HOW IT BEGAN

This is more of a personal reflection, but I thought it might be fun to write it down for others to read :)
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I tell a lot of people often, “Weather is just a hobby of my own”, but that has come to change over the past year.
I have always been fascinated by weather ever since elementary school at my home in West Michigan. The sight of a massive cloud in the air with the mysterious darkness beneath reminded me each day of the incredible power of God and the immense beauty of His Creation. I always got so excited over the latest storm that came into my town and always wondered what the next big storm would bring.
This immense fascination with weather encouraged me to learn more about what causes these storms to form. Everything I have learned has only fueled an excitement for weather over the past few years. Sometimes my friends and parents got excited when they saw my “hype” for weather events.
Nevertheless, I continued on. As I reached high school and moved towards senior year, I had a major decision to make. I debated on whether I would attend Valparaiso University to pursue a degree in meteorology or whether to attend Cedarville University for a degree in education. During my high school years, I developed a passion for impacting middle school students through work I did in my school and in my church. I believe the passion for impacting middle school students was given to me by the Lord. I had no idea where I should go, and I prayed. Honestly, I’m still sometimes unsure of my decision, but I believed the Lord would give me the greatest impact opportunities as a middle school teacher, and I believed Cedarville, with a clearly evident Christ-centered atmosphere, would set me up spiritually for this goal.
My pursuit of a degree in education from Cedarville did not curb my excitement for weather. I often got so excited in my research about upcoming weather that I would frequently post it to social media. As this continued, the idea clicked- with so many Cedarville students on social media these days, I thought I could begin a personal weather blog specifically for Cedarville University.
I opened up the very first CU Weather blog on January 21, 2018 on Facebook. This first attempt did not go too well and did not develop much interest. It is hard to make a blog go anywhere on Facebook without pitching in a few bucks. This inability to catch interest and publicity led to the blog being shut down only a few weeks later.
Easter came early that year and I went home back up to Michigan. It was the beginning of April- when severe storm season usually ramps up. I researched online a potential severe storm outbreak set to begin as soon as all Cedarville students returned for classes. With the excitement of the oncoming outbreak, I eagerly restarted the weather blog on April 2nd, 2018- only this time I fired it up on Instagram.
All the students returned just in time for the severe weather outbreak. The threat of oncoming storms lit the spark for the blog. That day, a tornado touched down south of Xenia that left barns destroyed and trees down south of Cedarville. A friend sent a photo of the funnel to me and it is on the blog to this day.
Since then, CU Weather has grown immensely. CU Weather now runs on Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, and on Instagram and over 1,000 students and staff members on campus use the service.
Working with CU Weather has helped me realize how God can use our talents and interests to benefit one other in and out of the body of Christ. After I made my decision to pursue a degree in education at Cedarville, I believed my ability to use weather to glorify Him would be minimal- and it was discouraging and saddening. However, God still ended up using my passion for weather while I pursue a calling into middle childhood education- and I’m truly blessed and thankful for that!
I’m hoping that my passion for weather can still be used to influence and help others even after my time at Cedarville. I may have to either pass down or continue carrying the torch of CU Weather someday, but I am now considering returning to school (depending on whether the Lord allows or leads me that way) to complete a degree in meteorology. Sure, I may not have all the details figured out about that yet- but I will be going that direction in faith. If God leads me another direction, then off I go onto a new and greater adventure!
<Psalm 37:3-4>
~Written by Ben Richmond, July 29, 2019: 10:42pm