Long Overdue Update

It's been almost two months since we've last written a blog post! Sorry about that.

We've been really busy here in Memphis.

We just wanted to write a quick update: 

First of all, we're changing our website and pictures website! We're still constructing it, but it will be hopefully a better site to keep up with us.

The website is: www.landonandlaura.com

The pictures website is: http://gallery.mac.com/landonjones

We're going to be very busy the next few weeks, but we plan on working on them this summer and having them ready to go by the time school starts again in the fall.

Here are some things you can pray for:

-   A few Memphis students are going overseas on summer missions project with CCC. Pray that they'll raise their financial support and be fruitful!

-   Classes end Wednesday (4/23). Pray that we'll end the semester well.

-   Pray for Kyle, a British exchange student Landon met while doing a short film festival. Landon got to share about Christ with him, but he wasn't ready to accept yet. He is coming to church. Pray that God will change his heart!

Lastly, there is a tragic story about a pastor from SC who was detained in Russia (he was flying from Moscow to Perm, the city in which we lived in 2004-2005!). He was sentenced to three years in Russian prison...Pray for him and his family.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,351922,00.html

We will be posting again very soon!

Pray for Porn Nation

Tonight at 8PM (9PM Eastern Time), Campus Crusade at the University of Memphis is hosting Porn Nation. A live-speaker, Michael Leahy, will speak using many forms of multimedia about his addiction to sex and porn and what those things are doing to today's college student. His second part tells his story of overcoming the addiction through God's help.

We're hoping for 1000 students. We're hoping for good weather and many spiritually interested people to come. 

Please join us in praying:

For God to fill the theatre. 

For God to save those who come.

For God to be glorified.

For students to fill out contact cards with a desire to talk about God.

Thank you. Our next newsletter will detail this event.

Ministry Update...

We're busy working on an event coming to The University of Memphis on February 21st, Porn Nation. Check out about it at: Porn Nation

We've been advertising with posters and on the social networking website, Facebook. We're also putting ads in the campus newspaper. We hope to have more than 1000 students attend.

Please pray for students to come. Please pray that God will bring students who are spiritually interested. Please pray for Michael Leahy, the speaker for Porn Nation. Please pray that we will be able to use this event as a way to connect lost students to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Also, in other ministry news...

Nathan and I were walking around advertising for Porn Nation on Thursday and decided to do a few spiritual interest surveys with students. We met a freshman named Wes on a bench near the campus bookstore. He had been listening to music and drawing in a sketch book for art class. He also had earrings and pentagram symbols drawn on his sweatshirt.

He said that his desire to know God was very high and that he had grown up in the Christian church, but never truly believed in Christ. He said he'd been learning a lot in college and searching for the truth. I then shared a booklet with him called, "Knowing God Personally", which talks about the four basic points of the Christian gospel, God's love for us and plan, man's sin which inhibits man from knowing God, Jesus Christ as the only solution for man's sin and our need to repent and accept His work on the cross for us.

After I shared the booklet, I asked Wes if he wanted to begin a relationship with God right then through a prayer and he said yes! He then prayed to God and asked for forgiveness and salvation in Christ! How awesome! This is the first time all year that a random spiritual interest survey has yielded fruit like that.

We are getting back together with him on Wednesday to go through the first of five follow-up Bible studies to help him process his decision. Please pray for his spiritual growth and for God to lead us in leading him.

Aunt and Uncle!

Here's a few pictures of Aunt Laura and Uncle Landon and Andrew and McKenna with baby McCall...

We're Safe!

As many of you know, tornadoes ripped through the Mid-South last week. Laura and I are OK. Our apartment was right in the tornado warning zone, but we suffered no effects. 

We do have a student whose girlfriend is at Union University in Jackson, TN, where tornadoes took down two dorms on campus. Her dorm was one of those dorms. Thankfully, she was at an off-campus Bible study, but all of her belongings are gone.

Please praise God that we're OK, but also pray for those affected by the terrible storms.

Landon's Sister Gives Birth!

Here's a quick update from us as we're sitting here in the University of Tenn. at Martin's library coffee house...

Landon's sister just gave birth to a healthy baby boy! His name is Kayden McCall Hydrick and he was born 6 pounds, 8 ounces. He's the first grandchild for our parents in our family.

We've been in Martin, TN since Sunday night working with student leaders on campus. Nathan, one of our co-laborers, gave a talk on time management with from a spiritual basis at the Kappa Alpha house on Sunday night. 

Last night, we hosted a focus group in one of the dorms with free pizza and discussion on life, relationships and spirituality. It's a great way for us and involved students to develop relationships with people they don't know. We've met with the newly-formed student leadership team and they've helped us plan a small group Bible study for tomorrow night and post flyers around campus. 

We've also met one-on-one with students to help teach and disciple them. Lastly, we've been using a new tool called Soularium, which we learned how to use in New York. This tool uses 50 images and five questions to develop spiritual conversations with students. We've been teaching students how to use it and then doing it.

Please be in prayer for Bryson and Jarvis, two guys that Nathan and Landon did Soularium with and shared the Gospel with. Please pray for the student leaders to walk closely with God (their names are Billy, Jake, Aaron, Scarlett and Kate); to catch the vision of Win, Build and Send; and for them to learn how to lead a focus group, bible study and Soularium surveys.

Thank you for your prayers and your partnerships with us in spreading the Gospel.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Winter Conference!

Laura and I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas season.

We spent Christmas in South Carolina with both of our families and Korker. We had a great time with them.

We left Dec. 28th to come to Greensboro, NC for Encounter07, our Winter Conference for students involved in Campus Crusade. Memphis Metro has brought about 40 students to the conference, the most we've ever had! They all came by bus from Memphis as God provided the funds for the bus.

Laura is working on the prayer team here at Encounter and I am in charge of all of the Audio/Visual needs for the seminars. We're having a great time and working hard to help students Encounter Christ the King.


We will be here until Jan. 1st and then go back to South Carolina for a night before heading back to Memphis. Students don't return to campus for a few weeks. We'll finish planning for the semester and preparing for the events we've already planned.

One exciting piece of news is that one of our dear friends from Perm, Russia, is here and will spend a week with us in Memphis. His name is Max and he is one of my best friends!

We want to thank everyone who has prayed for us this past semester and thank you in advance for your prayers for this coming semester. We'll have a newsletter update in a few weeks about Encounter.

Blues City STINT

A video created by Landon to help recruit more Campus Crusade staff and interns to Memphis.

Start Spreading The News...

Greetings from Manhattan, NYC!

We are currently in Campus Crusade's office building that houses Priority Associates and Christian Embassy, two of CCC's ministries that minister in NYC to working professionals and the United Nations.

We flew in yesterday and got acquainted with the city with the help of the NYC Metro Campus Staff. We're staying in a hostel on the upper West side on 105th St.

Today we're going through training seminars in the morning and spending our afternoon on campuses throughout the city. We're breaking up into groups of four and going to more than 10 different campuses to "decode" (or get the feel of the campus) as well as intiate spiritual conversations with the hope of sharing the gospel.

Each day we have training seminars in the morning and then practical application on campus in the afternoon. We eat in different dinner groups each night. This is such an encouragement for us to be around many other staff because sometimes it can feel lonely in Memphis.

Of course, we'll get to do a little bit of sight seeing. We saw Times Square last night (we watched Boston win the Series on the big screen). We're going to see Les Miserables on Broadway tomorrow night, and we're getting afternoon to tour the city later in the week.

That's all for now, but keep checking back to hear stories of what's going on with us in NYC this week. Please pray that God would keep encouraing us, use this time to help train us and use us on these campuses to share the Good News with students of NYC.

Thank you for your prayers and partnerships with us in turning lost students into Christ-centered laborers in Memphis, Russia, NYC and the rest of the world!