Hello Friends and Family! We hope that 2019 finds you well and joyful. As another year dawns, we have a lot to be grateful for. We welcomed Mina Alexandra into the world last February and have enjoyed a year full of adjusting to life as a family of four  and spending time thinking about all that God has given and will continue to provide. We are excited that Pete will graduate from Missio Seminary in June with his Masters in Divinity and is working towards ordination. With that in mind, we are thinking often about our future and what God might have in store and through much prayer and conversation, we believe that Lord has shown us a next step that we are excited to pursue.   Throughout our time at Covenant we have been privileged to serve young people and see their hearts and lives transformed by God’s love and word. These experiences have fueled a desire for us to see students own their faith beyond their homes and into college and adulthood. Covenant Church has been a home, a refuge and a place of encouragement for us over the last several years and while we love this church and our time here, we feel that the Lord has placed a call on our hearts to explore where he might use us. This call has led us to move towards pursuing college campus ministry and in February we will be heading to Dallas, TX for an assessment for Reformed University Fellowship (RUF). RUF is a nationwide ministry with a vision to see college students know and be known by the God who created, loves and cares for them.  RUF has this to say about their campus mission: “More than just a ministry on the university campus, RUF seeks to be a ministry for the university. We strive to serve in this unique stage of a student’s life in the world they live in, exploring together how the Lordship of Christ informs every area of life” We are not new to RUF,  I (Sarah) was a part of a wonderful RUF community at Penn State where I was encouraged, challenged and loved while I learned more about God and his desires for my life. I enjoyed a community of faith that was active in Penn State life and culture, spoke God’s  truth in relevance to my heart and has pursued me into adulthood. One of the aspects of RUF’s ministry that impacted me the most was the placement of an ordained minister, in my case Chad Brewer, at the head of our ministry. More than just peer-to-peer teaching and encouragement, we experienced the wisdom,  guidance and leadership from an individual whose life was and is dedicated to the cause of Christ in vocational ministry. With Chad at the helm the I and the other RUF student leaders enjoyed more freedom to dream about what God could do in and through us on campus and were still fed, encouraged and taken care of in our own spiritual walks. It is this role that Pete and I believe the Lord has called and equipped Pete to pursue. I (Pete) feel equipped and called to pursue RUF campus ministry because campuses are places of enthusiasm, learning and discovery - and I am passionate about that culture. I know what a pivotal time of life the college age is in America. This is the age when a person has the most time to work through who they are and what they believe. I love RUF’s mission to put ordained ministers of the gospel on campuses to love and equip students to understand how this ancient faith of ours is worth engaging with and living out of where they are right now. I love this stage of life - I love the big questions that are being asked, the real heart and life changing internal truths that are being processed through - and I love the excitement of it all too! At no other time in our lives do we get to explore and discover as much about the world and ourselves, and I am excited to get to know and love students as they live that out. Each campus has its own culture, and I am excited to embrace the home where God places us, to love it and to joyfully share good news wherever our family finds ourselves. We are calling on you for a few reasons, the first is for prayer. As we seek to discern God’s will and wisdom for us in this process we ask that you pray for us. Specifically we ask for prayer in a few areas: *Please pray that we would put the Lord and his desires for our lives at the forefront of any decisions that we make regarding this next step *Please pray for our time at RUF Assessment in Dallas (February 10-14th), that we would be left with a feeling of clarity on how the Lord is calling us and faith to do what is being asked *Please pray for Pete as he is the primary focus of the assessment and has much to prepare for when we are there *Please pray for our kids, Mina and Wesley as we have to leave them behind while we are in Dallas- while it might be a nice break for Pete and I, I know being out-of-routine is difficult for them We also need financial support throughout this process. Covenant Church has already given a generous sum to cover some of the cost of traveling to assessment and towards expenses. In addition to what Covenant has given we are in need of $1,500 to cover the cost of assessment itself. We ask that as you feel led, you would consider supporting us through a financial gift. As believers we know that the Lord uses what we give for his glory and we are grateful to be a part of a community where we know we can make this request in faith. This move toward RUF is very exciting for us! We would love to chat with all of you more about how we have come to this point and where we feel like the Lord is leading. Please feel free to call, email, text, message or communicate in any other way you’d like- our door is open! Thank you to each of you for being a part of our faith journey, we look forward to seeing what God has in store for us. With love, Sarah, Peter, Wesley and Mina