Support Letter

Dear Friends,

Over the past couple of years, God has been putting on our hearts as a Penn State Christian Grads community a desire and vision to help each other connect deeply with Him, one another, our calling as grad students, and the mission of helping our peers do the same. We believe that as we do so, God wants us to help bring the gospel within arm’s reach of every grad student at Penn State. As big as that vision is, God seems to be inviting us to join Him in something even more.

We are writing to tell you about this new initiative for PSCG and to give you an opportunity to join with us. Last summer, Ashley Holleman had an opportunity to talk with Mike Shepski, the head of Campus Crusade’s Campus Ministry for Melbourne, Australia. Mike shared that the long-term strategic plan of the University of Melbourne is to significantly increase their ratio of graduate students to undergraduate students to 50:50. Mike is excited to partner with us, and to use our expertise and experience with graduate student ministry to help shape a graduate student ministry at University of Melbourne.

So, to investigate and (as God leads) establish an ongoing partnership with the campus ministry team at the University of Melbourne, we will be traveling to Melbourne from August 2-16, 2010. During our time there, we will meet with the campus ministry staff team, as well as faculty and grad students at the university. We hope to explore grad student and faculty culture and envision what ministry for grads and faculty might look like there. In the future, we hope that an ongoing partnership with University of Melbourne will provide all of us in PSCG an opportunity to increase our vision for the world, and to expand our understanding of how God is still moving and working in people’s lives. We also hope that this ongoing partnership will provide for many in PSCG an opportunity to grow in their walk with Christ, minister cross-culturally, speak academically in an international setting, and perhaps even pursue future career opportunities.

We are very excited to go to Australia, but we realize that we can’t go alone. Though it is just the three of us physically traveling to Australia, we want this to be a PSCG-wide effort. We would love your input before we go and we look forward to processing with you after we get back. It would be such an encouragement to us to know that you are praying for and with us.

Finally, we are trusting the Lord to put together a team of churches, family members, and friends—including our friends in PSCG—who feel led to partner with us financially to help cover the costs of the trip. These funds (totaling $2175.00 per person) will be used to cover the travel, meal, and ministry costs of the trip. Would you please prayerfully consider giving a one-time gift to help cover these expenses? To do so, you can give online at give.ccci.org/give (search for “Penn State Christian Grads”).

We look forward to sharing with you all that the Lord does in the coming weeks.

Grateful and Excited,
Tracy Conklin, Jared Lee, and Ashley Holleman