Emily grew up in Davenport, IA and moved to Kenosha, WI to attend college at Carthage in 2003. She graduated in 2007 with degrees in Public Relations and Communication & Digital Media. She then moved to Milwaukee, WI to answer customer complaint letters for Kohl’s Department stores. After she couldn’t take angry customers anymore, she moved back to Kenosha to work as Alumni Director for Carthage College. In November 2009, she got engaged to Brent Nelsen. Soon after she moved to Madison, WI and started working as the CAM assistant. Brent and Emily were married August 2010. Emily enjoys baking, reading, being outdoors, running, jumping and eating icecream.

For those of you still looking for a spring break trip, here are some options still available!

InterVarsity:
Chicago
Register at http://www.cupivcf.org/ and click on Student Registration for Spring Break 2011 Registration deadline is Februrary 29th and the price is $225.
Let your small group members know that for certain volunteer sites they need to have a background check done.  Here is the info about that from CUP:

Remember to help your students finish their background check at least 10 days before arrival. If they do not have a social security number they should email me at izbe@aol.com(javascript:main.compose() so that I know this.

Since you may be working with children or vulnerable adults in the upcoming CUP spring break, InterVarsity is required to do a background check. This background check is necessary to attend CUP.

https://shop.grouppublishing.com/cvc/intervarsity.asp It takes less than a minute.
• Start by hitting the “I agree” box to do a background check.
• In the “relationship” box select “Applicant for Urban Project, Plunge or Dip.”
• In the “location” box put “Chicago”.
• In the “Ministry” box select “Urban project, plunge or Dip” also.
• All boxes must be completed, then hit “submit.”

The cost of the check is included in your program costs and both the required personal information and any results are kept confidential. Thank you for taking a moment to help with this important matter.

Milwaukee
Register at https://sites.google.com/site/milwaukeeurbanplunge/ and click on the link under Step 2 for UW-Madison.
Follow the other steps on this website for the required background check.
The registration deadline is Februray 25th and the full price is $200.  A $60 registration fee is required.
**MUP has limited space and we are hoping we can bring a lot of people so please encourage your small group members to register as soon as possible!

Navigators:
Laguna Beach, Florida.  March 12-18th (Back by noon).  Costs $305…..$50 deposit due by March 1st.  Its going to be a relaxed, restful trip with little programming.  A community building fellowship trip of sorts.  Contact Jeff Wiegel (608-553-2622) jewiegel@gmail.com

Badger Catholic:
March 12-19 Potential Service Locations:
Chrisitan Appalachian Project (Mount Vernon, Kentucky)  Operation Helping Hands (New Orleans, Louisiana) Brookly, New York Operation Breakthrough (Kansas City, Missouri) St. Martin de Porres House of Hope (Chicago, Illinois)

All the trips are service orientated.  Contact Lindsey for more details…..lhoppenjan@uwcatholic.org

This month has been crazy! (And we’re only 8 days into it)! Snow storm of the century, CAM Retreat (please check out videos on Matt’s Metzger’s fb profile) and the Packers win the Super Bowl! With many more things coming up (the Blackhawk Dance is this weekend!), I just wanted to remind everyone to pay attention to the small, still voice of God during all the commotion of the world. The world we live in is very distracting; take some time each day to hear God in scripture, prayer or meditation.

Ps. 46:10 – Be still and know that He is God.

In a completely unrelated note – check out this funny video

Bible in a Minute

Lately there has been a lot of talk within my realm of life (church, work, friends) about disciplines. Things like: the discipline of giving or donating; the discipline of reading scripture; or even the discipline of evangelizing.  These disciplines all seem moderately difficult to me. So I started thinking, how do I become better at these? If we are all called to give, read and spread the news… how do we start?

What first came to mind was a professional sports player (we have been watching a lot of football at home). Many of those guys have ‘natural talent’. I am definitely not built in a way that I could be a running back for the Greenbay Packers. And some days it seems like the disciplines God is calling me to are like asking me to punt a football 50 yards when in reality I’d probably swing and miss.

Then I started thinking about things I’ve learned in my life. I started playing violin when I was in elementary school. And I was awful. I don’t know how my parents put up with the shrieking sounds that came from my instrument. Even before then, I learned how to walk and even speak. I wasn’t born with the ability to walk, play violin or write a 50 page college senior thesis. All of these things I had to work towards and most of them I now enjoy doing easily!

So I decided to apply this principle to the disciplines that God is calling all of to. Sure, cracking open your Bible to Leviticus might not seem appealing, but for me – the more I read scripture, the more fascinating I find it and it becomes more and more exciting. Especially now that I understand some of the fundamentals. And once you’ve at least tried sharing the Gospel with someone, you will know it’s not the terrifying and God usually shows up in big ways. Giving seems to be the hardest for me, but I’m starting to learn how to handle my money better and it’s really going great! So for all of you wondering how to start these seemingly big tasks that God has called us to, start small, but actually start. Considerate it ‘practice’ in the beginning. It’s okay to not know all the answers or to be scared, but at least try!

Now, I don’t think we’ll ever become ‘perfect’ at any of these, but that shouldn’t stop us from going out and practicing!

For those of you who attend Blackhawk Church, you have heard a lot about Advent Conspiracy. The ‘tag line’ this year is ‘Can Christmas Still Change the World’?

I think this is an excellent challenge for ALL of us to take! Not only to give more funds to organizations, but to benefit our relationships with all those around us! You can check out what Blackhawk Church is doing by clicking here. Or you can check out what the world is doing here!

Giving presence instead of presents can be really difficult. It is way easier to buy dad a new tie than craft some home-made meaningful gift. I thought I’d give you a few ideas that my family and friends have really enjoyed throughout the years:

Playing Cards with notes on each of them

A few of my favorite things letter (Write out a letter with all your favorite things about that person – put it in a frame or scrapbook with pictures!)

Craft a beautifully decorated prayer box (or jar)

Hot cocoa Mix in a decorate jar

Fleece Blanket

These are great ways to let people know you love them, but another great gift is the gift of your time! Take someone out for a meal at their favorite restaurant; plan a day of their favorite things (zoo, art museum); schedule a visit home when you normally wouldn’t and let your parents know they have all your time that weekend/day.

These are just some ideas! Good luck giving presence this holiday season!

Hey all!

If you missed the Impact team’s ‘Make-A-Difference’ night last night, you missed a very powerful, eye opening night. We first watched a documentary titled “The Rescue” which talked about the current situation in norther Uganda. Check out http://www.invisiblechildren.com/ to learn more about what’s happening now in Uganda and what is being done to help.

After we watched the documentary, multiple stations were set up around the room where we could pray, read scripture, learn more about what’s going on in the world, and learn more about what we can to do help.

Do you have a heart to help people, but aren’t sure of what you can do here in Madison? CAM has an Impact Team whose goal is to create awareness and opportunities for you! Check out what you can currently do here: http://www.blackhawkcam.org/us/connect/impact/

If you want to see the most up to date movie, UW is showing it this coming Wednesday, Nov 17th from 7-9pm in VanVleck B102 (480 Lincoln Dr).

This week after CAM we have an open house for everyone to come learn more about the CAM family. You can see our offices, hear about serving with CAM, and get to know more people within CAM!

I think one of the best ways to get to know the CAM family is by serving. We are called to serve and sometimes that task is difficult midst homework, job, friends, etc. Life gets busy.

“Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” – Mark 10:43-45

Serving out of sacrificing time and resources not only helps those around us, but brings us many blessings! CAM is here to serve, and many people in CAM have this attitude. We have challenged all our leaders to love where they live; being intentional about loving those around them. I have seen many relationships form and deepen and many hearts change because of this. If you are up for this challenge I invite you to learn more about serving with CAM this Tuesday after CAM in the Regent basement, or e-mail me at cam@blackhawkchurch.org.

When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” – Mark 10:14-15

Think back to childhood. What do you think Jesus is saying here in Mark? That we all need to go back to playing in the mud, get out our barbies or hotwheels, and hate bed time if we want to get into heaven?

I think there are a lot of characteristics that we can find in children that will help us as adults. They worry less, everyone is a friend first (until they tease you), they forget quickly, love to learn and ask questions, etc. I think one thing we obtain somewhere in middle school is over self-consciousness. We start focusing on ourselves and worrying about what others think. I think this is also the time we loose some of our ability to agape love.

In my lifegroup we were asked to think of someone in our life that can agape kind of love (if you didn’t listen to last week’s sermon – I would recommend going to www.blackhawkchurch.org and listening to it!). My first thought was my little brother who is 13 years younger than me. Our of his group of buddies someone usually gets beat up or teased for the day, but by the next morning they are all friends again without thought. If there is a gun, sword, race car, baseball bat one wants to borrow – no questions asked. He gives easily and doesn’t keep records of wrong. Well, he’s not really patient, but that’s part of being a 12 year old boy with older siblings. Take a minute to try and remember your childhood. See if you can remember a time you weren’t self conscious and try to get some of that back.

Here is a cute youtube video to help inspire you:

Jessica\’s Daily Affirmation

Blackhawk Brader Way bus riders! Don’t forget: Iron Man is THIS SUNDAY!!! Meaning that the bus route stops and times have changed. (Some roads will be closed making it hard for our bus driver…). Please be sure to check out the route at http://www.blackhawkchurch.org/sundays/ironman_bus_schedule_2010.pdf

Thanks!

Good news! God can do anything. Perfect! That’s all we need to know and trust. In fact, God can do it ALL. He has the power to do all the work and all of our daily tasks. We know that! BUT He gave us the BLESSING of doing some of the work with Him. The world has given the word ‘work’ a very negative and stressful connotation. Work was intended to be a blessing, not stressing!! Just read Genesis; even in the garden before the fall of man God had work for humans to do (plowing the fields).

But boy did we screw things up. In a world of to-do lists, drive-troughs, and speedy check out, we’re told that time is NOT on our side and we need to do EVERYTHING ourselves. We have come to a very individualist thinking: each man (or woman) for themselves!!! Well, there are two things wrong with that logic: time belongs to God, so it can’t be against us. And if we were to do everything ourselves what would the need for the Body of Christ be?

Are you being STRETCHED or STRESSED?

Philippians 4:4 – Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say reoice!

Habakkuk 3:18 – Though we’re not always successful, still rejoice!

Everything appears to be urgent: this is the devil trying to distract! Instead, let God show you what is urgent rather than listening to what screams the loudest. If we’re doing everything everyone asks and appears to need from us, are we really submitting to God’s Will? It’s HIS Will that needs to be done, not the people who are asking of us!
*His Will is perfect: trust it! (Jer. 29:11)

Psalms 46:10 – Be still and know that He is God.

We actually have nothing to offer God… All our acts are like filthy rags. Day after day people sacrifice, but nothing that takes away sin. God did however send Jesus. And anything we do should be through Him. Our lives should be an act of worship; a response to God. Worship is the right way to witness to the world. We’re living in a broken reality (what the world tells us is not reality) and worship is practice of reality.

This year’s Passion Conference is in Atlanta, GA from January 1st through 4th. If you’ve already registered and plan to go with CAM – please let me know ASAP!

To learn more visit: http://268generation.com/passion2011/#/home

Thanks!