The View From My Window

The Prank

noreply@blogger.com (Kirk) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 19:15:00 +0000

The Prank from Kirk Springer on Vimeo.

Notes From the Road-Episode 2

noreply@blogger.com (Kirk) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 01:45:00 +0000

Notes from the Road-Episode 2 from Kirk Springer on Vimeo.

Notes From the Road-Episode 1

noreply@blogger.com (Kirk) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:18:00 +0000

Notes from the Road-Episode 1 from Kirk Springer on Vimeo.

noreply@blogger.com (Kirk) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:14:00 +0000

My brother-in-law tells me I don't update my blog very often. He's right.

Hit the ground running...or fall on your face.

noreply@blogger.com (Kirk) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 04:37:00 +0000

The school year is in full swing. The official beginning of the semester for Crusade at most schools is the involvement fair. Every campus calls it something different, (Back to School Bash, Campus Kickoff, Club Day) I don't try very hard to keep them straight. This week we have number three of four.

Two weeks ago we made the drive to Warrensburg and handed out "Freshman Survival Kits." This is a laundry bag filled with goodies that we give in exchange for a person filling out a brief survey. This is a great way to gather a lot of contacts, especially among freshmen.

Last Friday we spent a few hours at Kansas City, Kansas Community College giving away water bottles and collecting more surveys.

Wednesday we will be giving away more water bottles at Johnson County Community College, again in exchange for surveys. This is the most critical time of the year for us. Most of the time, the choices a student makes in the first weeks of the semester will shape what their year looks like, so there's a sense of urgency for us.

Please pray for all the contacts we are gathering now. We need supernatural energy to follow up on all of them. That being said, it wouldn't be any fun if it were easy.

Home at last

noreply@blogger.com (Kirk) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:24:00 +0000

We're finally home for a little while. We'll take a couple weekend trips this semester, but nothing too large looms on the horizon for a couple months. The summer went by really quickly (cliche for a reason) and now the school year is upon us.

Our team starts meeting on Thursday to make final preparations for the year. Activity fairs begin next week, and Servant Summit (our annual conference for student leaders) is a week from Friday.

Even though it all feels too fast, we had a wonderful summer. God showed up in amazing ways and we got to spend quality time in some very cool places with some very cool people.

One of the things I love about my job is the variety of things we are able to do in ministry. Growing up on a farm I loved the fact that the work changes with the seasons, and campus ministry follows that pattern as well. I'm excited to see what the next season holds for us!

...but reading my blog will make you smart (Individual results may vary)

noreply@blogger.com (Kirk) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:23:00 +0000

We just got out of a seminar with Tim Muehlhoff, co-author of The God Conversation. He had some really interesting things to say about about evaluating the spiritual climate in a conversation (that's a gross over-simplification).

He also recommended an article called, Is Google Making Us Stupid. It's a fascinating read if, like me, you suspect that Google might be Skynet and will someday make war on us. If you don't understand that last sentence, it just means that you need to watch (or rewatch) the Terminator movies. As a favor, I linked the article to spare you from Googling it which, apparently, may make you stupid.

On the road again...

noreply@blogger.com (Kirk) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 21:21:00 +0000

We're not in Africa.

We left Youndé two and half weeks ago. It was an amazing summer. For a brief summary, check out our latest update letter.

We're now in Fort Collins, Colorado for the US Staff Conference. The eight-day conference is a time to hear from our leaders about the vision and direction of Campus Crusade. It's a time to hear from some great teachers about connecting with the heart of God. It's a time to hear from from other movements about how God is at work.

This morning we heard from Pastor Keith Battle. Then we were treated to a performance of The Witnesses.

We've had a great time connecting with friends in the midst our time here as well as learning a lot already in our short time.

From here we will travel to Wyoming for a reunion with some of Sarah's family. We look forward to some time relaxing and enjoying the outdoors with them.

noreply@blogger.com (Kirk) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:49:00 +0000

It's been two weeks and I'm still not used to the fact that we're six hours ahead of "the rest of the world." This is how I think of home. There's a lot of the world that does not reside within the boundaries of central time, but that time zone makes more sense to me, because it's what I know.

We had a good time on campus. I went out sharing with Kyle this morning. We approached a couple groups of students, and they were all french speakers. We have a survey we had them fill out, but we've found that very few of the Francophone students speak english well enough to really understand an english Gospel presentation.

It was just about lunch time, so we were waiting for a couple girls to finish up an appointment and then we would all walk to the Campus Crusade office together. While we waited a group of three students approached. They asked to sit down (two of them sat between Kyle and I) and then looked at us as if to say, "So what do you have for us?"

I asked if they were Francophone or Anglophone, and they responded "Bilingual." What this meant was that they are Francophone, but speak english.

I asked if they would like to hear about what we are doing and they said yes, so for the next 15-20 minutes I shared the "Would you like to know God personally" booklet with them. Near the end of the booklet there's a diagram that shows two kinds of lives. The circle on the left represents a life without Christ. The circle on the right represents a life with Christ in control.

I asked the three students which circle represented their life. Two of them said the one on the right, but one student name Sissi (it's pronounced Cee-Cee, and he was also the most engaged in the conversation) said he was the circle on the left. I asked him which circle he wanted to represent his life, and he said the circle on the right.

Right there he prayed and invited Christ into his life.

One of the realities we face is that students will pray with an American (for reasons I still don't fully understand) to impress them, and not because of a genuine decision. It's difficult to know if this was the case, but he was engaged and seemed to have a full comprehension of the conversation. I set up a time to meet with him at 2:00 on Wednesday (8:00 am central) so if you think about it, please pray that he would show up at this time and be interested in learning more about his new relationship with Christ.

One down...

noreply@blogger.com (Kirk) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:44:00 +0000

Our first full week on campus culminated today with an outreach. This week we handed out 1500 invitations to a meeting about "Youth and Sexuality." One of our staff, Tom Dorsch, spoke on the subject in French to a group of about 60 students. It was a great end to a first week on campus.

We're learning that finding English speakers on campus is far more difficult than we anticipated, so we've had to get creative. The invitations were a very natural conversation starter, and when we met English speakers (anglophones) we asked them if we could talk to them about their faith.

A surprising number of students say yes to this question. On Tuesday Sarah and I were with one of the students when we met two anglophone students named Elvis and Valentine. I asked them if I could show the the "Would You Like to Know God Personally" booklet, and they said they were free.

One of the things we've learned is that Africans are very quick to accommodate others, especially westerners, so it's common for them to agree with a gospel conversation to be agreeable, but it can be tricky to discern where their heart truly is in these conversations. As I shared, I asked them questions, and they clearly were tracking with what I was saying. When we reached the end of the booklet, they were both very clear that Christ was not in their lives, and they both said that they would like to have Christ in their lives.

When I asked them if they would like to pray to receive Christ, they both said that they would like to "meditate" on it more, because they wanted to make certain that the prayer truly reflected the desire of their hearts.

It was a very encouraging conversation, because it felt like they were being open and honest about where they are in their relationship with God.

Please pray for these two students as they contemplate the truths of the Gospel.

If anyone from CCC Risk Management is reading this...

noreply@blogger.com (Kirk) — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 20:34:00 +0000

...stop now.

We arrived in Yaoundé on Monday night at 6:00 pm local. 8 of our bags arrived in Yaoundé at 6 pm local on Thursday night. So far that has been the biggest hiccup in plans.

It's hard to believe that we've already been here 5 days. We've spent most of our time getting oriented to our surroundings and doing more training related to the work we'll be doing.

We're staying at a facility run by SIL, who partners with Wycliffe Bible Translators. Our accomodations have been great so far if not a little stuffy at times (no air conditioning) but the weather has been great as well.

The biggest adventure was getting a frisbee stuck on the roof yesterday during a game of ultimate. I was already on the roof before I asked myself, "Am I setting a bad example for the students?"

noreply@blogger.com (Kirk) — Sun, 31 May 2009 19:29:00 +0000

We're sitting in the airport waiting for our flight. Our next post will be from Africa.

Ready or not...

noreply@blogger.com (Kirk) — Sun, 31 May 2009 12:40:00 +0000

...mostly I feel like "not."

An AirFrance A340 is leaving at 5:15 this afternoon. It won't take much notice if I'm not on it, so the fact that I don't feel ready is of no consequence. It's time to go.

I don't think I actually realize that I'm going. I don't feel prepared to go, much less lead, so most of my prayers of late have circled around that theme. Thanks for your prayers and encouragement! We love you and we'll keep you posted.

Tick Tock...

noreply@blogger.com (Kirk) — Tue, 26 May 2009 15:45:00 +0000

8 months of procrastination and a couple weeks of frenzied planning/packing have all led up to this. We leave tonight for Chicago. Do I feel ready? Nope! The plane's leaving anyway.

Last Sunday...

noreply@blogger.com (Kirk) — Mon, 25 May 2009 05:18:00 +0000

It's our last Sunday in OP for a while. It started out with church, like normal. We joined Junior Church to tell them about our upcoming trip to Cameroon. A couple of the kids in the group are from Cameroon, so that thought that was pretty cool.

Most of the day was spent packing, with a couple breaks here and there for photography and a haircut (head over to facebook for the before and after mugshots). We are so far from being packed it's a little scary. We'll see how it goes.

This evening we packed a picnic and headed downtown for a performance by the Kansas City Symphony. They were playing in front of Union Station. It's a really fun venue for a concert, and they put on a great show. My favorite part is always the Armed Forces salute, which was even more meaningful this year with Sarah's brother in the middle of a year long tour in Iraq. I'm so thankful for the men and women who protect not only our freedom, but are working to ensure the freedom of others.

The concert ended with the customary 1812 Overture (I think it's funny that a piece about Russia's defeat of Napolean's forces has become a staple of patriotic concerts, I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the cannons) followed by an encore of Stars and Stripes forever.

That kicked off the 15-20 minute fireworks show. It was up the hill behind the Liberty Memorial (pics of that are on facebook as well, the wind took the smoke the other way, so the pictures turned out pretty well).

We're down to two days left to prepare for the summer before we head to Chicago where we'll spend a few days with my brother's family. The word is that my niece (also Sarah Springer) has been looking forward to our visit for weeks and has a long list of activities for us, no doubt Polly Pocket will be involved.

noreply@blogger.com (Kirk) — Mon, 04 May 2009 03:01:00 +0000

Wow, I just realized my last post came from Big Break. That wa almost two months ago. Lame.

noreply@blogger.com (Kirk) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:58:00 +0000

Spring Break-Day 3. There are a lot of college students here.

noreply@blogger.com (Kirk) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 20:06:00 +0000

We're out of the traffic jam. It took about 90 minutes to go 10 miles.

noreply@blogger.com (Kirk) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 19:01:00 +0000

I-65 in Alabama. Traffic is stop and and go. Time to blog while driving.

noreply@blogger.com (Kirk) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 14:00:00 +0000

We're packing up to leave Memphis. The deluxe continental breakfast was definitely worth it!

Big Break!!

noreply@blogger.com (Kirk) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 07:09:00 +0000

We are on our way to Florida!

"We" are Sarah, myself, Jason (Johnson County Community College), Jennifer (Kansas City Kansas Community College) and Kara (Pitt State).

We're in Memphis right now, we'll drive the rest of the way tomorrow.

So far it's been pretty uneventful. Jason and I are committed to playing frisbee in every state on this trip. So far, Kansas has had the best frisbee. Who knew?

There are three things I would love to do during the drive tomorrow.

1. In addition to the aforementioned goal of playing frisbee in every state, we also want to play frisbee across a state line.

2. Stop at Flea Market Montgomery. I'm hoping Sammy Stevens will be around for a photo, but he might take Saturdays off.

3. Visit the Key Underwood Coon Dog Cemetary. Need I say more? Sadly, this one might not happen, our route might take us too far from there.

I plan to blog via cellphone during the week, so my posts will lack titles, and will be 137 characters or less (including spaces). It will be a good exercise in brevity.

The animals are coming two by two...

noreply@blogger.com (Kirk) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:43:00 +0000

So to make a long story short (trust me, I just deleted the long story, it's boring, I'm not a good enough writer to make it interesting) we had water in our basement last night. It rained pretty hard here, and our sump pump couldn't keep up with it. We had very little damage, the floor drain actually took care of what what the sump pump didn't, but it was a hair-raising half hour before the water started subsiding. I called a 24 hour plumber, fortunately I was able to cancel before he came, I shudder to think what that house call would have set us back.

We now have new motivation to do the landscaping we've known we've needed since we bought the house. All the water from the next street over drains through our lot, and last night, most of it came through our basement.

In the midst of cleaning up this morning, I was reminded of how grateful I am that this is the worst thing that's happened to us this week. All in all, we're doing pretty well.

Don't delete me bro!!

noreply@blogger.com (Kirk) — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:21:00 +0000

If the title doesn't invoke thoughts of John Kerry at the University of Florida, I apologize for the vague reference.

I subscribe to a bunch of blogs via live bookmark. If someone goes a long time without posting. I usually delete said bookmark. I realized a couple days ago, that if anyone that reads this blog when I post did that, I'm probably in danger of deletion.

It's hard to believe that spring break is a week away. With all the conferences we've been at, I feel it should be about the second week of February, but the calendar keeps moving, indifferent to my internal clock.

For spring break, Sarah and I are taking in yet another conference. This time we're heading to Panama City, Florida for a week of evangelism training and playing on the beach. If you ever hear me complaining about traveling, it won't be because of where we go. There are no complaints there, but this will be conference number five since the new year, and I have a really hard time getting into a routine with that much interruption.

With that said, I'm really excited to go to Florida. We're taking a couple of the guys from the track team at Johnson County Community College, as well as at least one girl for Kansas City Kansas Community college, and a girl from Pittsburg State. We're hoping a few more will drop in along the way.

Please keep us in your prayers as we, along with hundreds of college students from all over the country travel to Florida over the next several weeks. Pray also for the people that will hear the Gospel for the first time as a result of this conference, and for the life-change that will take place.

This and that

noreply@blogger.com (Kirk) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 03:21:00 +0000

My parents came down from Lincoln this weekend. It was a lot of fun having them here. It kicks off another series of weekends where we either:

a) Have company stay with us.

-or-

b) Leave town for the weekend.

The next weekend that doesn't fit one of those descriptions is 5 weeks away. It's a really good thing we love company and traveling :)

We finally have a third bedroom!! With the prospect of painting help on the way (in the form of mom) I gave one final surge and finished drywalling the office. You probably thought I forgot to say anything and finished it a long time ago. You don't know me very well. Mom and Sarah painted like crazy while Dad and I took care of a few other projects around the house, including (but not limited to) putting up shelving in the garage to take advantage of the dead space above our basement stairs, cutting off our washing machine drain pipe and putting it back together in preparation for the eventual installation of a utility sink, reinforcing the wall braces in our basement with 1/4 inch lag screws, and moving all of my tools out of their trailer and into our garage.

It was a busy weekend but a lot of fun. Especially when they took us to Oklahoma Joe's AND Stroud's (two of my favorites, it was Sarah's first time at Stroud's, but I think she was impressed).

I'll try to get some pictures up soon.

Thy Kingdom Come

noreply@blogger.com (Kirk) — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 19:46:00 +0000

Two thousand years ago a kingdom was revealed that did not fit the normal human pattern of rule. This kingdom came to bring hope and freedom to the poor, the downtrodden, and the sinner. It was a kingdom not of human design but of divine planning. Jesus Christ walked the earth proclaiming this kingdom - a kingdom that brings transformation to people desperately in need of the Savior.

During the first week of January, 1,400 staff and students from seven states gathered to worship the King and to grow in their relationship with Him during the Denver Christmas Conference (DCC). Students heard from passionate speakers, took part in a variety of seminars, were exposed to the needs of the nations, and learned about summer mission opportunities around the world. Students partnered with local churches and community groups to embody the good news of the kingdom by meeting the physical and spiritual needs of Denver residents. On the final night of the conference, many students pledged to participate in the Great Commission this summer.

DCC 2009 challenged students and staff, alike, to reflect on the kingdom of God, to be transformed by it, and to faithfully serve the King as they seek to see the kingdom come to their campuses and the world.

DCC Stories-Part 1

I was raised in the Mormon Church. This past semester I was introduced to Campus Crusade and I began to realize that I no longer believed certain things my church taught. I came to DCC even though my parents didn't want me to attend. During the first session, I realized that I had never accepted Christ as my Savior. Three days later Bryan Loritts challenged those who still had not made that decision to do it right then. I was finally ready and after the session I gave my life to the Lord. I know that God is going to provide for me even though my family is going to be very disappointed with me.

~Ashley Pritchard, Jefferson College

DCC Stories-Part 2

DCC Stories-Part 3

We met Dahari at the end of the Day of Faith. He was very educated about different world religions but wanted more information about a personal relationship with Christ. We contacted the Pastor of the Denver Community Church to ask about a future meeting with Dahari, and to our surprise, the pastor responded right away to set up a time to meet with Dahari.

~Jenna Allegre, University of Kansas

DCC Stories-Part 4