About 16 days ago our area was directly hit by Hurricane Gustav.  Nearly 2 weeks later....Ike.  We had to evacuate for 10 days and Nicholls closed for about 9 school days, but thankfully we received only minor damages to our home.  Please join us in prayer and assistance for the Gulf Coast areas affected by these storms.

Today, another semester has been placed in the history books.  It was 3 years ago that we completed our internship in Arkansas and headed home to Thibodaux to begin our mission at Nicholls State University.  We've seen so many incredible things occur in just three years and look forward to many more!  God has blessed us with some new student leaders this year and we look forward to another great school year 08-09.  Below is a picture from one of our friday night international student fellowships.  Each friday one of Nicholls Biology professors opens up his home to us.  God has blessed our time together and we asked that you would join us in praying for them. 

On the home front....well I will let the picture speak for itself.

One more week of school and we will have completed our 5th semester of campus ministry at Nicholls State University.  Time is flying!  And, speaking of time flying we recently added to our family on October 18 - Keira Grace Buckel was born at 11:13 a.m. weighing in at 8lbs. 3ozs and 20 inches long.  Krisalyn loves being a big sis!  Thank you for all your prayers and support of our ministry and family.  I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas season and a blessed New Year serving our Lord! 

Ministry is going well this semester.  "The Harvest is Plentiful!  But the Laborers are Few".  Please continue to pray with us for laborers!

Personally, Felicity and Krisalyn are doing well.  Krisalyn is growing by leaps and bounds.  She loves to play and talk.  Her favorite thing is Dora, Elmo and Barney.  She loves to walk with our shoes and enjoys hanging out with college students, family and friends (in that order)...ha ha!

The new baby will be arriving between now and October 18 or 19.  The due date was the 27th.  But, the baby is going to be HUGE, so the doctor scheduled an induction on the 18th.  Please pray for a safe delivery for both mom and baby.  No, we don't know the gender of the baby....and the names are almost locked in.  We'll be in touch again soon.

1 Kings 8:56-58 -

 56 "Praise be to the LORD, who has given rest to his people Israel just as he promised. Not one word has failed of all the good promises he gave through his servant Moses. 57 May the LORD our God be with us as he was with our fathers; may he never leave us nor forsake us. 58 May he turn our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways and to keep the commands, decrees and regulations he gave our fathers.

First off - I apologize for not updating this site often.  Our intention was to use this as an avenue to keep you posted on our lives and ministry.  But, since our lives and ministry are extremely non-stop action - it's tough to take time to write.  Most of you should have received our winter newsletter by now.  If you did not receive it, please email us at info@chrisandfelicity.com and we will get one to you asap.

The most important bit of information in our lives right now is that Felicity is pregnant!  We found out Mardi Gras day.  We are just getting use to the three of us...and now Krisalyn will be a big sister already - it's hard to believe, but we are thrilled to death.  God is good to us!  The baby (we will not find out the sex until birth) is due on Felicity's birthday (Oct. 27).  We'll keep you posted on her progress.  Right now, she is feeling different than the first pregnancy - she is starting to get tired alot.  Does anyone have any boy/girl name suggestions?

Anyway - I'll try to get some pictures of Krisalyn up here soon.  I just wanted to let everyone know the great news!  God bless!

We just wrapped up another great semester of ministry at Nicholls State University!  We are blessed to be able to serve this community!  God has raised up 7 new student leaders this semester to add to our leadership team.  These students will be working with us to reach out to the NSU community for Jesus, through our evangelistic cell groups.  Please pray for them over the break, that their hearts will grow stronger for the Lord.  We have many things happening between now and the start of school for the spring semester.  Please pray for wisdom and time mangement as we plan retreats, attend The Uprising and plan the spring semester calendar.  We also need to use this time to rest!  During the semster it is full force, 6 (sometime 7) days a week.  And, most of our nights are taken up with activity.  We are thankful for this season each year to spend quality time with family and plan for our upcoming semester!  Our nights are not totally free from activity, but much better than when in semester.

I wanted to take this time to say a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you!  We cannot do this without your faithful prayers and support!  We love and appreciate you very much. 

Krisalyn is now 8 months old and growing.  She is starting to crawl and try to sit up.  Here is a pic of her and some pics of our students.

It's already week number five of the fall semester - WOW!  Time flies when you are having fun!  We cannot even begin to tell you how much God has done the past few months since we wrote.  God is opening doors all over the campus for us to minister.  We've been allowed full access to the Athletes, Greeks, Campus Sponsored Events, Residence Halls, International Community and more.  We are working with the administration from the President all the way to the Departments to build relationships and work together to serve the NSU community!  This semester we have seen enormous growth and God is continuing to do some unbelievable things.  For example, we were able to speak to over 800 students about Chi Alpha, we drove students around in golf carts the first week of school and we've had the privledge of working with the Greeks on campus - some of Nicholls top leaders.  We've seen three students give their lives to Jesus recently and one of them is a prominent leader on campus.  Please pray that God will continue to raise up student leaders - laborers for His harvest!!!!

And, of course, what is an update without mentioning our cutie pie - Krisalyn.  She's doing fine!  Learning to touch and taste anything she gets her hand or mouth on.  She is now 7 months old and growing by leaps and bounds.  She says Ma Ma Ma Ma Ma Ma all the time.  I'll post some pics soon.

Sorry we haven't written in a while, we have been extremely busy.  And, things are not slowing down anytime soon.  School begins on Aug. 21, but we have things planned Aug. 14 through.....well...through December.  I will do my best to up date this as often as I can.  I just wanted to ask everyone to be praying for our student leadership.  We just wrapped up our retreat and it was awesome!  We had a blast and got alot accomplished.  I will try to post a pic sometime soon.  Be blessed!

Oh, and of course, Krisalyn is growing and growing and we keep lovin' and lovin' her more!

As you can see by the date above, it is almost tomorrow.  We had our very first Starbucks Night tonight and I think it went pretty well.  We had a meeting recently with a few students to discuss follow up.  In other words, what do we do with all the cards that students fill out from Orientation and our connections tables.  We meet these students on campus, they fill out a card and then what....  Well, we decided to do a Starbucks Night after each Orientation program and personally call each student that filled out a card to invite them.  We use this time to get to know them better, let them get to know about our ministry and provide them with invaluable information about Nicholls State.  So, it's a really good way to make some good connections.  Starbucks lets us put up signs and take over a part of the store.  They also let me run a tab so that we can treat the students to a free drink.  Pretty cool stuff!  Please pray that God will expand this and help our current students catch the vision!  It won't work if me, Felicity and Krisalyn show up each time and our students don't come.  I have a picture from tonight, but it is on my camera, I forgot to save it to the disc.  I will post it later if I think about it.  God bless!

UPDATE:  below are pictures from our first Starbucks Night!

We've been getting ready for summer recruitment and God has blessed us with some really nice promotional pieces.  The logo below is part of our "branding" so to speak - that we will use to make our ministry more visible on campus.  It can be challenging at times to make our prescence on campus known without a facility, however, it can also help us to focus more on relationships.  Please pray for our summer small group - Tuesday nights at 7 p.m. on campus!  We are going to be talking about spiritual disciplines based off of two books:  The Life You've Always Wanted by John Ortberg and Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster.  Summer Orientations begin next week along with youth campus.   We are going to infiltrate the youth, especially high school seniors, to make sure they know about Chi Alpha.  We truly believe that students who are grounded in Christ and are involved with a strong Christian fellowship will be less likely to fall away from God during college.  Please continue to pray with us! 

The spring semester is officially over (graduation was today) and intersession began last week.  Summer school will start in June.  Felicity and I have a jam packed summer.  We will be mentoring students one on one, participating in youth programs for recruitment, travelling to churches in LA. for support and updates, and planning out the entire 06-07 school year at our leadership retreat.  We are also working on doing some ministry on campus during summer school.  Please pray as we plan to have a weekly cell group this summer on campus.  Krisalyn is doing well - she went swimming for the first time today (see pic. below).  She has been very involved in the ministry since birth!  She loves hangin' out with college students!  We'll chat again soon!