Akpene's Adventures Volume 2 Issue 6

Joining together in prayer for the transformation of campuses and a culture. That's what it's about! Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.

Akpene's Adventures Volume 2  Issue 6

End of the Year and New Beginnings It has been an exciting and busy year! Time passes so swiftly, it's hard to believe I've been in New York for 4 months already. It has been a huge adjustment, and diving into work immediately has made things interesting. The adventure of finding an apartment was invaluble - I'll include pictures in my next newsletter. I have been getting to know a number of different campus ministry leaders, developing relationships with some students, and leading a small core group that is responsible for planning events and relating stories of God movement on campuses for our citywide student network. I'm excited about it all, but more particularly about the student network, called the One Cry Network, because it hasn't every really been done in the city before. Imagine Christians at all 88 campuses in the NYC metro area, linked together, sharing God stories, praying together, and advancing the Kingdom of Heaven as one body. It boggles my mind, and I'm so thrilled, honored and humbled to be a part of this. We are gearing up to send out first newsletter in January, calling the 13 campuses that have a strong Christian presence to come together, and planning our large One Cry event. This is where students, campus ministers, and anyone who is wants to will join together in a solemn assembkly crying out to God in repentance and prayers for revival and transformation in NYC college students. Oh, wow. I love my job! Campus Transformation Network We are in the process of spring-boarding Campus Renewal to a new level. Jeremy (my boss and President of CRM, for those who are new to my updates), is forming a new network called the Campus Transformation Network. This will be the first comprehensive national network of college focused leaders. What it will do is help leverage and build upon the local partnership models developed on colleges nationwide, like CRM Austin, Tennessee, and NYC, as well as many other different local fellowships, and connecting them together nationally. We will be having our first digital conference in the Spring of 2012, where we will officially launch the network. There is much to be done - please continue praying for my work here in NYC as well as nationally. The Plight of NYC Churches I have had the privilege of praying with over 30 NYC pastors and leaders since I came here, and it's so awesome to see the body of Christ starting to come together here. It was at these pray meetings I became aware of a situation that has been concerning the pastors for quite sometime. Nearly 15 years ago, there was a case, Bronx Household of Faith v. Board Education, that had the district of NYC refusing to allow churches to congregate in schools. Since the case was tied up in the courts, churches were able to continue. The appeals went up to the Supreme Court, but they denied hearing the case, making the ruling stand. Now, over 60 churches, big and small, need to find another place to worship by February 12, 2012. There are many calls to prayer and fasting by pastors and laypeople alike. I would ask that you join us in prayer in this situation. Thanks! If you’d like to make a special gift or monthly pledge, you can click below, or mail a check to Campus Renewal Ministries, 2421 San Antonio St suite B, Austin, Texas 78705. If you would like to make a stock donation, please call 512.331.5991. Remember to check with your employers to see if they do matching donations. + All contributions to Campus Renewal Ministries are income tax deductible, and are made with the understanding that Campus Renewal Ministries has complete discretion and control over the use of all donated funds. + KEEP IN TOUCH: Phone: (512) 293-9107 Office Phone: (512) 331-5991 Web: akpenesadventures.blogspot.com  Send me an Email Free fund raiser thermometer As you can see, I still need almost $1200 monthly to reach the $4000 monthly goal need for my part in Campus Renewal. Thank you so much for partnering with a recurring or special donation! New Address I love snail mail, especially when it's not bills... Akpene Torku 34-33 59th St FL 3 Woodside, NY 11377

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Akpene's Adventures Volume 2 Issue 5

Diving deep into the work here in NYC, and launching a new arm of Campus Renewal! Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.

Akpene's Adventures Volume 2 Issue 5

The Harvest Surely Is Plentiful I arrived in New York On September 4, and have been going non-stop since then! I knew that there is a lot of work to be done, but knowing and experiencing are two different things. I have been able to sit in on a remarkable new venture initiated by one of our board members to get the pastors of the city to come together once a week and pray. It was amazing to see the group grow from about 8-9 to more than 30 pastors and spiritual leaders, all with the simple and humble goal to seek God's heart together and pray and lift up one another. I also finished compiling a survey taken among ministry leaders and students to paint a picture of the spiritual atmosphere in NYC. It has already been distributed to the ministry leaders in the city and has had profound results. One leader told us that it has helped him raise more funds for his ministry, as well as mark out clear ministry goals from the national office that directly address the needs outlined by the survey. When I heard that, it made the hours and hours of work seem like a drop in the bucket when compared with our goals. If you would like, click here to see the summary. In all my free time (said in all facetiousness), I am helping to set up campus ministry prayer groups across the city, organize and meet with student leaders to plan for more harvesting events like One Cry, build a new database, oh yeah, and continue to look for a place to live (I am still boarding with my boss' family outside the city). I knew it would be busy, but this is beyond all my expectations! As I was talking to a friend, she noticed how tired I was (I actually was sprawled out all over her couch like a limp noodle, with my attention to the conversation wavering in and out between drowsing), she aske me an interesting question. She remarked on how exhausted I was and how much more things I had to do, my disappointments in my housing search, and just the extreme amount of work to be done and she, "Is it worth it?" It took me about two seconds to think about it. I told her that I believe so fully in the vision of Campus Renewal Ministries and the calling that God has given me for this time, that even through the ups and the downs, I'm certain this is where I am supposed to be. I am one called to this harvest, regardless. How about you? Annual Banquet - A New Venture! October 20, 2011, Campus Renewal Ministries will be hosting our annual President's fundraising banquet at the Mansion at Judges Hill on Rio Grande Street. This year, there is also a silent auction with wonderful gift packages and keepsakes. As well as updating you on the work of CRM throughout the year, Jeremy will also be revealing an exciting new venture that will be happening nationwide. Go to www.campusrenewal.org/austinbanquet to get more information and to register for a ticket today - I sure hope to see you there! Visit With Me Speaking of Austin ;), I am here for the next couple of weeks, preparing for the banquet, tying up loose ends and fundraising. I would love to chat and catch up with those in the city, so please, give me a call, text or email, and we'll get together! Thank you so much for all your support and prayers! Much Love, Akpene If you’d like to make a special gift or monthly pledge, you can go to www.campusrenewal.org and click on donate, or mail a check to Campus Renewal Ministries, 2421 San Antonio St suite B, Austin, Texas 78705. If you would like to make a stock donation, please call 512.331.5991. Remember to check with your employers to see if they do matching donations. + All contributions to Campus Renewal Ministries are income tax deductible, and are made with the understanding that Campus Renewal Ministries has complete discretion and control over the use of all donated funds. + KEEP IN TOUCH: Phone: (512) 293-9107 Office Phone: (512) 331-5991 Web: akpenesadventures.blogspot.com  Send me an Email Free fund raising thermometer to track your progress for fund raisers As you can see, I still need almost $1200 monthly to reach the $4000 monthly goal need for my part in Campus Renewal. Will you join the team?

friend on Facebook | forward to a friend  Copyright © 2011 Campus Renewal Ministries, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you wanted to be on Akpene's prayer update list. Our mailing address is: Campus Renewal Ministries 2421 San Antonio Street Suite B Austin, TX 78705 Add us to your address book unsubscribe from this list | update subscription preferences

Akpene's Adventures Volume 2 Issue 4

Summer of preparation, launching towards New York City! Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.

Akpene's Adventures Volume 2 Issue 4

Summer Fun It has been a very busy summer! All of us at Campus Renewal have been working to plan for this next semester and to fundraise. We are looking forward to events like All Campus Worship, Regional Shift Conferences, where we do concentrated training on prayer, sharing your faith and living missionally in the communities where you live, as well as the regular weekly prayer and encouraging times with student and campus ministry leaders. We also welcomed the new life of the son of Jeremy Story’s (our CEO) son! He and his wife have a very full quiver, and I know that God will bless them mightily! It was good to learn that we have a couple of full time volunteers coming on board with us in New York, and some two potential new staff members. We have a bunch of student interns coming in the fall for Texas; it’s so wonderful to see God move this way! Join us in prayer for this coming year – for more workers for the harvest, and that we can make the impact that God has instructed us to! FAITH And… go! It’s time for me to make the move from Austin to New York City! It has been a quite intense, getting ready to move. I’ve sold most of my things and packing what’s left that fits in my car in order to head out – my projected date is August 14th. While I will miss my friends, family and students that I’ve connected with, I am so excited to see and be a part of what God is doing in NYC. I’ve connected with a couple of campus leaders and students, and am looking forward to developing those relationships. As for financially, I have over 65% of the $4000 monthly I am responsible to raise for my work at CRM – isn’t that fantastic!! God has worked through many of you to get to this point. I still need partners to complete the rest of the $1400 (which would be only 56 folks at $25 monthly, 28 at $50, or any combination that the Lord leads), so please call or email me if that is on your heart . You can also go to www.campusrenewal.org/donate directly. Thank you so much for all your support and prayers! Much Love, Akpene If you’d like to make a special gift or monthly pledge, you can go to www.campusrenewal.org and click on donate, or mail a check to Campus Renewal Ministries, 2421 San Antonio St suite B, Austin, Texas 78705. If you would like to make a stock donation, please call 512.331.5991. Remember to check with your employers to see if they do matching donations. + All contributions to Campus Renewal Ministries are income tax deductible, and are made with the understanding that Campus Renewal Ministries has complete discretion and control over the use of all donated funds. + KEEP IN TOUCH: Phone: (512) 293-9107 Office Phone: (512) 331-5991 Web: akpenesadventures.blogspot.com  Send me an Email

friend on Facebook | forward to a friend  Copyright © 2011 Campus Renewal Ministries, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you wanted to be on Akpene's prayer update list. Our mailing address is: Campus Renewal Ministries 2421 San Antonio Street Suite B Austin, TX 78705 Add us to your address book unsubscribe from this list | update subscription preferences

Akpene's Adventures Volume 2 Issue 3

End of Semester

God has been working mightily among the campuses, and we’ve been so privileged to be a part of that movement. In my last update, I told you of the incredible God conversations that opened up at Rez Week at the University of Texas, God’s manifested presence in New York when He showed up in power to heal, transform lives and draw many people to salvation. Check out my last update at akpenesadventure.blogspot.com to find out more. The University of Tennessee at  Knoxville has seen some wonderful growth, doubling the amount of students and community folks filling up the Campus House of Prayer hours. They’ve also had a great conference, training students in the middle Tennessee area in how to unite their campuses in prayer. The University of Pennsylvania has had awesome increase also, with more students having a passion for prayer and influencing their campus ministers by underlining the fact that they need to be unified as a body to make progress for the Kingdom on their campus. It is a huge shift in thinking, and we are ramping up this summer to take the fall by storm!

Staff Summit – Planning Ahead

This last week of May, our staff from all our hubs – New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas, met in Yonkers, New York to evaluate our year and do strategic planning for this next year. I think one of the most powerful parts is when we spent a couple of hours thanking God for what He had already done. I don’t think we planned it to take that long, but when we began building our alters of remembrances, or Ebeneezers, we were just blown away, and continued to give God glory and express our thankfulness and gratitude. Spending a large part of our morning in prayer and worship every day, the strategies seemed to flow easily after that. After defining some much discussed structure changes, the plans came together so completely, it could only have been God directed. While last year was enough to completely blow our socks off, this year will supersede that. Are you ready for it? Will you join us in advancing the Kingdom of God on our campuses?

My New York City Relocation

Yes, I am really moving! After the summit, I stayed for another week to look for a place to live (an adventure all by itself, I assure you). I’ve gotten connected with several people in the city, and have made plans of moving forward. Every time I’m here, God reinforces the calling He’s given me so strongly, I can almost visibly see it. After talking through my role with the president of CRM, I am so ready to jump into the role of building up the NYC hub as well as walking with him to advance our vision nationally! My summer will be spent raising the funds needed to accomplish that goal. I still need $2100 of the $4000 monthly support.  This all goes towards my personal support as well as travelling, teaching and training costs for equipping students and campus ministers. That would be only 84 more people giving $25 a month! You can give directly online by clicking here, or I can meet with you if you have any questions.  Thanks so much for coming alongside this journey with me, and many blessings!

Much Love,

Akpene

Akpene's Adventures Volume 2 Issue 2

Rez Week Awesomeness!

Rez Week has begun! Every year for the past 17 years, campus ministries have been getting together to host a united catalytic event called Resurrection Week, or Rez Week for short, a week long celebration of prayer, worship, service and outreach 24 hours a day.

 

We have a former UT grad speaking, who was a former Muslin and is now pastoring a church in Frisco, Texas. I must say, he was absolutely phenomenal! He had a stripped down, in your face message about following Jesus and seriously counting the cost to do so. He was calling out to students to test it out for 

themselves, and lay down their lives (no one foot in the world, one foot out), and follow Him.

I talked to several students who told me how much that made an impact and made them think. Yay God!!! Ross Parsley from One Chapel and the Desperation Band played for an anointed worship time, and when everything had finished, we looked up and noticed that there was a cross made of light in the sky, right above the plaza! We were praying for signs and wonders; talk about a sign that will make you wonder!

Looking Forward

I know some of you are new to my updates; as news to you and a reminder to the rest, God has called me to relocate to New York City to help with the work there.

NYC is such an area of need, yet there’s an amazing spiritual hunger there. Our President, Jeremy Story, held a pre-rally for the annual prayer assembly a couple weeks ago, and what came out of that was wild: as they were praying, someone sensed a need for a time of healing, and out of that night, many people were healed, and from those testimonies, there were reports of some salvations from friends of those healed!

I am going to NYC to carry what I’ve learned and done here in Austin, and the Lord made that clear to me, unmistakably. Austin has been prayed for and warred for in the heavenlies, and many people I have talked to agree with me that we are just on the cusp of that wave. I’m now to take that and partner with others to do the same in New York City and the North East United States.

So, in August begins this new phase of my work with Campus Renewal, and I am so very excited, both with the work I am still doing (praying with campus ministers and mentoring students), and the work God is laying out for me in NYC. While still maintaining my current position, we hope to expand my role with more teaching and training opportunities. There is still much preparation to be done though. Can you join with me in prayer as I look for a place to live, hopefully somewhere just north of the city where I still can commute in? I also want to find a church body as wonderful as my family here in Austin.

Also, my biggest need is financial support. Please pray for that to come in. As you know that New York is vastly more expensive than Austin, and I’ve had to nearly double the estimated budget. I’m working at raising $4000 in monthly support, and praise God, I’m just over 25% of the way there. Broken down, I just need 120 more people who could give $25 monthly, or whatever combination works. You can go to www.campusrenewal.org and click on donate in order to give. In the end, I know that God has called me; as we partner, we are all doing the work of the Lord.

Thank you so much for your continued prayers! As always, I do appreciate them.

Blessings to you!!

Akpene's Adventures Volume 3 Issue 1

Well, Happy New Year to everyone!

 

It’s been a busy break for us at Campus Renewal. In addition to closing out the school semester with our students and campus ministers, I was helping one of our board members plan our staff retreat, plus some other events for the New York City area. After it was all said and done, I almost needed a break from the break!

 

Staff Retreat

It was wonderful! One of our board members graciously paid for the staff to go on a cruise to the Caribbean! His thought behind that was that we could spend the time needed relationally together without having to plan daily details. It was fantastic fellowship time, a chance to build stronger relationships among the staff that work in different states. We spent 1-2 hours every day in prayer and worship, and had the freedom to get to know staff that we only talk to on a weekly basis on our staff call. Personally and relationally, I would say that the retreat accomplished its purpose. One thing that developed was that the board member and a consultant had the chance to talk one on one with all the staff members, and as a result, the board of directors has called an urgent meeting for the 4^th and 5^th of March to talk about some structural changes that may need to happen in CRM. Please pray for a unity of spirit, and that every member can keep God and the vision focused in their hearts.

 

Students and Campus Ministers

As things are settling more into a routine with my administrative responsibilities, I’m stepping into more ministry related roles. I began attending campus minister fusion meetings, where campus ministers from many different Christian organizations come together to pray and keep each other informed of what God is doing in their ministries. As we were sharing last time, we realized that over the last semester there has been quite a number of salvations. After tallying them up, we found that 23 students touched from our collective ministries got saved last semester! Isn’t God good?! I’ve also joined a Pastors in Covenant (PIC) group for women college ministers, and we had a great sharing time, getting to know each other. I’m continuing to mentor two students, and added another. I love the one on one contact, and it’s amazing to see on a personal level how they are reaching the people around them. Please pray that I guard my time well, and that I pour into the things God wants me to.

 

Collegiate Day of Prayer

Last year launched the re-establishment of the Collegiate Day of Prayer, and that totally rocked! Over 500 campuses and/or groups participated in united prayer throughout approximately 46 states, and we’re praying for and even greater involvement! Check out www.collegiatedayofprayer.org join in the prayer movement. Get a group together and pray where you are, or click on the “See Who’s Praying” link to join in with others near you. Save the date: February 24^th (the day before my birthday!).

 

Birthday Prayer and Support

Speaking of my birthday (:D), I’m doing something a little different this year. I’ve set up a cause called My Birthday Wish, and I’m asking for people to make a monthly pledge of $25 for the amount I’m responsible for raising for Campus Renewal. This is the site: http://wishes.causes.com/wishes/215044?m=04428744&bws=activist_profile. I will follow up with a more detailed email, but I’m really excited, because it breaks down my goal into manageable pieces. Currently, I have less than 15% of the support I need to raise. Please consider partnering financially with me and with the vision of CRM to transform college campuses with the power and gospel of Jesus Christ!

 

If you have any questions, or would like to pray together, please shoot me an email, text or send me an email. I love and appreciate you all!

 

Much Love,

Akpene

 

 

 

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