Annual Report 2007
A Summary for Erik in 2007
January – Atlanta, Northwest The year started with the Passion07 Conference with 25,000 students. After that I flew to Portland where I attended the MissionConneXion Conference put on by area church and attended by 6,000 people. I also visited George Fox, Warner Pacific, Corban College, Multnomah Bible. I even shared in a college group about my time on the Doulos. Back in Arkansas, I also began taking the class “Perspectives on the World Christian Movement”, a 15 week college course on missions.
February – Midwest I was able to go to Ozark Christian College and JBU for their missions fair. The University of the Ozarks has a Christian heritage, but is really secular. I did share in a student group about missions and was able to hang out with several students there. I also chaperoned my church’s youth group on a trip to St. Louis to an event called Dare 2 Share, where young people are challenged to share their faith. It was challenging to me as well.
March – California Then it was time for the annual trip to CA. I visited several schools like Horizon School of Evangelism, Azusa, Biola, Masters and Fuller. Lots of opportunities to share, like at the “base camp” at Biola for 40 minutes with 2 dozen students sitting around a fire at midnight. I also connected with Paul from the “Student Volunteer Movement 2”. He bought a convertible, but the mechanism to bring the top down was broken, so I fixed it.
April – Florida On a side note, I ran in a 5K road race with a couple thousand people. I also participated in the Logos Hope Weekend held in Florida. Many of us traveled down to FL where we hosted a whole range of people from all walks of life for a weekend. Former CEO of Wal-Mart, Don Soderquist, Moody Bible Institute president, John Stott, and musician Michael Card were some of our speakers. Many stories of how God has used the ships were shared. I enjoyed meeting the many people in attendance. I believe in the end nearly one million dollars was raised towards the ships ministry. Praise the Lord.
May – Idaho It was great to once again spend some time at home and see supporters. It was a relaxing time. It had been 2 years since I had spent any significant time at home.
June – Midwest, Atlanta Summer months are slow for the college team. I was in Atlanta for our OM College Ministries team retreat. We were welcoming some new members and brainstorming for the future. Immediately after the whole of OM USA had their retreat. June was also busy in lining up the schedule for the OM Ships Presentation Team happening in the fall.
July & August – Midwest I continued working on projects like the Ship Team as well as visiting Harding University and meeting with the missions coordinator at that school. I also traveled to Central Arkansas where one of the founding members of OM attends a small Baptist church. I shared a bit of my story while Richard Sharp was the main speaker.
September & October– 10 state tour These were very busy days. Myself, a Canadian, an Italian and a Ukrainian spent 5 weeks together in 10 states visiting 7 colleges, several churches for a total of 30 meetings where we shared our stories from the ships and what God is doing around the world.
November – Indiana I spent the first part of the month in Indiana visiting colleges. I was pleasantly surprised by the response at Olivet Nazarene University. Many students asked questions. I had a lot of response there. I also moved back to Atlanta during this time. I was able to have Thanksgiving with friends in OM. We also had a Jordanian family for thanksgiving dinner. They had never been in the home of Christians before and they asked what Thanksgiving was all about. And we told them.
December – Atlanta Of course I was working on things, but it was also a time of celebration. I was able to attend a Dutch SinterKlaas party, the OM USA party, Bible Study group party, Georgia Tech Guys A1 house party… all in remembrance of Christ coming to earth. I also was able to spend Christmas at home. Upon returning to Atlanta, I left the airport and immediately joined the Atlanta Christmas Conference hosted by Campus Crusade on Dec 31st.
What's Next
This could possibly be a busy year for me. To start 2008, I’ll be going to MissionConneXion again in Portland,
Oregon and visiting some schools in the Northwest. At the end of January I go to LeTourneau University in
Texas for their missions week. In February, I go to Liberty University in
Virginia for a week. That will be a big conference. Over 10,000 students attend LU. Then I go to
Colorado Christian University for a week, followed by John Brown University in
Arkansas.
From there it gets even more interesting. I’ll lead a team of 10+ people at the Logos Hope Donor Weekend in
N. Carolina. Then I’ve been asked by OM Ships to spend a month in the
Caribbean doing the line up preparations for one last visit by the Logos II.
Then mid summer I am planning to lead a team of engineering and welding students from LeTourneau University to the Logos Hope in
Europe.
(*Note - the Europe trip did not work out)My life plans for after that are wide open. It’s funny how plans change. While living in Arkansas, I had in my mind a series of possible directions my life was going, but now that has changed, and really I could do anything at this stage.
On that note, I have been approached to consider involvement with OM in a massive undertaking. I can’t say much now, but it would involve a possible
3 year commitment starting in 2009, and living overseas. It would be the biggest thing I’ve even taken on, even bigger than doing the port preparations for the Doulos. It’s scary to think about, but the potential return for the kingdom would be huge.
I have until this summer to decide.Please join with me in praying on what are my next steps are to be. I have been in OM now for 8 years. I enjoy it and find it fulfilling. But when I think too much about life, it can be scary, especially as I approach my mid 30s. I have to remind myself that God has been faithful these 8 years, so I think I’ll probably stay in OM for the near future. There is a needy world out there and I want to do my part. I was recently encouraged to “stay the course” and if God wanted me to change direction he’d make that very clear.
The campus of CCU is not huge, but they've got great energy. I attended CCU's missions week. I also hung out in the Student Union and talked with students. 2 conversations of note: I met a girl who came up to me and asked, "How do you know you are called?" We then talked for 20 minutes on calling, fears, and missions in general. I talked with another guy about miracles. He asked, "Why 
don't we as Americans see or perform miracles on a more regular basis." Very interesting conversations. I told some of my stories of my time overseas, and it is true that in general, miracles are not common in our American Christianity. 
was invited to tag along with a group going skiing at Copper Mountain. Yippee!
