The campus is alive again!
Once empty halls are bare no more
As students come from far and near—
Excitement that we love to hear.

The airport shuttle runs each day.
The campus is alive again!
Returning students, new folks too—
I love to sit and watch the view.

Time for check-in, registration.
“May I assist you with your things?”
The campus is alive again!
A sea of students fills the span.

The summer months flew quickly by,
A blend of work and needed rest.
Now helping students is our plan—
The campus is alive again!

Last year our family moved to a new area that happens to be near a large Christian college. This past summer my husband and I took steps to become campus parents and chaperones for the students at the college so we could be more involved in their lives. We do desire to minister to the students in whatever way the Lord sees fit, seeing He has placed us here in this college community. I also started an airport shuttle ministry shortly after moving here, and last week I had the privilege of picking up three students from the airport and giving them rides to campus.

The reason I wrote “sit and watch” in line 8 is because I currently have a broken foot, so I’ve been doing a lot of sitting lately. I can drive, but I can’t carry anything because I’m on crutches. Actually, I did make one exception at the airport, when I put a girl’s backpack on my back. I probably shouldn’t have done it, but there seems to have been no harm done. ☺ That said, line 10 is in quotation marks because I heard others offering their assistance, but I myself was not able to be of much help. Still, it was exciting to have all the students back on campus again. Hopefully I was able to express some of that excitement in the lines of my poem.

Arrival Weekend 2017 – Sunday Service

About the poem: Written August 29, 2017 ~ A quatern is a 12-line poem written in three quatrains with eight syllables in each line. Line 1 is repeated on lines 6, 11, and 16, and there is no set rhyme scheme.

“New Semester” © 2017 Angela Umphers Rueger – All Rights Reserved

Photos courtesy of PCC Facebook page