Hotty Toddy!

At the end of October, Brenda and I trekked westward to Dallas for the first ever Cru Grad Expos. More about that in a minute, but we decided that on our way we would detour to Ole Miss, in Oxford. Our friends the Smiths had worked in Cru FCULTY Commons there until they moved to Italy. Brenda and I had agreed to “take over” ministry there, on an as-able basis in 2018. I had tried to set up some meetings there, but never had any response. Now unbidden, we decided to stop by.

            I am thrilled we did. Our first visit was with a friend I made in Italy. Her and her husband are some of the neatest people I have met. It was great to intor Brenda to her. 
           We then met with a young part-time prof who has a clinical practice in town since she teaches “clinical Practice” in her specialty. We bought her a tea and asked her about her ministry. Each Thursday dinner is an open invitation to her present and former students to have tacos with them. She said most Thursdays there were 4 to 6 students having super with her. On Monday mornings, she has  a Christian book study with any of her FORMER students (so as to prevent “brown nosing”). She has good attendance but poor preparation among these students. I suggest she try tome simpler, easier-reading books, as her choices are pretty heavy. But regardless, there is NO doubt that she is having an impact for the Christ on her campus with her students. I wish there were many more like her.

            We then met with a young prof there who I had taught once at the U of AL. She was in a different specialty, but she was happy to meet with us and I was thrilled to see someone I had known in the past. She is a Christian, but I don’t think it had ever occurred to her that she could be salt and light in a very dark place- the secular University. I give her a book, A Grander Story, about how we can participate ion G^d’s grander story. From here we hurry to a meeting with a prof I had met briefly once before who seems to be on the staff of one of my long-time friends who is NOW the DEAN  of Applied Sciences. The dean is an enthusiastic Christina who had told his fellow deans that when he arrived at Ole Miss. He reported feeling immune to their disdain.  We patted him on the back for that and encouraged both the prof and the dean to strive to have an ETERNAL impact on their students and colleagues. A positive impact is always good, but why focus on the temporal and miss the eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18)? I was surprised that the dean gave us a full 2 hours of his time.  Trust me, this is NOT normal. Thank you L^rd.

            Our final meeting of the day was with a Harvard alumnus who I had ministered with in Rome about 4 or 5 years back. He had a lot of stories he wanted to tell, and it is a ministry to give a list3ning ear. We ended up getting away quite late and we had a long way to travel, so we got out of Oxford a little way and spent the night in Forrest City, Ms. Tomorrow we would head to Dallas, but that’s another story.