To All Campus Lifers—You guys have no idea what it is like to live in a city like Chicago. Having lived near it and visited occasionally over the course of my entire life, I thought that the moving into my dorm room at Moody Bible Institute would be no big deal. I assure you that I was one hundred percent wrong. I live in a beautiful neighborhood just outside the loop of downtown Chicago, and I love it here. As my Dad said when we he was helping me move my stuff into my room, “Few people get opportunities like this, Kevin. Take advantage of it.”

I had to think about that for a little while to realize just how correct my Dad’s statement was. Very, very few people have received the kind of opportunities that have been handed to me on a silver platter. For some reason my Dad’s words touched my heart and stuck with me to this day almost two weeks later. I hear them in my head as I walk down the city streets and see an old man wrapped up in a dirty old blanket, shaking a McDonald’s coffee cup with some loose change at the bottom. I thought about his words as a clip of Hurricane Katrina played in a chapel service one morning. Again his voice whispered in my ear as I read an article in a magazine about starving children in Africa. Few people get an opportunity like this, Kevin. Very few…

I am sure that you hear this all of the time, because I know I did at your age, but very few people have the opportunities that every one of you have. Few can say that they live in safe, healthy, Midwest suburban neighborhood. Few have the opportunity to receive an education, and far less people have the opportunity to receive an education from a school such as those that all of you are so blessed to be privileged enough to attend. You are blessed in ways that I’m sure that you don’t even take the time to think about. You are blessed to be able to go to bed at night and not be afraid of hearing gun shots right outside your front door. You are blessed to have food to eat each day. You are blessed to go home each night and have a roof over your head and a bed to sleep on, because let me tell you guys: LOTS OF PEOPLE DON’T HAVE THOSE THINGS! Think about it today. We hear stories of people who don’t have the basic necessities of life and a part of us wants to believe that they are just stories. I’ve got news for you guys, this is life, and they are not just stories.

You each have an opportunity to do something very huge with your life. For most of us, life has been a cakewalk and the finer things in life have been freely given to us. My purpose in writing this is not to make you feel guilty or sad for those who have less than you do, but rather to make you think about one simple question: What are you going to do with it? With everything that we have been given, all the opportunities, and still we see them as, not a blessing, but a hassle. How many of you complain about going to school everyday, and then fall asleep in class because you could care less about what your teacher is saying? Change that attitude right now guys, because there are people who would kill to be sitting in the same seat that you are right now. Being here in the city has opened my eyes and made me realize that I wasted so much time complaining and being lazy, and what I should have been doing was, as my Dad told me, taking advantage of the things I have been given.

So if you are reading this because you have been surfing the net and talking to friends online all day, get away from the computer and take advantage of your life. If it’s 3:00 AM and you are reading this, GO TO BED! Tomorrow is another day that you should be taking advantage of. Get the best out of it. Don’t waste it. You each have so much to give to this world and you need to be awake in class to do it! Read a book! Get outside! Do your homework, not because you need to, but because it is but another on your long list of opportunities waiting to be grasped! Think about school as an opportunity, because that is exactly what it is.

Also, take advantage of Campus Life. Very few people are able to say that, each week, they get together with a group of people who genuinely care about them as an individual. I don’t just say that to make you feel warm and fuzzy inside, but I know that each of the leaders cares about you all. We pray for you and think about you and want to be there for you. It has been a blessing for me to spend time with you in Campus Life and get to know you. I plan to keep in touch with you all with my “Not Andy’s World” section on the website.

Be sure to let me know how you are doing, I would love to hear from you.

I love you guys,
Not Andy
(aka: Kevin Loughrin)

IM: Ballplayar11

P.S. Carpe Diem = SEIZE THE DAY!