Sara B.

Rachel, and I have been talking a lot with a student named Sara B. She's one of my favorites here at WJU, and I would love to take credit for some of the transformation that's been happening in her life. But I know that Karen has been the one really working closely with her through the year. Though, I guess the person who really deserves props for the growth is Sara B. herself. Anyway, Sara came by the other day, and I helped her work on a blog that she wanted to start posting on. She put up her first post yesterday, and I wanted to put a link to it on here. This is just one story of the transformation that can occur in a student's life during college. God is good. You can go here to read her post. It's the definition of encouragement to a campus minister.

How to Save a Life

This past February I had the privilege to attend the CCO’s annual student conference, Jubilee, with some of my students from Wheeling Jesuit University . I attended this conference all through college and it was a turning point in my spiritual development.

One of the conference's highlights this year was hearing Isaac Slade the lead singer of The Fray, a rising popular band in America , talk about his faith. One of the main speakers at Jubilee and former CCO staffer, Steve Garber, works daily with many influential Christians in the Entertainment Industry and was able to get Isaac to speak to the over 2000 students.

Steve Garber: Friend of "The Frey"

Isaac Slade spoke on their recent Grammy nomination, the misconception of fame and the reason he chose not to work in the Christian music scene. Overall, his message allowed students to see how their faith matters in all areas of life. He inspired everyone to see that no matter if you are working in Hollywood , Washington D.C or your local coffee shop, Christ can use you to redeem our Earth as God's Kingdom see fits.

New Orleans 2/23/07-3/2/07

Rachel and I recently were given the opportunity to help lead a trip of 22 students down to New Orleans, Louisiana. It was our second trip, and WJU's fourth. We were down in the big easy for six days. During that time, we hammered and pried and ripped and tore apart 4 houses. It sounds almost cruel, but ripping a home down to the studs means that the people who live there will be able to begin rebuilding. This picture was what the bathroom looked like in the third home we started work on in February. You can see the waterline on the back wall. The actual height of the water in this home was about four feet above that line. When we walked into that home, it was full of belongings and had been untouched since the hurricane. When we finished, everything was out on the curb, and we had taken out every wall and every floorboard in the home. It was just studs, a sub floor and a roof when we left. The work we did on that house alone would have cost the homeowner over seven thousand dollars. And it was only one of the four homes we managed to gut while we were there.



I think the most shocking thing about New Orleans is the vast amount of destruction that is still in the city. A year and a half after Hurricane Katrina, only a third of the public schools are open and there are no hospitals open that will see patients without insurance. Hundreds of thousands of people are still living in different cities, and many who do live in New Orleans are living in FEMA provided trailers outside their homes.

While the visit was difficult, it was nice to see some of the progress that's been made. On our fist visit a year ago, most of the city was without power, and less than a quarter of the homes were inhabited. When we went down in February, many more homes had been rebuilt, but hundreds of thousands of homes still lie in ruins.

We hope to return to New Orleans again, and get our hands dirty cleaning up from the damage that still needs to be repaired. It was a very fruitful trip for our ministry as well. As a result of going, we managed to build strong relationships with several students that we never would have had the opportunity to meet. God is doing some wonderful miracles in New Orleans, and in the hearts of the students from WJU who have gone down to help the city rebuild.

Why CCO at WJU?

Hello there! This is Joshua typing today. I am writing right now to let you know why there is a CCO at WJU blog. Basically, I have been keeping my own blog for quite some time now, and after I realized that I get over 200 hits a week on my blog, I thought "Why not have a blog that people can visit just to hear about my ministry here at WJU?" Instead of just making this blog about me, and what I'm doing, I want it to be about what the CCO is doing here at WJU. I really hope to get posts updated at least weekly on here so you can stay in touch with things here at Wheeling Jesuit University. My hope is that Karen, Rachel and I will all be able to write posts from time to time so that you can hear about everything that's going on here at WJU.

So, keep posted. This is how we're helping to Transform College Students to Transform the World here at WJU.