Summer 2013 Update

Hello everyone!

So I know that I have been MIA lately, but I promise it is only because I have been spending a ridiculous amount of time enjoying my summer to the fullest!

Maybe that's not a good excuse, but it's the truth.

Without further ado, Here's a quick overview of what I've been doing the past few months:


In May we took over a dozen students to Summer conference at Panama City Beach, FL. They were able to attend seminars on various Biblical topics, participate in nightly worship services, and take some much needed time to relax on the beach after finals.

Our Group for Summer Conference

In June I had the pleasure of staying in Charlotte for a week and taking a seminary class on hermeneutics (a fancy word for "how we interpret the Bible") with Dr. Richard Pratt. The biggest lesson I learned was probably about the direct correlation between how intelligent you sound and the fullness of your beard. As you can see below, Dr. Pratt sounded pretty intelligent. I, on the other hand, have some work to do. But in all seriousness, it was a phenomenal class. I cannot wait to take what I learned there and implement it into my ministry at Emory.

This is what Dr. Pratt looks like, in case you were wondering.

July was a big month for me. I got to serve my cousin (and one of my best friends) by being the Best Man in his wedding! We had a wonderful time celebrating their marriage and are so excited for their future together. They are two pretty awesome people. 

Caroline and I with my cousin Jonathan and his new bride, Emily.

Also, in July, I was able to take another seminary class here in Atlanta and attend RUF July Staff Training, which I just returned from on Saturday. We learned a ton while we were there, taking multiple seminars each day. I was also glad to meet and get to know a lot of the new 1st year interns. Full disclosure, I also played some frisbee, which was very good for my soul. I plan on writing more about my experience at training in August, so be on the lookout.

Here's a picture of my intern class.

As for now I just wanted to give you quick update on my summer. What are the awesome things you've been doing this summer? Comment below and let me know! 

I plan on posting here more regularly now that the summer is over, so hold me to it! Feel free to bombard me and ask me why I haven't been updating my blog. I need accountability, so if you could step-up and be that for me I would really appreciate it!

Have a great day!

Marlin

New RUF Promotional Video

Over the Christmas break I had the pleasure of working on a promotional video for RUF at Emory. It will be shown to hundreds of people at an upcoming missions conference. I hope you will take the time to watch the video and hear from the students themselves how God had used this wonderful ministry to proclaim the love of Christ and change their lives!

'Tis an RUF Christmas Season

Merry Christmas everyone!

We have reached the end of my first semester as an RUF intern! The finals are over, students are done putting off their studies, and everyone is home and enjoying their Christmas break. It's a joyful time indeed! We finished off the year with our RUF Tacky Christmas Party which you can see below!

Our gingerbread hose team actively preparing a strategy to win the competition!

Here we have some of the other teams preparing their own gingerbread houses.

These students just wanted to chill.

Here we have the finished product and winning gingerbread house!  The GingerMAN House!

Our campus minister, Hunter Bailey, my fellow interns, Rachael and Brian, and myself!

The gingerbread Victors!

Two of my favorite freshman guys, Simon and Joe!

As you can see, we had a great time at the Christmas party! Caroline and I are currently spending time with her family in Augusta, GA and preparing to head to Alabama to see my family. Our hope is that your Christmas day has been filled with much joy! Today is the day when we celebrate the birth of Christ, but let us not forget that as miraculous as his birth was, we would have no hope without his resurrection! May today be a day when we reflect on the great and mighty savior we have. A savior whom death could not hold and in whom salvation is found! Praise be to God!

As always, please let me know if there are any ways in which Caroline and I can be praying for you. Also, if you would like to learn more about how my first semester as an RUF Intern was, I would love to talk with you over the phone or meet with you over the break. Send me and email or call me! I look forward to hearing from you!

Email: marlin.harris@ruf.org
Phone: 478.321.4124

Enjoy your Christmas evening!

Remember Remember, RUF in November

Hello everyone!

I wanted to take some time to tell you about all the wonderful things going on with RUF at Emory! In the past month I have had the joy of going to fall intern training, planning a men's fellowship night, and playing in the inaugural game of our RUF Emory Flag Football Team, a.k.a the Ridiculously Underrated Footballers!

Fall intern training is a four day event in which all the RUF interns from all over the country come together to catch-up, encourage one another, pray, and be trained by campus ministers and area coordinators. I had a great time at training! It is such a blessing to come together with other interns and hear about how God has been at work in each of them as well as on their campuses! I also had the pleasure of meeting up with my prayer group one afternoon. We were all assigned prayer groups at orientation in June and have been keeping up with one another throughout the year. My group consists of interns from Savannah College of Arts and Design, University of Maryland, Jackson State, and University of Georgia. We were able to spend a good couple of hours catching up and praying for one another. It was a rich time for all of us! Training was a great time for me to recharge and refocus for the continuing work of RUF at Emory. Since then I have felt rejuvenated and filled with joy at what I have seen God doing in my own life and in the lives of Emory students.

This past Friday we had a very successful men's fellowship night called M.E.A.T, which stands for Men Eating Animals Together. We had over twenty guys show up as we carpooled the the Dekalb Farmer's Market, bought whatever meat we wanted, and grilled out at a house near campus. How awesome does that sound? Look for yourself!

A great shot of the delicious meats we consumed at M.E.A.T night!

Nothing brings men together like the grilling in the great outdoors!

M.E.A.T night was a time of great fellowship for all of us! Many of the guys who came had never been to an RUF event before, but were invited by their friends, and we were encouraged by the results. I was able to get to know guys I'd never met and have already seen God using this great event to help us reach out to the Emory student body in new ways!

Some freshman guys and I decided to make a late night Waffle House run.

In other news, we have formed an RUF intramural flag football team! We had our first game this week and played well, but ended up losing. Hopefully the next game will yield us a better result! It has been a good opportunity to get to know guys who would not normally come to RUF but are interested in playing flag football. I'll be sure to get a team picture up before our season is over. As always, have a wonderful day and please let me know if you have any questions. 

You can always email me at marlin.harris@ruf.org

God bless and please continue praying for the ministry of RUF at Emory!

October Update: Part 2

Hello everyone and happy Halloween/Reformation Day!

I wanted to share with all of you some pictures of what we have been doing at RUF Emory!

Our amazing group who went to RUF Fall Conference

Brian, one of our interns, and Jeremy, one of our freshman guys!

Getting ready to begin large group at RUF Fall Conference!

Myself, Shion, Cole, and Jonathan hanging out by the lake!

Cole is helping us dole out some hot chocolate at an Emory event!

Quick October Update: Post 1 of 2

Hello everyone!

I'm so excited to be writing this update and I cannot wait to tell you about how things have been going here at Emory. School is in full swing and the students have just started taking their midterms. Please pray for them as they strive to work well during this stressful season.

First of all, I apologize for there not being any pictures on this post and I promise to make up for the lack of them in my next one! I'm not huge on taking pictures, but I know how much people love them, so please forgive me and know that I am working to redeem that part of my life!

As for RUF, we have also gotten the ball rolling! Our Community Groups are underway, we have had four large group meetings, we had a great back to school party, and we are getting ready to head off to Fall Conference on October 12-14!

To give you an idea what Community Groups are, basically, they are small groups of both Christian and non-Christian guys or girls who meet together once a week for fellowship, encouragement, and Bible study. I am currently leading two community groups for freshman guys on Mondays and Thursdays and we are studying the big picture of the Bible in order to discover the unity of scripture. So far, we have had some great discussions which have even led on to one on one conversations afterward.

On Wednesday I was given the opportunity to teach at large group. My talk was from Acts 17:16-34 and it was about what it looks like to be a Christian and engage the different cultures we live in. You can listen to it here: RUF Emory: Engaging Culture

The next big event we have coming up is Fall Conference, which I mentioned earlier. This is a weekend in which we join other RUFs from around the region for a time of fellowship, rest, and learning. I love RUF conferences because they are such a great time to get people out of their comfort zones and get to know them better!

I'll be back later this month with another update once we have had Fall Conference! Enjoy your day and thank you taking the time out of your day to read my post!

Until next time...

Bustin' Out in Emory!

RUF Emory Staff and Leadership Team

Hello everyone! First and foremost I want to thank all of you who have supported us through prayer and donations. By His sovereign power, God has used each one of you to bring me here to Emory's campus! Since I've arrived, things have been going non-stop. We went to a Braves' Game recently and took over 120 students with us! It was a great opportunity for me to meet new freshmen and get to know them. I have also been meeting with a number of students throughout the week and am working on getting Community Groups started. These groups are crucial to our ministry because they gives students the opportunity to meet together regularly in smaller groups to build deeper friendships and study the Bible.

A group of us at the Braves' Game!

We had our first large group meeting this week and it was encouraging to see such a diverse group of Christians and non-Christians come together to explore God's word! We had nearly 100 people come to the meeting and the campus minister, Hunter Bailey, gave his first talk from our series this semester on what it means to be a thinking Christian. He discussed what it means to love Jesus with all of our mind and how that influences the way we love Him with our hearts and souls.

Our RUF Emory t-shirt for this year!

The internship is not all fun and games, though. It has also been very challenging. I find myself dealing with issues of approval in how desperately I want students to like me. I see lack of faith in the ways I become upset when things don't go how I plan, such as trying to get a game of Frisbee together and no one showing up. I find issues of self-reliance in the way I try to approach students based on my own gifts and skills rather than through dependence on God. I often feel completely unqualified for my job and regularly wrestle with the tension of wanting to always be doing something for God but remembering that He has already done everything for me! In our study program this month we have been reading The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges, which has been extremely encouraging to me as I struggle through these issues. Being reminded that my standing before God is not dependent on how many students I meet with or how well my planned events go or how much I do for my campus minister is deeply comforting. It allows me to serve the Lord faithfully and trust that He is in control even when I get stood up for lunch or feel like I had an awkward conversation and will now be forever avoided. That, my friends, is good to know! Glory be to the God who does not judge us according to our own works, but according to the works of His perfect, righteous Son!

In other news, God has answered our prayers and provided Caroline with a job as a nanny until she begins her classes in January. She works for a wonderful Christian family with two young boys named John and Daniel. They have a pretty amazing story of their own you should definitely check out. Please read their blog at hemakesallthingsnew.com, I guarantee you will be encouraged if you do. Caroline and I are still adjusting to life in the big city of Atlanta, but we are enjoying the new adventures that come with it. Apparently the nation's largest indoor rock-climbing vented is right down the road from us, which I'm looking forward to visiting and out-climbing Caroline to the top!

Thank you so much again for you support and encouragement. Caroline and I are so thankful for each of you! If you want to learn more about RUF at Emory you can check out our blog at  emoryruf.blogspot.com.

Have a great day! We would love to hear from you!

You can always contact me at 478.321.4124 or marlin.harris@ruf.org

God Bless!