Dear Friends,

The students are back, if you happened to be in Boston on Labor Day weekend you would have a visual confirmation of the start of a new semester. Labor Day weekend thousands of Uhaul trucks lined the streets of Boston hoping find a space to unload the students belongings. It was a sight to behold, if you didn't mind braving the traffic and the scores of double-parked moving vehicles.

With the influx of students in mind, we are striving to keep momentum up as we head into the fall. We are seeing new people every week. We have started 6 new community groups for people to connect with. We just completed 10 days of prayer to unite as a church body and seek God's direction for our church.

These are exciting times for REUNION. We are approaching the one year mark since we began meeting weekly. God has blessed us time and time again over the past 10 months and we look forward to the next 10. Thank you for continuing to support us as we strive to help people find their way back to God.

God Bless,
The REUNION Team

Each time we go to Safe Haven seem to build a new level of trust and engage old and new faces. This last time we went, a woman, whom I had met a couple times, grabbed my hand as I walked by. She had some tears forming in the corner of her eye as she asked me if I would pray with her. She didn't let go of my hand as I sat there and prayed for her boyfriend who had gone back to jail for having a trace of drugs in his urine while on probation. I prayed for her as she had relapsed shortly after he'd been arrested. As I finished praying for her, she kept hold of my hand and said, "I'm 37 years old and an addict. What is my purpose here? What does God have for me? What's his plan?" I sat there looking into her eyes for a minute before she broke the silence by saying, "Thanks for coming here. We really appreciate you all coming and bringing dinner. We sure look forward to it. When are you coming back."

I felt a little awkward as I said, "A month," knowing that she could use some more encouragement sooner than later. I invited her over to our place for dinner the next week. We heard her life story and I'm excited that my wife and I are building a relationship with her. (A side note. I think that we are helping her answer question about how God will use her. She is an amazing encouragement to some of the younger girls at Safe Haven. She told me about a time one of the girls was sleeping around. She came to the younger girl and said, "Do you need to know you are beautiful, because I'll tell you how beautiful you are if you can't see it? I'll tell you everyday if you'll let me. Just please stop sleeping around with these guys. In the end you'll be emptier and searching more than when you started. Let me build you up if that's what you need." When she told me that, I was blown away. That's just what the younger girl needed, I'm sure. I think as God grows my new friend she will be able to have quite a purpose encouraging and supporting younger women!)

Thank you for leading out as REUNION builds it's generosity ministry! Thank you for being committed to building the kingdom of Heaven, just like what Jesus described, here in Boston. You are bringing the unconditional love of Christ to people through burgers, Italian food, and sandwiches! Isn't it great!

This summer Chris Kopp, who happens to be Mike Brown's cousin, was REUNION's first intern. Chris is a senior at the University of Wisconson-Madison and double majoring in Political Science and Religious Studies. We thought we would let him share with you a little of his experience in Boston this past summer.

·  What was your first impression of Boston city life? Did anything suprise you? Boston doesn't really feel like as big of a city as it is, which is nice. I love that you get a taste of living in a big city, yet it seems like you're always just a few miles away from some little part of the city that allows you to get away from all the noise and commotion. One thing that surprised me was how proud people are of Boston's history and culture. For instance, I knew that people would be pretty crazy about their beloved Red Sox but I've never been to a place before where a single sports team was so entrenched in the culture of the city.

·  What was your role at REUNION? Being Mike Brown's cousin, I helped him with a lot of different things, anywhere from preparation for Sunday morning services to getting to watch Miles and Aidan. I also got to be a part of many of the staff meetings throughout the summer and tried to offer REUNION a fresh perspective from someone who was seeing things for the first time.

·  What was one of the highlights of your summer? Though there are many things I'll take away from my experiences this summer, the highlight was definitely getting the opportunity to live with and get to know Mike and Karen and their kids. I was fortunate to be able to see how they cared for each other and raised their kids. Long after this summer is done with I will still remember and value the two months I got to spend with them and play with my little cousins!

·  What was one of the most challenging aspects of your summer? The most challenging aspect of the summer was definitely trying to stay focused on what's most important amidst all the other challenges the summer threw at me and without my usual support system of friends and family from Wisconsin. It was easy at times to let those challenges and even the ministry that I was doing distract me from my first priority, my relationship with the Lord.

Thanks Chris hanging out with us this summer. We enjoyed having you around, and appreciated all you did around REUNION this summer.

Within the past month we have decided to dissolve our bostonpartnership.org emails. If you have tried to send us email via that address and it returned, it's because they don't exist anymore. From now on we are using reunionboston.com addresses. You can find our current email addresses on the REUNION website. 

Pray It Up...

• This month we are highlighting our Community Groups, please pray that we might connect with people not yet connected with REUNION (specifically in our Community Groups.)
• That great meaningful conversations would happen with new faces during our Sunday gatherings.
• That Sojourn Collegiate Ministries (our collegiate ministry partener) would have a great start to reaching students this year.