Freshley Tailgate

Every year, the Freshmen Ministry gathers together on one Saturday in the fall for a Freshley tailgate. We'll get together on Myers quad, the leaders will all bring some food, and we'll have a nice, enjoyable morning/afternoon before heading to the big Georgia game. It's always a great time for the students to hang out and have a little fun.

Before the year started, the Freshmen staff got together to plan the date. As we were looking at the calendar, we knew we wanted one in late September, and the Alabama game popped up. We thought to ourselves, "That should work. Alabama's not very good. That shouldn't be too big of a game. There shouldn't be a massive crowd. That should be perfect!...."

Wow were we wrong! Who could've seen this coming! Alabama was an undefeated top 10 team, the Bulldawg nation decided to black out the stadium, and ESPN's Gameday crew even decided to set up camp in Athens (on the Myers quad, no less). Needless to say, it was not the nice, relaxed, low-key game we thought it might be! We were even told there were 150,000 Crimson Tide faithful headed to Athens for the day! When I showed up on campus at 6:00 am to reserve our spot, and realized I was almost too late because of the hundreds of people already set up, I knew it was going to be a long day!

Despite the chaos of the day and multitudes of people milling around Athens, we still had a great time at the Freshley Tailgate. We had somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 freshmen stop by for some delicious homemade BBQ (courtesy of the ever-so-generous Linda Abufaris!) and some amazing sides fixed up by the Freshley leaders. We hung out for a few hours eating great food and getting amped up for the nationally televised top 10 matchup, then shut things down around 4:30 for people to head to the game. Unfortunately, the game didn't turn out as we had hoped, with Georgia losing 41-30, but we still had a great time!

Freshley Olympics!

We hosted our first fellowship event of the year, the Freshley Olympics, this past Friday night, September 12th. It was amazing! We had around 125 freshmen show up, and there was so much excitement and energy in the room! Each of the small groups were given a country to represent for the night, and they came dressed the part! We had opening ceremonies to begin the night (of course with some drumming in the dark and some glow-in-the-dark sticks) and then the games began. We had 7 events they would participate in: track (5-legged race), bobsled (you had to see it), archery (spit balls shot at a target), shotput (water balloons), javelin (throwing pool noodles), swimming (walking across the parking lot with your head in a bucket of water), and gymnastics (ribbon dancing). We then concluded with a medal ceremony. It was a blast! The freshmen seemed to have a great time and were really enjoying themselves. I think ribbon dancing ended up being people's favorite! Thanks for all your prayers and continue to pray that the Lord will change the Freshmen's lives!

Welcome!

Welcome to Steve and Stina's Blog! We hope to use this as a way to keep all of you updated on everything going on over here in Athens! We hope to update this every few weeks, so be sure to check in periodically. We pray the Lord's blessings on all of you as you read this and hope to hear from you soon. God bless!