Chi Alpha MN Alert

Dear Family

I just wanted to update you on some potentially tragic news for Chi Alpha MN. Craig & Michele Krueger, photos above, are part of the U of M XA team in Minneapolis, and they pastor Sojourn Church on campus. They have 8 children, the oldest is 12 and the youngest is 10 months. Their family is wonderful- so encouraging, always. Michelle was just diagnosed with an aggressive cancerous brain tumor and has been told she has 14 months to live.

Their whole church community has already been reeling from the death three days ago of Katie Wyngaard, a 33 year old mother of two, from complications stemming from giving birth to their second child eight weeks ago. She apparently contracted pneumonia in the hospital, and has struggled with cystic fybrosis for years. Matt & Katie stayed with us while we were interning in Duluth. She was amazing- she would cough every day, purposefully, to try to rid her lungs of stuff. And she always seemed to have a cheerful heart, at least when we knew them. Now her children are without their mother.

This is a lot for the Mpls. campus Chi Alpha to deal with. When asked what we all could do to help, the response was "prayer and finances." As you imagine, the bills are high. If you live in the Minneapolis area and are willing to run kids, errands, bring meals, or babysit- let us know and we will contact you with the church.

If you are able to give, please go to http://chialphamn.org/give/ As you link through, there will be a place you can indicate "Craig & Michele" and the finances will get to them, and you will receive a tax receipt from the MN District.

This sickness is from the enemy. God does not give his children sickness....He is not an abusive Father! Please pray- war- that this cancer dissolve in Jesus name. He took stripes for this. Let's make sure He gets what He paid for.

We love you, dear family

Phil & Michelle & tribe

Bemidji State Chi Alpha

Big Weekend

John & Maddie on Friday Night

L-R: Sanya (india) Gio (togo) asmita (nepal) and me

Phil and two of our new guys...still learning names!!

Palbitra :)

football!

Ilsa and one of her new brothers :)

Phil, Chime, Garima (who came back to Bemidji because she missed us all...she had transferred out), Palbitra, Manisha

endless fun on the trampoline

Me and Gabi....she's a peach!

Phil and Brett :)

Dear Family

I thought of you yesterday while we had a dozen international students and a dozen americans here at our house. I wish you could have been here to experience it. Half of us went to our neighbors, the Wille's, and jumped on the trampoline (we haven't met a Nepali yet who HAS EVER jumped on a trampoline before!), swam, threw a football around, swang on the swing, rode bike, & hung out. Phil spent a lot of time talking to one young buddhist who wants to hear about christianinty. Half of us stayed here and cooked (and cooked and cooked....) I don't know how many times I heard yesterday some version of this: "I am not alone anymore in America, I have a family now!" Three dozen hugs later (literally), two dozen stuffed people headed home. They sang to us in the car.

Then we welcomed a few friends from North Central University for a few days...Mo and Dee are here til Tuesday. And Ruth is living with us, so we have a house full, still! After all the festivities were over yesterday, I was standing in my kitchen (drinking coffee of course:), listening to Mo and Dee and Ilsa and Maddie and John jam in the great room. They were singing "How He Loves" and I was standing there thinking, "wow, how He does!" I think Phil and I and our kids are wired for community. If we don't have someone over or someone living with us, we feel kind of lost. Now that school has started, our schedules are packed, full. But we're happy. God always gives us the time off we need, the rest we need....and we live a life of resting in Him. So bring the people!

We're blessed and amazed at what God is doing! The students are coming back....not a day seems to go by where I don't get an email or a call or a message from a student about other students who want to be involved with Chi Alpha. We have been, and continue to, focus on intimacy with God and God-encounters. This is what they seem to be hungry for, because they are coming around.

So the community-wired Thooft family is going to have a big year. Thanks for keeping us in your prayers! I'll keep updating!

OH, and I am installing a new feature on this blog- a button that will take you to a link to donate to our ministry. I just have to figure out how to put it on here. Your donations will go directly to the MN District Assemblies of God and be routed to us, and you will get a tax receipt.

We love you!

Us Thoofts

Welcome Week Update

Ilsa and Eli after the fireworks yesterday

Maddie, Eli, Ilsa

Rachel & Maddie's hair!

Ilsa peeking
Phil, Eli, Ilsa
Maddie

Hi Family!

This is why I like the blog format- I can update. So much is going on that it would take forever to get it all to you in a newsletter :) The lake photos above are from our trip last week to the north shore- Grace is working at Naniboujou for the fall, waitressing. So if you get up there, stop in and give her a hug! She's doing great, finding friends, making tips! She comes home end of October.

The other pictures are from our first night of Chi Alpha last night. We forgot that there is a big bash on campus the first Tuesday- so it was a small group, but it was great. We have several that want to help with worship this year, so we have a schedule down for the entire semester. Our students want to have a big worship event on campus twice this semester, so we planned the dates for those and are reserving the Beaux Arts Ballroom. And we scheduled in a few bonfires and pizza feeds at our house. When we left, the big outdoor bash I was telling you about was having fireworks, so the kids climbed up on the suburban to watch. Not sure I've ever been that close to fireworks- I could smell them. Everyone is pretty excited to start a new school year!

Another new development- Ruth Velo has joined us! Ruth is a North Central University graduate who was taking her nursing courses at Hibbing Tech. She pioneered a Chi Alpha there, and now has transferred to BSU to complete her nursing training and is living with our family. The girls are loving having her around! (especially with Grace gone :( ) She and one of our grad students, Mark, have really taken the reins this year. They spent about eight hours on campus yesterday just talking with people, putting up signs, getting us an office, meeting our faculty advisor. They're social butterflies. They're doing everything Phil can't do while he's in this season of working and doing chi alpha part time. But looking at our calendar, chi alpha is definitely running full time on campus this year! God is good!

We are looking forward to Fall retreat with UMD again this year in October, hitting a few of Ian's rugby games at UND, visiting Grace on the north shore, and our first international get together this next Sunday. We asked for all the Nepalis again, so we're expecting a crowd!

Phil wants to start a men's purity group, but the curriculum is $450. If any of you would like to help cover that, that would be great. I am looking at finding a way to allow you to give right from this blog site- will keep you posted.

We also had a bummer the other night- our amp seems to have died. Does anyone out there have any resources along those lines?

Keep us posted on how we can be praying for you all- we love getting your emails! Thanks so much- and we'll update again soon!

Love, Us Thoofts

August 2010

Maddie- Carly- Ilsa

Grace- Ilsa - Maddie

our family! L-R: Michelle, Phil, Don, Kiki, Eli, Grace, Ilsa, Carly, Maddie

Gracie caught a fish! And held it herself!

Eli was the great fisherman of the weekend :)

glorious blue sky

warming up!

Ilsa hangin' on the boat; Eli and another fish

Don & Phil, Michelle & Kiki

Our girls! :)

Hey Family!

Summer is fading. Wow. Hard to believe. But here we are, move in is next weekend, and BSU starts school next week. Phil and I have been wondering all summer, "what does part time look like?" We had a meeting with our students last night, and this is what we're thinking it looks like:

• Phil would like to start a Men's Sexual Purity group that will meet once a week. The curriculum he wants is $450 and he needs to raise that before he can start :)
• Michelle and Ilsa and Maddie will be having a Girl's Tea once a week, that will focus on friendships and fun, but also have special women speakers on life topics for young women
• Friday nights will continue, possibly with sharing a meal beforehand
• Sundays are International student hang out days, and our great friends the Smith family will be joining us in that venture this year :) We get all the Nepalis again!
• Tuesday nights on campus will be worship and prayer and small groups
• Various one on ones with students at our home will continue (ie- Monday is Evan night:)

And we realized that we may be part time, but we can pray full time, and we can worship full time! So pray for us, family, as we venture into Fall. God reduced his army drastically and still won the battle. He fed thousands with a few fish and loaves. We're thinking more time and money isn't automatically a good thing! God's economy is not ours, and we are expectant to see Him move, even in our present circumstances.

Summer has been lovely here! We spent a weekend with our dear family the Gloude's (minus Ian (aka Sam) who was in Alaska all summer!) at their cabin near Walker, MN. The pictures are from our day on the pontoon! It was an incredible God-sent break just when we needed it. Right now we have friends up from Redwood Falls (Jairus and Sonny:) and they are helping us put up siding on the house today. Monday, we drive Grace to the north shore where she will be working the fall season at Naniboujou, the lodge where Phil and I met :) She has a few things to finish up for her high school and will graduate this spring. (it can't be!!!) But she has really gotten that itch to get out on her own, and Naniboujou was such a fun experience for us. They are excited for her to come, and we are excited for her. But we'll miss her!

So we're gearing up for a busy school year. Please pray that we would have wisdom - all the time! Our schedule will be so full. God has put the young IVCF staffers in our lives - one of them, Suzanne, has been coming to our Friday nights and playing with us in our worship team. We just love her! We had a meeting with them and decided we would like to meet once a month and pray for each other and our ministries on campus, and also advertise each other's events. They meet daily to pray on campus, and we're doing the tea and the Friday night and hopefully the men's group. We hope to share those events with all of our students.

Thanks again for your love and support! We'll keep you updated- probably more often now that school is starting again!

Love, Phil, Michelle, Grace, Ilsa, Maddie, and Eli Thooft

July 2010

Hi Family!

Summer is flying by toooo fast. But it's been lovely. Hope yours is too! The kids and I got to spend a night in Duluth with my son Ian (most of you know him as Sam. That's another wonderful story! http://www.thegiftofsam.wordpress.com/) Those are a few pictures, and videos, from our time together. It's all just too amazing and we can't really get our heads around it! He's in Alaska for the summer, having a blast with his "love for all things northwoods" that he got from me :) He looks and walks and gestures like a young version of my dad. And he loves his family, all of us. And we've gained Don & Kiki and Karli, his family! What an amazing God we have! This fall, we hope to get to UND to see him play rugby as much as we can.

We have been meeting on Friday nights to worship & pray with students and any adults in the community who join us. It's been great. This is sort of what a Friday night looks like - I say sort of, because they aren't always exactly the same. People start coming around 6. Those are actually the enlightened ones who know they can get coffee if they come that early. :) So we drink coffee and hang out, pretty much all around the house. The kids play. (Eli just WAITS for Friday nights!) Sometimes we stroll the gardens. (http://www.downtoearthgardener.wordpress.com/)

Then, by 7:30 or even 8 sometimes, pretty much everyone who is going to show has arrived, and we gather in the great room (it's 30'x30'-ish so it fits everyone) and pray. Lately, we have been praying some specific things: that during worship, when we sing our thanks and praise and adoration to God, that His glory would saturate the place, that it would saturate us.

I heard recently of a study done (it's in a book and I can't remembe the title right now, sorry!) of people in a room together. It has actually been proven that the heartbeat of the person in the room who is the most influential- affects the heart rate of everyone else. Hmmmm. Does it follow that when God is there (where two or more are gathered....) HIS heartbeat affects all of ours? He is obviously the most influential in the room. He wants His glory to be over all the earth. It's His desire.

So with that in mind- and knowing that God wants to transform us, bringing us from glory to glory...we pray before we worship that He would have his way with us. That, during worship, when that glory comes and sometimes it's uncomfortable in that glory and we want to run do something- even something noble, like pray for the sick or just pray/talk, or have an altar call or whatever....we've been feeling like the Lord just wants us to be quiet. To not get nervous in the glory. To let Him put his finger on whatever he wants to in our lives. To transform us so that we look like, sound like, act like, smell like Him.

So we've been doing that. After singing to Him, soaking in Him, sometimes being flat on our faces in front of Him, we just wait. It gets quiet. We just- be - in His glory.

Because transformed people transform cities. And campuses. And nations.

Then, after a fabulously uncomfortable time, we pray. For each other, for our city, our campus, the students coming in, our county, the reservations, anything else pressing, our nation. Whatever comes up.

We want to be a people who is accustomed to extended times in the glory. We want to be a transformed people.

So that, family, is what Friday night looks like. The enemy tries to intimidate us and tell us that we're not doing any good and we should quit. We are learning to ignore him, and act in the opposite spirit. God will bring his kingdom, He will pour his spirit on this generation, He did give us Isaiah 49 and He meant it.

We've finished the relationship series, and will start again at some point. We are starting a Tuesday night prayer meeting. And we look forward to fall, and what God will do.

May God bless you all HUGE!! We love you!

June 2010 Update

Hello Family!

Here is a great story: A long long time ago in a far far away place...Redwood Falls....we had a youth group. We have kept in touch with some of these kids as they have grown into young adults. Some came with us last winter to our Chi Alpha SALT conference. That was a hoot! But one young man from this crowd talks to Phil about once a week. He was telling Phil that God had convicted him of the way he had been treating a young lady he worked with. I'm not sure of all the details, but it sounded to me like she was reflecting some stuff this young man was trying to distance himself from- ie, she wasn't a believer. But God convicted him that she was His daughter, she was a Princess in His eyes, and he needed to treat her that way.

So our young friend started to do that. He was kind. He noticed she didn't have food for lunch sometimes, so he shared his lunches. They began to be friends.

Then he asked Phil if he should share the gospel with her. Phil said, "you know, don't push it. Be her friend. Love her. Ask God for an opening, and follow His lead." Basically, "love her without an agenda."

So our friend did that. He asked God for an opening, for Him to lead in this relationship, this friendship. And God did! Our friend was able to lead this young lady to the Lord- and now she is excitedly growing and learning about her new faith! How amazing is that!!??

They continue to learn and grow together. What a blessing.

We continue to meet with students and anyone who will join us on Friday nights to worship and pray for each other, our campus, and our community. There are some international students around for the summer, so we get to see them. We just finished the Danny Silk Relationship dvd's on Tuesday nights, and will be taking a summer hiatus from Tuesdays. Fall will come quickly!

So bless you family, have a wonderful June!

Phil & Michelle & tribe

Just a little snapshot for you...

Wish I had a picture for you: our international students have NEVER jumped on a trampoline! Our neighbors have one- and we took the load of them over there a few weeks ago. Wow. I am told it was hilarious. Such a good release after stressful finals! A few days ago, Mingma came for brunch before we took him to the airport. He'll be back in August, but is spending his summer with his Mom who is visiting relatives in New York. Phil and Eli took him over to the Wille's for one more jump on the tramp. He said to Phil, while jumping, "When I am on the trampoline, I am the child."

Just had to share that one!!