Rebecca Lehmer
Associate Campus Minister
Community and Campus Life
heyrebecca@csf.net
651-644-3808

Visit this website to get the latest reports, news, and prayer requests about my ministry with Christian Student Fellowship. Thanks for your prayers and financial support. Please note the links in the right column that will direct you to other information about CSF and our ministry team.

For complete information about our ministry,
go to the CSF Partner Support Website.

July Prayer Requests

• Pray for the incoming freshman class, that the Christians in this class with hold tightly to their faith and that a lot of new students will get plugged in with CSF.

• Pray for our summer Bible study and events, that they will encourage, teach, and connect the students who are around this summer.

• Praise for a chance to spend a month with my mom, who is visiting from Arizona in June and July.

• Pray for a successful treatment for some health problems that I have been having this spring and summer.

July Update - Summer Fun with Students

Greetings! I hope you are all enjoying the first half of summer as much as I am! As I am writing this, the sun is shining and a bird is singing right outside my window, true evidence of warmer weather here in Minnesota!

Summer at CSF is in full swing. I have already spent several weeks taking part in the University of Minnesota freshman orientation fairs where CSF sets up an information table and talks with incoming freshman about our group. Through this opportunity, I have met lots of new students and had some great conversations. Since studies show that about 80% of church-going youth leave the church once they start college, we are really hoping and praying that many of these freshman will get plugged in with CSF or with one of the other campus ministry groups once they get on campus in the Fall.

Our CSF Summer Together Group is also meeting every Wednesday now through the end of July for Bible study and prayer. Brad Dewing, Bryce Harcey (my fellow ministry staff), and I are taking turns leading the study and we are focusing on several passages from the book of Ephesians. Although there are definitely less students around this summer, we have had a good core of 12-15 students at each of our meetings so far, and have even seen a couple of new students.

Last month the students seen in the picture above joined me for camping at Itasca State Park (where the Mississippi river begins!) in northern Minnesota. We spent the weekend hiking, and canoeing, and met up with another CSF student who is spending her summer doing research at Itasca. We had a great time exploring the park and getting to know each other better, despite the fact that three out of the six of us came home with poison ivy!
I am also getting in some vacation time this month and will be able to enjoy a visit with my mom, some time with my family in a cabin in northern Minnesota, a get-together with some of my best friends from college, and a family reunion with Jason’s family. As usual, it’s going to be a very busy summer!

I pray that you are enjoying your summer and thank you so much for your interest in what is happening in my life and in the ministry of CSF. May God bless you and keep you all!

June Prayer Requests

• Pray that our students will continue to seek and obey God this summer as many of them are scattered all over the US and away from their Christian support systems.
• Pray for Summer Together, our CSF Bible study that meets in June and July.
• Pray for relationships with returning students and connections with new students.
• Pray for the summer mission’s trips to Mississippi, Romania, and Ukraine.
• Pray for CSF’s financial needs to be met and our monthly support level to increase.
• Praise for my husband Jason’s graduation from the University of Minnesota with his Master’s of Software Engineering!

June Update - A Full Summer of Ministry

Even though it’s hard to believe, Spring Semester 2006 is officially finished. The Year-End BBQ and the Finals Dinners that we hosted (to help students come up for air during finals week) are over and done with. Overnight, the campus has gone from chaos to quiet, with the majority of students leaving for all variety of summer adventures.

After the busyness of recent weeks, the calm feels a bit surprising. Yet, it is a good kind of calm, a change of season when I look forward to the quieter summer ahead. Summers always bring good surprises of their own with the occasional new student joining in and the rewarding opportunity to spend larger amounts of time with fewer amounts of students.

Working in campus ministry, I’m sometimes asked if I get my summers off. Not even close! There are all kinds of things to keep me busy this summer -- our Summer Bible Study; the Freshman Orientation Fairs (where I meet incoming new students); planning and grant writing for fall events; and a third Katrina Relief Trip I’m leading in August.

I’m also excited to tell you that we will have CSF students on mission’s trips to both Romania & Ukraine this summer. Not only will we have students going to these countries, but one of the most touching moments of the semester involved the all of our students supporting those who are going.

During our last Together Group meetings of the semester, our students rallied around our Romania team by taking group trips to Target and buying a combined total of $600 worth of supplies for the team to use in their camps for orphaned and impoverished children. What a blessing and encouragement that gift was and will continue to be – to the students going on the trip, to the students who gave, to the kids in Romania, and to myself personally!

Overall, I can truly say that our ministry is going very well. Thanks so much to every one of you praying for and supporting CSF. I can tell you, without a doubt, that young people are being encouraged, challenged, and loved through this ministry!

May Prayer Requests

• Pray for our students, for energy and perserverance during these last couple weeks of school, projects, and finals.
• Praise for the 11 CSF seniors who will be graduating this year. Pray for these graduates as they are now getting ready to move in new directions in life.
• Pray for our preparations for our summer Bible study, which starts the first week in June. Pray that we will be able to spend meaningful time with the smaller group of students who are around this summer.
• Praise for the great semester that Spring 2006 has been for CSF!

May Update - Making Disciples who Make Disciples

Hello friends! The Spring Semester is coming to a close. I am always surprised by how quickly time passes when you are on a college schedule!

This week I am keeping busy with preparations for our CSF Coffeehouse, which is an outreach event that we hold once a semester. The University of Minnesota invites student groups to partner with them to provide positive late night entertainment options for students, so we’ve put together an evening of free musical entertainment and coffee. This has become a good way to meet new University students and to provide a place for current CSF students to bring new friends.

This semester I am working with two students in the area of outreach who are especially interested both in finding ways that we can help CSF become a more well-known group on campus and in finding ways we can meet more students.

Besides working on the Coffeehouse, they were responsible for heading up lots of advertising for our CSF Katrina Relief Trip, which turned out to be a great outreach opportunity. They are also tentatively planning to organize a sports team to compete in Spring Jam, a University-wide celebration of spring, and to host a BBQ at the CSF Center to meet some of the students who are a part of St. Paul’s fraternities and sororities.

In addition, I am meeting weekly with one of the girls on the outreach team for an hour of discipleship and prayer. Last semester we worked on establishing a daily routine of Bible reading and this semester we are memorizing selected Bible verses together. My weekly meetings with Andrea (see photo) have been a real blessing and it has been fun to see both her desire to know God and our friendship growing through the experience.

Thanks once again for your continued interest in the great things that God is doing through our ministry here at Christian Student Fellowship. I am so appreciative of your ongoing support and prayers!

April Prayer Requests

• Praise God for the good semester we’re having.
• Give thanks for the wonderful ways God blessed our Spring Break trip to Mississippi.
• Praise God that this semester we have had approximately 162 different people attend our weekly meetings.
• Pray for us as we move toward our Summer ministry program and prepare for the Fall Semester.
• Next semester we hope to add another weekly Bible study night to accommodate even more students.
• Pray for increased financial support for our growing ministry.

April Update - Meeting Needs & Planting Seeds

Thanks so much for your prayers for our Spring Break Katrina Relief Trip! March 10 through 19 we took a group of 36 students, staff, parents, and community members to Ocean Springs, Mississippi to help in the massive rebuilding efforts.

We stayed at and worked with an organization called CORE (Christians Organized for Relief Efforts) and had teams of people helping in several different ways such as roofing, drywalling, painting, cleaning and sanitizing.

All in all, we had a fantastic experience. Many students were able to witness the destruction for the first time and were really convicted about how important it is to help others in need (and about how we are personally blessed through the process of giving to others). In addition, some great relationships were formed, both with the homeowners we worked with and between the students who came along on the trip.

For me, one of the neatest parts of the trip was that several students who went with us had never been a part of CSF or attended a CSF event before. In fact, some of them were not Christians. One of our prayers for the trip was that God’s love would shine out strongly through those of us who know Him in order to reach the hearts of those who do not.
Since the trip I have received several emails that have led me to believe that this prayer was answered in a number of ways. One of the new students wrote this: “You all were very welcoming and didn’t seem to have any qualms about taking a few strangers along… To be honest, I haven’t been so close to the church in recent times, and you all have given me so much inspiration and hope that there still is an abundance of compassion and real, pure joy in this world… I had an unforgettable experience that I know just wouldn’t have been the same without the people that we went with.” Praise God for allowing us to plant some seeds in this young person’s heart!

If you would like to read more about our trip or see some pictures, you can do so by checking out our CSF Katrina Relief Trip blog at www.csfkatrina.blogspot.com. This blog also contains details and pictures from our first trip during Christmas Break 2005.

Spring Break Katrina Blog

Read about our current CSF Spring Break Katrina Trip that I'm leading.

March Prayer Requests

• Pray for our Thursday Together Group, which is the new Bible study that I am leading.
• Praise for the many new students who have attended CSF already this semester.
• Pray that we would find effective ways to reach out to the students in Bailey Hall, the only residential hall on the St. Paul campus.
• Pray for students to be spiritually challenged and to develop friendships that began at our Deeper Life Retreat in February.
• Pray for our upcoming Spring Break Katrina Relief Trip.

March Update - I’m Having a Great Semester

We are now halfway through a great semester! The changes we have made (adding another night of Bible study, starting a Sunday worship service) are going great and have been very well received by the students. In fact, our new format has been positive in a number of ways – it has brought about more student ownership of the Bible studies, it has increased attendance, and we have seen students inviting and bringing more friends than at any other point in time in my one and a half years with CSF!

Another thing that I believe has really contributed to the excitement and energy of CSF this semester is the trip that I took with 11 other CSF students and staff to Mississippi over Christmas break. It was an amazing trip of hurricane relief work and friendship building and the strong relationships that came out of the trip have really helped this group of students get plugged in to more regular involvement with CSF. Many have even joined one of our student leadership teams this semester!

The success that we experienced with our last Katrina relief trip prompted us to plan another one for Spring Break this month. A passion for being a part of the hurricane rebuilding efforts has really ignited in the hearts of the students who were a part of our first trip, and they have done a great job planning and recruiting for this next trip. Over thirty of us will be going this time, which is more than double the number who went with us at Christmas.

Besides the preparation for the Spring Break trip, I’ve been keeping very busy leading our Thursday Together Group, planning a number of upcoming special events, campus outreach, our February Deeper Life Retreat, and leading a weekly Bible study for our Women’s Growth Group. If you have a few minutes and access to the internet, you should visit our website to get a better idea of the overall ministry of CSF.

As you can tell from this letter, things are going very well for Christian Student Fellowship and for me personally. Thanks so much for your continued support and prayers – they are being answered in some amazing ways!


Our Christmas Break Katrina Trip Team behind CSF Center the day we left MN.