Finally! My new office is finished! I have a few things left to hang. The phone line needs to be fixed to work. There’s no internet. But…I’m officially moved into the new office. I now have a much bigger space, and it feels so much more like an office. It’s great. As promised, below are some pics of the new office. If you want to see them all, check out my flickr set. Be sure to check out my bookshelf, too, to see what’s on it. The flickr picture of the bookshelf has some notes on it telling you what each thing is.
We just finished putting the survey results in the computer. I found a trial version of a program called SurveyGold, so we put in the results of the 238 surveys that were returned to us (we distributed 500). It’s been tedious, and we are now analyzing the data to get a better feel for Baptist youth in Mexico.
The survey covered 6 sections: relationship with God, relationship with adults, relationship with the church, relationship with other youth, relationship with the culture, and relationship with themselves.
We’ll be reporting periodically here on the results, so check back soon.
Today, we are going to Puebla, Mexico, for the National Baptist Youth Conference. Each year, they have a week-long youth conference for the Baptist youth of the country. It’s one of the few organized things for youth throughout the year.
This year, it’s in Puebla, about 3 hours from Mexico City. We’re leaving in the morning to get there and do a survey of the more than 700 young people who are there. I’m hoping to gain a better understanding of some key relationships in the lives of young people in Mexico. It’s part of ongoing research that I am doing to better understand youth culture. In this case, we will be surveying only Baptist young people, but it will give us a good starting point, and it will be good for the seminary program.
We supposedly have internet in our hotel room, so maybe I’ll get some blogging done while there. I’m hoping to take lots of pics and video.
Youth Emphasis Week will be November 14-17 at the seminary this year. I’m still working on the theme, schedule, and speaker, but it’s going to be unlike anything we’ve ever had at out seminary. This will be the first youth emphasis week of the year. The other will be in February. The one in November will basically be only in chapel for the seminary students. I’m excited about the possibilities, and I’m looking forward to sharing the vision for youth ministry with the other students at the seminary who don’t have any idea about what goes on in the youth ministry classes.
I got this picture from one of my students who just finished leading a camp for more than 200 middle schoolers. The letter says in English,
I want to take this opportunity to write to you and share about our experience in the middle school summer camp. We had a group of 200 and the Lord was glorified in all the things we did.
Thank the Lord it was a victorious week where we could minister to these teens and be a blessing for them. It was in this camp that I could see the results of the time you all have spent with us and that it has been a big blessing.
Programming a camp was part of the class I taught in January. It’s always nice to get some positive feedback from students and to see them actively involved in ministry.
I just got off the phone with Daniel, the director of the seminary, and he asked me if I would want to have two weeks of youth emphasis this year. I said yes, of course. I am thinking that the first youth emphasis week will be focused more on the seminary students, and the second one will be focused more on the community around the seminary. Thus, the second week will be more work. Luckily, it isn’t until February. The dates are as follows: November 14-17, 2006 and February 6-9, 2007. Now to get working on planning them.
