Can you believe it? Here at The Wesley Foundation at Arizona State University, we just kicked-off our fifth year of full-time campus ministry! Last spring we graduated sixteen seniors and grad students and this year we welcomed a new group of students to be a part of our ministry. As always, we have an exciting year planned for students. We just returned from San Diego, where we spent Labor Day weekend having fun on the beach and exploring the sights. We also had a number of occasions to stop and reflect on God’s presence in our lives through daily devotionals and worship. In particular we focused on the verse from Psalm 46:10, which states “Be still, and know that I am God.” Indeed, this is a message that students will need to remember as they deal with the stress and challenges of college. 

This year we continue to focus our program around our Wednesday night gatherings, however, we have changed our meeting time! We now meet at 7 p.m. for dinner in Ross Hall, followed by worship at 8 p.m. We felt we needed to push our start time back in order to accommodate students with Wednesday evening classes. And it worked! We have already heard good things from students who are now able to attend Wesley because of the time change. On Wednesday nights we have also seen our student led worship band grow. We have a new student running sound for the band and another student has joined the band as a guitar player. The band now has eight members!

We have also made a new addition to our staff. Recent Wesley grad, Abbie Riekena, is spending the year applying to graduate schools and has asked to join our staff as a part time intern. Abbie will be leading our hospitality team on Wednesday nights and she will also be working on various missions opportunities for students to participate in throughout the year. Please join me in welcoming Abbie to the Wesley team!

We have a lot of other exciting things going on this year, including a Veteran’s Day weekend Mexico mission trip, an alternative spring break trip to participate in a seminar with the UM General Board of Church and Society and the UMW in New York City, and we are hosting an exciting event in January with Christian author, blogger, and speaker, Rachel Held Evans.

As always, we could not do all of this things without your prayers and support. On behalf of all of our students and our board of directors I thank and praise God for you and your love for our our ministry. Here’s to another fabulous year of ministry with college students! 

Peace and Blessings,

Pastor Rob