The Thomas Telegram

Dear friends,
Hope that you are doing well and enjoying the fall. Life and ministry have been interesting and exciting. This September as classes started up at George Mason a brand new and very large freshman class moved into the dorms here in Fairfax. We have seen God doing some amazing things as we have been interacting with students and shar-ing our faith. At our first meeting of the year we had over 260 students. While it is clear that God is at work at George Mason University it has also been clear that God is moving us in a different direction. Last spring some of the leaders of Campus Crusade for Christ asked us to consider taking a new job as the regional director for Ethnic Stu-dent Ministries for the Mid-Atlantic Region. As we prayed and sought the Lord about our future direction, it eventually became clear to us that God was leading us to accept this position. The amazing thing is that we did not expect this to happen. We have been happy to be working here at George Mason. Without question God changed our hearts about this opportunity.
Late last spring God began showing us that He was calling us to take this job in leading the Mid-Atlantic region (New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia) to reach the 700,000 ethnic minority students that live and learn here. In the new role Dave will be responsible for working with students and staff across these states to help them launch ministries to reach the ethnic minority students on their campuses. Dave will also be working with a team of other regional directors to lead all of the campus ministries in the Mid-Atlantic.
Why ethnic minority students? Some people have asked us this question. Honestly, we asked God this ques-tion. Initially it was not exactly clear to us why he would call us away from a thriving ministry at George Mason to an unknown, underdeveloped group of students that are completely different from us. We looked at ourselves and said “God we are not in any way ethnic minorities, why us?” The answer gradually became clearer as we prayed and sought him.
God began to put a burden in our hearts for this group of college students. He reminded us of his call on our lives to go and make disciples of all nations. He re-
minded Dave of the gift of being a peacemaker in many past experiences and showed us that he was calling us to help bring peace to this group of students. Why ethnic stu-dents? Currently 60% of 1st graders in our country come from an ethnic minority background. This statistic illus-trates the future trends of college students in America. De-veloping effective ministries that will reach these students now will impact the world in the future. They are and will be the leaders of future generations of our country and the world. Because of this new role we will have to move from Fairfax, Virginia to the Downingtown, Pennsylvania area to join our new team of Regional Directors. We expect to move sometime around June or July 2010.
This fall we have been working on campus at GMU for August and September and have now transitioned to raise funds full time to prepare for our next assignment. Our hope as we move to a less expensive area is to buy our first home. Because of some lost financial support, our hope to buy a house, and needing to keep up with the growth of our family, we are in need of raising additional monthly financial support. Over the next few months we are trusting God to bring in another $3500 of monthly sup-port so that we can be fully prepared to report to our next assignment. In this process of fund raising we will be travel-ing to Connecticut, Pennsylvania and in Virginia to connect with many of you. Thank you so much for your prayer and financial support of our ministry.
Finally we have put together a web site for our fam-ily and ministry. You can go to www.thethomastelegram.com and get more information about Dave’s new job, to see lots of family pictures, listen to some of Dave’s talks from the Bible, and learn more about our ministry.
Serving Jesus Together with you,
Dave, Debbi, Katie, Ben and Rachel Thomas