. It feels weird to be this close to the wedding, yet it still feels far away. Lauren and I do recognize that October, November, and December are all going to fly by and before we know it, we will be married! We recently got back from Northern Georgia where we had the pleasure of shooting our engagement photos! Our Photographers are a young couple our age and we had an awesome road trip to the mountains to make these photos happen. Here is a little sneak peek of what is to come: [gallery ids="269,270,271,272,273,274" type="rectangular"]

(Our Photos were taken by Old Pine Pictorial)

So much has been happening here at Emmaus that I am excited to tell you about. On September 8th, Jacob and Samantha McRae (staff) welcomed little Benaiah McRae into the world and we welcomed him into the Emmaus family! We are so excited for the McRaes! We have been able to spend some time with Benaiah and it has been a joy. Sam and Jacob are both doing well! They are currently trying to get used to life with a baby. Since Jacob and Sam are on leave, their responsibilities have been split between the remaining staff. Over the past month, I have picked up a few more responsibilities with things on campus and with making the day to day operations run. The main new thing is that I have currently been cooking/ordering breakfast for our students. A big part of this work is doing what is ultimately unseen by students. I feel like God has been growing in me an appreciation for the work in ministry that goes unpraised. Very rarely would I ever sign up for a task that wouldn't result in me getting some sort of praise. In this season I feel like my heart has been pushed and challenged. God has said to my heart, “I have more for you than what you want, isn't it enough that I see you and am pleased?”. This time has really forced me to be more forward-thinking, more organized and more humble than ever before. I really am grateful for it and I still have tons of room to grow! In September I had the pleasure of teaching Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy might be my favorite book of the Law and it was a blast to prepare and teach. I found myself, more than ever, vulnerable while teaching Deuteronomy. I believe that God has called me to be open and vulnerable when I teach, to share my own faults and weaknesses with our students. I didn't realize until I was teaching Deuteronomy, but it was really hard this time to be open and share my own brokenness with the students. Deuteronomy has a great message. The Israelites are about to enter over into the promised land and they are given a choice: Follow God in faithfulness or rebel and do what they think is right. Moses phrases it like this. “Today I set before you a choice, life or death. Choose life”. It has really hit me during prep and teaching what it looks like to have true life: following Jesus with everything I've got. Death looks like doing what I think will bring me life. Too often in my own life, I have chosen death when it disguises itself as life. Jesus would say it this way in the Gospel of Mark (8:35), “For whoever would save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life or my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” Deuteronomy was the hardest book for me to teach, but it was one of the most rewarding at the same time. More recently I was able to teach the prophet Joel. This seemingly insignificant book is absolutely packed with amazing truth about God’s character, the day of the Lord and the hope that we know we have in our Savior. I was able to teach about how God is slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and willing to relent of disaster. Joel has been one of the more challenging books to teach and yet one of the most rewarding. If you would like the audio lectures for either Deuteronomy or Joel, feel free to message me and I will send it to you![gallery ids="275,278,276,277" type="rectangular"] 

What is coming up:

During this month we have several Biblical Narrative Series! All of them will be on the prophets and we are so excited to share these with the local church. Caleb Ives has been teaching and totally killing each one! Lauren and I are moving right along with wedding planning and getting ready for starting life together! We can't wait to be married. I will be teaching Ezekiel (November) and Zechariah (December). I am really excited for both, but I don't feel like I have enough time to sufficiently study and know Ezekiel. Pray that I will be diligent in my study!  

Prayer Request:

As always, pray that our students would find life in their study and their work, that it wouldn't just be turning in homework. Support- I'm still attempting to be fully funded by the wedding. We have had a few more partners join us! Slowly but surely God is closing the gap. Please pray for more meetings and for divine appointments! Praise- Lauren and I just got accepted for an apartment! We are really excited about moving in and starting our family together. I will be moving in at the end of November. I’m going to get the apartment ready (paint, furniture etc). Then Lauren is going to move in after the wedding! We are so excited and so blessed to have our living situation figured out!!

It’s finally here! This last week we kicked off our first full year with our revamped School of Biblical Studies. We have been waiting and praying for this day for months and it’s crazy to think that it’s finally here. As always, I want to give you an inside look at what is going on here at the school, give you a picture of what is to come, and then a quick prayer request. This fall we have welcomed 6 new students into the school and 4 students from the spring semester are continuing their journey. We are always excited to help students begin their Emmaus journey, this year we have been blessed to have the nations come to us. When we changed the school to be part-time, we thought that was the end of seeing students come from all over the world and United States but were surprisingly and thankfully wrong!! This year we have a couple from the Netherlands and a student from Germany and Pennsylvania. This has filled our classroom with a diversity of backgrounds and cultures, this helps all of us to learn more about God, life in community and ourselves.Within our student body, 6 students are living on campus here at Canterbury. One thing that we strive for at Emmaus is to establish genuine relationships and community life. So when we welcome new students I am always a little nervous. Will the students like living on campus? will they enjoy each other? how can we facilitate good community? A lot of my worries about our on-campus community were answered before the school even started. Several of our students showed up a few days early, before classes or our scheduled community times. However, our new students instantly started to cook food together and have game nights. The community on campus has already been a wonderful surprise. The students have started to grow closer together. Below you can see a picture of us sharing some Dutch pancakes for dinner. Afterword we played ping pong. I can already tell that this season is going to be very life-giving. [gallery ids="253,252" type="rectangular"] We have started to walk the students through the way that they are going to study Scripture this year through the Inductive Bible Study Method. I had the pleasure of teaching 4 times in the first week. On the first day, we talked about what inductive Bible study is, digging into what it looks like to lay aside our preconceived notions and let the text speak for itself. On our second and third days, we talked about methods of Observation. I was able to teach the students how to see and study the structure of each book and how to create and utilize their own color code. Thursday I walked the students through Interpretation, which is considering what the book would have meant to the original readers or hearers. On this day I had two lectures, one where I introduced the idea of what good interpretation looks like. Each year when we teach the students the Inductive method, we have them “practice” on a book of the Bible. This year we chose the book of Jonah to help them learn the method. Thursday morning I had the pleasure of walking them through the relevant historical background of Jonah. The difficult part of teaching this for many Old Testament books is that we aren't sure for a lot of it. This is part of why we wanted to start with Jonah. Right off the bat, our students have to wrestle with difficult questions like who wrote Jonah, when was it written, is it history or allegory? [gallery ids="263,261,258" type="rectangular"]This semester we are so excited to see these students journey through the Old Testament. I know that when I began my Emmaus journey through the Old Testament it was exciting, scary and awesome all at the same time. Please pray that God will work through us and help us to encourage these students as they begin their journey here at Emmaus. Lastly, we have started up our Biblical Narrative Series. This is our Monday night class open to the public. Our narrative series is designed to run in tandem with our school. At each lecture, we spend some time talking about the relevant historical information that all the books share and we give tips on how to study every book within that unit of Scripture. This last week we started out in the Pentateuch! One of our teaching staff, Sarah Wise, did an amazing job in leading this first session of the fall! Our next narrative series will be September 17th covering Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuels, and Kings! If you are local please join us!  

Prayer Requests:

This season is admittedly the busiest I have ever been. I am teaching full time for Emmaus, leading the new high school ministry at my church, speaking once a month at the assisted living home, and planning a wedding. I feel tired already, and have a long way to go. The wedding is closing in!!! With marriage just around the corner, I feel the pressure to get fully funded. Pray that God will help me find divine appointments and stir in the hearts of future partners to give. I am so thankful for your continual prayer and support! Thank you for partnering with me in the Gospel here at Emmaus! 

These last few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity! In the last week of May we wrapped up our very first semester of our new School of Biblical Studies. This semester was our Pilot program where our students were testing out the new structure and format of the school. Running a pilot school gave us the chance to tweak and adjust along the way, making sure that it's the best way to run the program.. Even though we only ran for one semester it felt like a whole school-years worth of work! As we prepare for the fall semester i would love to take some time to share with yall how we finished and what lies ahead.

Prayer Time With the Students

One unique thing about our emmaus community is the intentional time that we take to encourage and affirm one another. Instead of studying for the last week of classes, we spent time just debriefing their experience here at the school. The biggest part of the debrief was the time spent to affirm and pray over every student and staff member that was a part of this community. We as a staff planned for two hours of encouragement, but it ended up taking closer to four and a half! We spent a lot of time speaking the truth of the Gospel into each other's hearts. All of us on staff walked away from that time amazed at what God was doing in each of our students hearts. 

Emmaus Celebration

Most programs like this end with a graduation ceremony. We wanted our students to be celebrated for their hard work. Each staff member gave a few words for their one-on-one for the semester. I had the pleasure of sharing a few words about Seth. Seth truly walks out the Gospel in his life. He might be the most teachable and moldable person I have ever meet. Any time that he feels like God is calling him to grow, change, or do something, his simple reply is, “Yes Lord”. He has really become a student of God's word and I am so proud of him. During our celebration ceremony we took sometime to encourage Tom Phillips. Tom Has been the executive director of Emmaus for several years now. He recently stepped down in order to become an Episcopal priest at a church right here at Canterbury! We wanted to send him off well, so we asked all of our past staff and students to send in videos sharing their thoughts and memories of Tom from their past experiences here at Emmaus. It was a special time to celebrate 12 years of hard work. We are so grateful for everything that Tom has done for this ministry and are excited for what lies ahead for him.

This Summer!

I just got done speaking at the summer camp, New Venture. This was the 4th year I have been able to speak for this camp. For those of you who don't know, New Venture is a camp for kids who have been removed from their home, usually due to abuse or neglect. Most of the kids are not familiar with church or the Gospel. It is one of my favorite speaking engagements every year. The theme this year was “Ransomed”. Using Mark 10:45, we talked about how Jesus Christ paid the price needed to rescue us from sin and death. During the week, I highlighted how Jesus ransoms us from sin, performance and death. We talked about how God uses everything in our lives to make us more like Jesus. Leaving the week I felt like the Holy Spirit really got an opportunity to work in the lives of a few kids this summer. This week was about planting seeds in the hearts of hurting kids so that one day the Holy Spirit might remind them of a chapel or phrase that they heard at camp and move them towards following Jesus. Please pray for those campers, they are currently back home in tough environments where they might feel far away from God. Soon I will be tag-teaming a camp in Ohio with my dad! I'm excited to get some time with my dad this summer and I always enjoy fun ministry alongside him.

Prep for the Fall

During my weeks here in Florida, we are getting ready for our school in the fall. We currently have 10 students accepted and coming in September. Along with those 10 we have a few more last minute applications. We are confident that the fall school will be in the double digits!!!Fall prep is everything from unit assignments and welcome week prep, to physical renovations. This week we are currently working on updating some of the student dorms to be more spacious and offer better storage space. We are also currently working on updating our classroom and residential hall with new paint, carpets and lighting. Lastly, new kitchen equipment will be added to make residential students have a better living experience while on campus. There is a lot going on here to get excited about. Lastly, this summer I’m hoping to go on a big fundraiser push. I am hoping to get fully funded by the fall and raise money as the wedding approaches. Please pray for divine appointments and partners in the Gospel to get excited about what is happening here at Emmaus.

Hello Partners in the ministry of Jesus Christ!It’s been a while since my last official update, so I wanted to take some time to fill y’all in on everything ministry-wise as well as giving some prayer requests moving forward.

Traveling and Teaching

This past semester I was blessed to travel to Michigan twice to teach for the middle school and high school youth groups on their separate winter retreats. For years my dad has spoken at the winter and summer camp retreats. I grew up attending the youth group while I was in middle school. For both retreats I tried my best to focus on the simple Gospel. Both groups let me choose the theme and feel for the weekend. Part of me loves that creative freedom and another part of me always gets a little nervous. For the Middle Schoolers we focused on the theme of Identity. The tag for the weekend was “Who are you? You are who God calls you!”. We talked about how when the Gospel is at the center of our identity we are able to walk in this world in peace. We don't search for our identity in the world because we have been called righteous by our heavenly Father because of how Jesus took our place on the cross. For the Teens the theme for the weekend was Coming Home to the Gospel. We talked about how we were created to long for and desire home, a place where we’re accepted, wanted and treasured. We looked at the story of the Prodigal Son and his brother, and how they both looked for their home in the wrong place.I feel like God used this difficult theme to really speak to the hearts of the campers about their eternal hope and home in heaven with Jesus. Both weeks I left feeling ministered to. Jesus tends to use the topics that I am teaching to convict my own heart and push me closer to him. I was so honored to be used by God to speak to the youth and inspire them to follow Jesus with their whole hearts and lives!

Serving at Emmaus

Over the past few months I have taught Mark, 1st Corinthians and 1st Peter. Teaching for Emmaus, to me, feels like playing for the Major Leagues. As I tackle the unique challenges of each book, I wonder how I will bring the books alive for the students.. The temptation for my flesh is to make each book about me and how great I can teach it or how impressive and how much of an authority I am on the book. Instead I try to let the learning and discovering happen in the minds and hearts of the students. Learning usually sticks better when a student comes to a conclusion themselves, rather than when they are brought to one.

The Bridge- Assisted Living Home

Once a month I lead two church services for the residents of an Assisted Living Home. I was given this opportunity by a friend who used to teach there.It has surprised and humbled me that my time spent here is usually the highlight of my monthMost of my teaching experience has been with people ages 13-25. However, the application for that age group is vastly different than it is for a group of people who have already lived a full life and are nearing the end of their time on earth. This has stretched me and blessed me in so many ways as a Bible teacher, and I look forward to this responsibility every month!

Looking Forward.

There are many exciting things coming up! First, Lauren and I are in the middle of wedding planning! We are super excited about getting married and are working towards getting all the details figured out. We hope to have a date figured out by the middle of May. We were both blown away by all of the congratulations we received. Thank you so much for your support and encouragement! Second, this summer I will be teaching at two different summer camps. The first one will be at camp Lurecrest.The second week I will be tag teaming with my Dad at a family camp in Ohio. Lastly, we have assigned the books that we are going to be teaching in the Fall for the Old Testament. I will be teaching Deuteronomy, Joshua, Ezekiel, Joel and Zechariah. I’m really excited to tackle these books! I’m going to be using the entire summer to get ready for Deuteronomy and Joshua (I’ll be teaching them back to back).

Prayer Request.

Now that I’m engaged and going to be married by this time next year I really feel the pressure to get fully funded. I’m going to get back to support raising this week and, to be honest, I’m a little nervous. Please pray for God to stir in the hearts of individuals to give to God’s ministry here at Emmaus. As always, when I speak I want to do my best to get out of the way and let God do his thing. So, please also pray for the campers that I will be ministering to this summer. Pray that God can use me to communicate his Gospel to them. Please continue to pray for Emmaus as we continue to minister to the local church. We are super excited about everything that is going on with our school and Biblical Narrative Series.Blessings,Stephen 

This last week was our first week running our brand new SBS program. If you have been following my updates you might know that we have drastically updated our program to be more accessible to the body of Christ. This program also opens up new avenues for us to partner with the local church.  In making these changes, we have seen a huge response, as we now have 8 students participating in our pilot school! Many of our current students would have not been able to attend our former school.We are so excited to see God call each and every one of our students to study scripture with us this semester. It has been such a wild ride. Five months ago, we sat down as staff and dreamt up a school for people without faces or names. Now we have 8 students, each one having been called to come on a journey down the Emmaus road and discover God through his own Word. Seminar WeekThis week has been our introduction to how we study scripture. We focused on teaching the students the Inductive Bible Study method (if you are not familiar with the Inductive method I suggest you check out this article). The students have had a crash course in studying Scripture, attending class every day from 8-12. For many of our students, the inductive method is a very new way to interact with Scripture. I remember learning it all as a student and finding myself frustrated and confused many times. It has been such a joy now on staff watching our students learn the Inductive method for themselves. Many of them understand the concept much faster than I ever did!Possibly the most exciting thing is to see the moment of discovery for the students. In one of my lectures, I told the students that they were going to be the GPS and I was just the driver. It was in this hour of class that I saw incredible learning take place as they directed me. They were the ones to explore the text and lead me in interpreting it.I’m so excited to walk with this group of students through the New Testament and explore with them on the Emmaus Road.  

Next For Me:At the end of the month I will be teaching the Gospel of Mark. In my lecture, I will focus on the major themes found throughout the book, the important historical context, and the structural layout of the text. Later in the semester, I will be also teaching 1^st Corinthians and 1^st Peter, as well as speaking at two different youth retreats. I have also started to teach at an assisted living home once a month on Sunday mornings. I have a pretty busy semester and I’m excited to step up to the plate. Current Prayer Requests:When you pray for our ministry, please join me in praying for our students. Pray that God would continue to open himself up to these students. Pray that each one makes serious progress in knowing God more while attending the school.Please also join us in praying for the financial support of the staff. Several staff members, along with myself, still have financial needs that need to be meet. Pray that God will work through individuals, excited about our ministry, to partner with us on this journey.Please also pray that Jesus will continue to speak through me, both in my one on ones with the students and through my bible lectures. I find myself more concerned with trying to impress people through my wisdom or the way that I teach rather than the actual development of students. I find myself obsessing over what I think the students will think of me. Pray that I'll be more concerned with what they think of Jesus and not myself. Thank you for your prayers and continual support.

If you have been following my blog posts, you may know that Emmaus is currently in the process of restructuring our year long residential Bible School . Our hope is to make our school more accessible for every follower of Jesus to attend. Our hope is to see the lives and hearts of Christians transformed by discovering the God of the Bible and his ultimate plan of redemption through all time.We have made a lot of changes to our curriculum and desire to “test run” our school for a semester before we launch our year long program. Next semester (January-May) we will be launching what we have called our Pilot Program (I like to think of it as our dress rehearsal). In the past two weeks, we accepted our first students to this new program and have several others currently in the application process. This morning I was thinking about our incoming students and getting excited for them. I’m so excited to see their lives transformed by the Scripture!!!!! I’m excited to enter into the mess of life with them and work through understanding Scripture!!!!!!!!As I was thinking about the immense life change that I hope and pray will happen for them, I thought about what the Bible did for me, and decided to share that story with you.I grew up in a great Christian home and was discipled to follow Jesus. Although I regularly read the Bible and could understand what it said and how Jesus loved me, I didn't know the story of the Bible. I didn’t understand the books as a whole. I didn't know why I believed what I believed.I also wrestled with constant anxiety. I was very emotionally driven, frequently basing my decisions on how I felt at the moment rather than on truth. I didn't fully understand who I was or how God could love me. I was trying to follow him and his will for my life, but I didn't know his Word. I needed to discover who I was, and I needed help.Studying the Bible rescued me. Each book I studied showed me my own story of brokenness and the surpassing glory of Jesus Christ.Philemon taught me the importance of relationships and the power of restoration in the midst of brokenness.Romans taught me that Christ traded his righteousness for my sin. I learned that when he died, I died, and when Jesus raised again I rose (Is this right) again into newness of Life.Ephesians taught me who I was. The Ephesians themselves echoed the cry of my heart, a longing to be right with God. Paul showed me the work of Christ in my own inefficiency.Galatians set me free.Leviticus showed me the intentional heart of God and his ultimate plan of redemption.Genesis taught me about hope.Exodus showed me the story of the Gospel. How we were enslaved with no hope and God rescued us and brought us into new life.Habakkuk taught me how to wrestle through hard times. He taught me what it looked like to disagree with God.Nehemiah taught me how to deal with disappointment.The whole story of the Bible taught me how God is faithful to me when I am unfaithful. It showed me who I am because of Jesus, and how to walk in life with him. My whole way of seeing the world has been transformed because of these 66 books. It’s why I’m so excited for these students who are about to journey through the New Testament with us and can’t wait to see their lives transformed through the Gospel.We are in the final stages of getting our Pilot Program ready. This looks like prepping books that we will teach next semester. I will be teaching Mark, 1 Corinthians and 1 Peter. On top of studying to teach, we are also rewriting our student manuals, and prepping the classroom for students. Part of our program is focused on making our campus feel like home. There are a lot of things going on behind the scenes to make this school be intentional with our students.We are excited and anxious to launch this school on Feb. 8th. Please be praying for a smooth transition from school prep to launching, and that our students all arrive safely and are ready for this adventure through Scripture. Please also pray for our staff members to get fully funded. Along with me, several other staff families are needing more support.Thank you for praying for this ministry.  

Hello Partners in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I wanted to reach out and give y’all an update about the ministry as a whole, as well as my personal support raising needs.The State of the Ministry:We are in a season of preparation for launching our new school. For those who don't know, last year we shut down our school of biblical studies to refresh and revamp the program. We made the program 20 hours per week and, with church partnerships, our students are able to work in the local church while studying the Bible with us.We are excited about these changes to our Bible program and how we are seeing the body of Christ come together in a holy partnership. We can’t wait to see young people radically transformed by the Word of God while growing as a dynamic worker for the Kingdom of God.We are currently inviting a small group of students to “Test Drive” our program next semester. We are launching our pilot program, where we will be taking a small number of students through the New Testament. This will give them a taste of what our school is going to be like and will help the staff do a “Dress Rehearsal” of sorts.Two weeks ago we had our first class as part of our Narrative Series. The Narrative Series is our new night class that we offer to anyone in the Orlando area. These classes are designed to break the Bible into 10 sections. Each class explores reading tips for that section, important historical context, and insight on how to apply that part of Scripture to our daily lives.We are excited about everything that God is doing in and through Emmaus, and we can’t wait to relaunch our School of Biblical Studies and see students transformed through Scripture! Support Raising:As of today, I am currently receiving half of what is required to be full time with the ministry!! I’m so excited to see God provide through passionate partners in ministry! The hope is to be fully funded (or close to it) before the pilot school starts in January. Some days it’s hard to stay focused on the goal.This morning when I walked into the classroom, I was listening to the song “Take a Moment”, by Will Reagan. Toward the end of the song the lyrics are “I want more”.  In that moment I visualized every seat in the classroom full of students saying the same thing to God as they learn more about him through the Bible.This is what keeps me going through support raising. It’s why I support raise in the first place: that in this place students of the Scriptures would have an opportunity to explore who God is in his fullness.Thank you for partnering with me both financially as well as through prayer! Please continue to join me in praying for the future of Emmaus, that God would fill this classroom with students. Also pray for me as I support raise, that God would go before me in each conversation and that endurance would be built up in me.Thank you for your invested interest in this ministry and what God is doing here in Central Florida.