It's exciting being a founder of something...I can put my name on the letterhead.

A couple things....firstly, my dad had his wisdom teeth removed last week. Don't bother asking him how the surgery went. We already asked, and he thinks he must have "slept through a good part of it" because he doesn't really remember how it went. hahaha! (They gave him some meds.) So, that was fun.

And secondly, we're making a ton of progress on The University Project, even though there have already been quite a few obstacles. Well...one obstacle really...he just keeps obstacle-ing it up over and over and over again. haha! But I think we're handling that pretty well.

You know, I knew this was going to be a big job, but it has definitely surprised me just how big it really is. I kind of feel like the more we get done, the more there is to do. But it's been an interesting process so far, and we're still really excited about what we're doing.

The first step was to determine who exactly we are as an organization and what our purpose is. So we took a stab at writing a mission statement and some fundamental belief concepts. Everything is still in a "rough draft" stage for now, but...so far so good. Basically:

The University Project exists to provide support to facilitate college education for Christians in Ecuador who want to impact the world for Christ in their chosen profession.

• We believe that God needs Christians in every profession.
• We believe it's an injustice that some people in the world cannot pursue the professional training they need to use what they are passionate about to make a difference in the world simply because of money.
• We believe we should do something about it.
  

The next step was to meet with the World Wide Outreach team at Downey First Christian Church to present our idea and to ask that they consider making our organization a ministry of DFCC. That meeting (in November) went really well and the team presented our proposal to the elders who approved the idea. So...The University Project is officially a DFCC ministry, which will help us get going a lot quicker.

So, then we started figuring out everything we need to do before we can actually begin presenting this idea and finding support for students in Ecuador. The list is extensive, let me tell you.

And this is where it starts to get overwhelming....

First, we need students to sponsor. So that's just one thing, right? Nope. It's like a hundred things. It's writing an application, thinking about what kind of information we'll need in order to approve an applicant. It's figuring out what exactly we're looking for in an applicant, and what we're not. It's thinking to ourselves, "am I really even worthy of looking over someone's application and deciding if they're what we're looking for or not?" It's researching other application processes for similar organizations to determine the exact, specific wording we should use on the last page that they will sign (the legal blahdittybloo). It's deciding what kind of agreement we are making to these applicants, and communicating the commitment they are entering into if they are accepted into the program. It's figuring out what commitments are important and how we will go about holding them to that agreement. It's writing about ten drafts of the application to get the wording just right to communicate who we are as an organization. It's translating it all in to Spanish, so the applicants can actually read it and apply. It's getting a second, third, and fourth opinion on just about everything, and it's about 25 e-mails back and forth with the other people involved in the process. And that's just the very beginning.

Then we start to think about, "how in the world are we going to review these applications and determine an acceptance or rejection of an application?" So there's a whole "application review guidelines" section of what's turning out to be a novel of a University Project Info. and Procedures file handbooky type thing.

Then there's the distribution of the applications, then translating the applications we receive back into English so that WE can read them, making sure to keep the translated apps anonymous so that the review process will be as fair as possible. Then there's the actual reading through of the apps, figuring out if an applicant is a good fit for candidacy in this organization. Then, realizing there's so much more information we really would like to have in order to make that decision. So then there's calling each applicant by phone, and asking the questions we have about their applications and getting back to the other decision-makers to make the decisions. And then there's writing yet another draft of the application for future applicants that includes questions which will give us the information we realized was missing.

It's quite a bit more work than I anticipated, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. There is also the field representative (that's meeee!!), and their job responsibilities, there's the management of the program here in the states and those job responsibilities, there is a huge financial aspect that we need to dive into, there are presentations that need to be prepared, and publications we need to make, a website to design (with portlets, Paddy. lots of portlets), biographies to write for each student, an acceptance letter/packet/new candidate orientation, letter-writing guidelines for students (who are committing to write to their sponsor), other organization services we will offer those students, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. But even though it's a lot more than I expected, I am really really enjoying this process. It is a big challenge for me, because I've never done anything so involved. But I feel really good about what we're doing here. And I also feel the more we get done, the more I want to do, which is really encouraging, especially since there's a lot more to do with each step that's accomplished.

So...we have already received six and approved five applications besides the two students who are already "sponsored" through our organization. And that is super-exciting! We're not even present in the country yet and we've already hit the ground running. I hope we can keep up with the pace being set for us.

There is still so so so much left to do, so your prayers are greatly appreciated! (constructive, helpful, encouraging) questions, comments and input are appreciated as well. I'll be updating you with progress more frequently. Or not. I don't know yet.