Community & Alumni Blog
Come Together: Be a Bridge Builder
CMU's newest building project is a few steps closer to becoming a reality. Construction of the CMU Library & Learning Commons and Bridge is slated to begin early this summer.
We're still looking for people to get involved in making the new building happen, though.
Come Together: Be a Bridge Builder is a unique opportunity just for CMU alumni to leave their mark on the university by contributing to this special project.
As a CMU alumnus, help make the library, learning commons, and bridge happen by purchasing a floor tile on the bridge with your name or some other message engraved on it.
A $500 donation will create a lasting witness to your support of the CMU vision. For less than the cost of a latte per week, your $500 gift can be made over three years (36 months), or as a one-time payment.
In the coming months, Aaron Epp—CMU's Writer and Social Media Coordinator for Alumni and Friends—will use this space to update you on the project and to profile some of the many people who are involved in making it happen.
If you'd like to donate to the campaign, please visit the CONNECT website at www.cmu.ca/connect. If you have any questions about the content on this blog, contact Aaron at aepp
Come together and be a bridge builder.
Bridge-builder Profile: Kyle Penner
Kyle Penner's approach to charitable giving is simple: Give until it hurts.
He traces that impulse to a conversation he had at the age of 16 with an elderly farmer from Grunthal, Man. he encountered while working at camp. The farmer told Kyle, "No junk for Jesus." It was the farmer's way of paraphrasing Proverbs 3:9, which reads, "Honour the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your crops."
"We often give our leftovers to the church, be it our leftover couches for the youth room or a leftover painting for the church library," Kyle says. "I don't want to do that. I want to make sure I'm giving my best and first fruits."
Kyle has worked as a pastor for the past eight years, most recently in Steinbach, Man., where he lives with his wife, Ashley, and two children.
The 29-year-old is one of the contributors to CMU's Be a Bridge Builder campaign. He says he had his two-year-old daughter in mind when he made the donation.
"If she was enrolled for CMU or Outtatown for the fall, I would be super excited, so I want to make sure that there's a good building for her in 15 years," he says. "Until then, I want CMU students to have the same great facility that I hope my own child will have."
The reason the idea of his daughter attending CMU excites Kyle is because his own experience at the university significantly shaped who he is today.
"I appreciate how attending CMU formed my faith and my worldview," says Kyle, who graduated in 2005 with a Bachelor of Church Ministries degree. "My education at CMU has done a remarkably good job at preparing me to be a pastor in an increasingly secular society."
CMU also helped Kyle understand that faith is bigger than he ever imagined, and given him the language "to help speak grace and peace to our world."
"As pastors, we're given access to deep places in people's lives, and we're given that access pretty quickly," he says. "People let us into places that they don't necessarily reveal to others. I love being able to speak grace and peace, or name people as beloved, or tell them that there is a redeeming God."
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