ice skating and Christmas tree raising

A college community is a very transient community. It can be lonely certain times of year if you are the only one who doesn't have somewhere else to be. The Christmas holiday left our teaming campus almost deserted with the exception of international students and a few others who stuck around for various reasons. Having no where to go ourselves, we found ourselves poking around to see who was left. We thought it would be fun to have a little party and make an event out of putting up our little tree since that is often a family event in many homes.

David said he wanted to go ice skating. I wasn't sure I wanted to be slipping around on ice while balancing on thin metal blades at eight months pregnant so we sent out an email to see how many daredevils would be willing to accompany him and got a few responses. The date was set for the morning of December 16 and we scheduled our Christmas party for that afternoon and evening. On the day of the event two friends showed up and one brought another friend along with him. The four ventured onto the ice while I held the camera and documented their various slips and spills.

After laughing at one another for awhile, we repaired our friendship over lunch and then went back to our apartment to mix up the ghiradelli's brownies and put the chestnuts in the oven. When a few more friends arrived David sat up the tree and we sat around peeling chestnuts and talking. The evening ended with some Christmas carols around the keyboard.
We love our Columbus family. They made our Christmas very special.

Bowling Night

ACF joined together with Kettering SDA Freshbread for a bowling event. There were 50 young adults there from Kettering College of Medical Arts, Kettering SDA, and ACF Wright State! :) There were so many people and it was tons of fun to bring the students and the church together!

Visiting Ethan Temple

One of our ACF members is part of Ethan Temple. I went to a couple of their Vesper's and it is so great to meet such a wonderful group!

A Busy Month!

Athens ACF has found ourselves busy this month with various activities! We've had a game night, a movie night, and last Wednesday, some brave souls braced the cold and brought some Christmas cheer to various neighborhoods with caroling.

We also held our first Saturday afternoon fellowship last Saturday and participated in a great sing-a-long and some testimony time. Christmas is around the corner and our students, if not already, are preparing to head home for the holidays. This week we'll have an opportunity for ice skating and we're looking forward to Collegiate Sabbath this coming Saturday.

After that, we'll be home for the holidays but we're looking forward to resuming ACF next quarter :)

ACF OSU Bible study thoughts

Some thoughts from this last Bible study. | www.acf.etowns.org

Entertaining strangers

God is laughing tonight. He pulled off a great joke. For a few weeks now I have been receiving texts from an unknown number inviting us to Wednesday evening meals. We were unable to attend the first one because of a schedule conflict but when we received an invitation on this Tuesday for a pizza party we had nothing else planned and decided to go. We were quite embarrassed that we weren't sure who was inviting us and didn't recognize the number but since we meet so many people every week at various churches we were sure they knew who we were. I responded that we would come and asked for an address. When we arrived we were surprised at how few cars there were. We were expecting a party. The woman who answered the door looked quite surprised to see us as well. I told her we had been invited to a pizza party so she invited us in but seemed to know nothing about campus ministries. Then she started to put things together. Her brother had recently changed his cell number and she had been texting the old number which is now our number. We were complete strangers, but, since we were there, we might as well have some pizza. We laughed a lot about the mix-up and had a great time meeting the family, all young first time parents. Good one God!

Narnia Night

November 24 was movie night at the Helbley apartment. Since several students had never seen or read the classic story of "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" by C.S. Lewis we decided that we absolutely had to set a date to watch Disney's "Narnia." And it would also be a good time to slaughter the pumpkin we had been saving and enjoy some fresh pie.

The movie led us very naturally into a discussion of the purpose of allegory and the nature of faith, personal sacrifice, and forgiveness. We pondered the mystery of a God who is both incredibly gentle and fearfully powerful "He's not a tame lion you know." We also ate plenty of pie and enjoyed being together.

ACF Social :)

ACF members got together at the church Tuesday night to have dinner, play games and watch a movie together. :) We even played some Disney Scene It with girls against boys. It was fun to finally see everyone out of school. A lot of people had other engagements with the Holiday's but it was a fun group and a new friend Robin joined us!