Trouble?

Around Purdue today, there was a sign that there might be trouble afoot (hmmm, "afoot," that’s sort of a strange word if you think about it. Moving on…). Many of you have heard about the “I agree with Matt” outreach campaign a few years ago. Someone is trying to copy it, with an unknown identity or motive.

For those of you who don’t know what it is, Crusade did an outreach that consisted of blanketing the campus with flyers asking “Do you agree with Matt?” Then hundreds of Christians (including those from Cru, Navigators, IV, and others) all wore shirts that said “I agree with Matt.” They even took it to the extent of driving around campus in a pickup with a megaphone shouting “I agree with Matt.” After a week of this (when all of campus was abuzz because nobody knew what it was about and it was irritating), they had a strong Christian guy by the name of Matt walk around wearing a shirt that said “I am Matt.” They announced that he was going to be speaking at a meeting and he used it as an opportunity to preach the gospel. A semester or two later he was killed in a car accident, which also allowed Cru to bring the issue back up by having close friends talk about what he stood for and share the gospel again. Many other Crusade organizations around the country (even the world) have duplicated the same style of campaign with a lot of success.

Now, what’s this potential trouble I mention? Main campus has been blanketed with flyers asking “Do you agree with Jake?” today. There are easily twice as many flyers as we had out for the Everystudent.com outreach, and nobody knows who is behind them. Obviously, many of the people (mainly staff) who were around for the Matt campaign will think we’re doing the same thing again, but it’s not us. We’ve gotten in touch with people in the other two main ministries on campus (Navs and IV) and they don’t know any more than we do. Pray that this is not someone with intentions of doing us harm or spreading a bad message with their copycat tactics.

Otherwise, it’s been relatively quiet around here. Yesterday I ran sound at church (4.5hrs) and then almost immediately had to be at the airport for a flight to Dayton, OH and Muncie, IN. Many thanks to Natalie, who by being willing to drive me to the airport, enabled me to be able to get a very quick bite of lunch in the middle there. Today I had my one class (test Friday to prepare for) and then spent a couple of hours wandering around campus enjoying the nice weather and the opportunity to be on main campus. This semester (and this upcoming fall) I’ve been banished to the airport, with no classes on campus. I also need to get studying because I’m probably going to have my Instrument checkride by the end of next week. Without going into detail, it is the second hardest exam I’ll have all semester, consisting of a flight test proving my skills in the air and an insanely difficult oral test where the examiner interrogates me for a couple of hours on anything and everything IFR related.

Finally, in response to Grandpa’s comment to the last post: Knowing you, sometimes I wonder if your college days were anywhere near as “boring” as the official story makes them out to be? Just kidding, but he does have some pretty interesting tales from his Army days (ex. the instructor climbing outside the airplane to reattach the fuel cap during his first flight).