TCX 2008: All In

one of my favorite times of the year is always our regional Christmas conference TCX (aka Twin Cities Xperience). it is so fun to come together from across North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, & Wisconsin to worship and learn and celebrate the new year. this year's theme was All In, focusing the students in on what life could look like if they reallly lived out everything for the Lord. it was great. some of my favorite parts were hanging out with my staff friends, meeting students from oshkosh, worshiping with 1600 college students, catching up with friends from Madison & Whitewater, and just seeing what the Lord can do. it was a great week in the Minneapolis Hilton!















Charlie, our emcee, is interviewing 2 Oshkosh students about their experience with the day of outreach. Hannah, on the left, is a girl that i met at the first campus time. she is a junior from appleton and it was so fun to get to know her a little bit.















on our world night, the whole ballroom got to skype (aka video chat) with my friends in east asia! it was so fun to see their faces and hear how things are going with their ministry there. one of the funniest moments was when candice (our worldwide student network staff coordinator) was explaining to us how excited we were that there are 2 french students on the stint (short term international) team in east asia. that is the first time we have sent students from one of our world partnerships to another world partnership, so it was pretty exciting. but candice was sharing how it was pretty difficult for them as they not only have to adjust to east asian culture, but also american culture since they are on a team with all americans. but apparantly the hardest part for the 2 french students has been to learn madison culture since 10 of the students on the stint team are from madison! i thought that was so funny, because it is pretty true! there is a pretty specific madison culture with our badger pride and much more!















this picture is also from world night. my friend britt on the right went on summer project to australia a few summers ago and spent the entire summer sharing the gospel with lauren, the australian student in the middle. lauren enjoyed getting to know britt, but stuck with her agnostic views. however, the things britt had shared with her stuck in her head, and eventually lauren decided to accept Jesus as her Lord & savior! and now she came to TCX to share her story and to challenge to students to come to Australia to share with other students who are just like Lauren and who need to hear about Jesus. it was so cool to hear her story and see how many students went to learn more about going to Australia and our other partnerships around the world.















one of our speakers, Kempton Turner, from Bethlehem Baptist Church in the Cities















a view of the ballroom on the last night.













here i am with two students from oshkosh. jodi, on the left, is a freshman who is studying nursing and is from antigo. katie, on the right, is a junior who is leading a bible study that jodi is in on campus. i actually went to whitewater with katie's sister julie, so that was a fun surprise! i'm so excited to get to oshkosh and work more with these women!



















i had a great time hanging out with my friend dan here, who is getting ready to leave for australia for a year! he will be leading the stint team there this year, so pray for him as he leaves at the end of the month and works on campus with a team of 5 other people.















one of the best times of tcx is always the new year's party, when we pray and worship in the new year and then enjoy a dance party afterwards! hard not to have a good time when you are surrounded with 1600 energetic college students!















here i am with my dear friend stephanie. i met steph a couple summers ago when i helped to lead a short summer project to puebla, mexico. steph was a freshman then and was excited but nervous about sharing her faith. now steph is a junior, is leading a bible study and owning a dorm to share the gospel with the women there. it was fun to catch up with her and she has been so encouraging as she has introduced me to many of the students at oshkosh and can't wait for me to get to campus!















here i am with lindsay, one of the girls i worked with at madison. we were able to reconnect and grab dinner together one night and i loved catching up with her and hearing about the bible study she was leading on campus and how it was going for her sharing her faith every week in the dorms. i'm sad i don't get to hang out with her every week anymore, but i love hearing how the Lord is using her on campus in Madison!