Emily's Ministry Updates

We are officially in the holiday season! For me, thanksgiving is the threshold we have to pass through for me to get into this season (and yes, that does mean I do not like Christmas music before Thanksgiving). I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!!   On the theme of thankfulness, I want to share about a student I have been meeting with. Her name is Ana! The story of how we met is such a God deal to me. Basically, Graham and I were invited to a luncheon for a non-profit that his dear family friends are a part of. After the presentation, we were mingling and sharing how we work as campus missionaries at UTA. The group we were talking to immediately mentioned that one of the employees has a daughter at UTA. I went up to Ana’s mom and she excitedly gave me her daughter’s number. As a person who has worked freshman orientations, I have seen the excited parent before who wants their child involved in ministry. The big question in my head was does your daughter want that too. I promi...

  November is my favorite month. I am excited for the leaves to change and for the weather to get colder. Students are counting down the days till they can go home for Thanksgiving break. I cannot believe there are 5 weeks left of the semester. Pray for our students as they prepare for tests. Anyways, let’s get this show going.  Ministry has taken a while this semester to settle for me. I am leading a small group at UTA and helping with TCC. I felt like the first two months were full of meeting people then October hit and I was left wondering how one person can hang out with all the people I’ve met. God has been bringing such neat people into my life this semester. My small group at UTA is going well. Our group consists of some ladies who are in their second or third year in our ministry mixed with new girls. So, our veteran members have been taking initiative to include the new ones. Sam and I have been thoughtful in considering what topics to talk about. There is an opportu...

  Let’s just say I feel like I blinked and October is here.  As we hit our fifth week of school, students are beginning to have their first round tests. This means there is a certain level of stress people are experiencing. As a ministry, we have been able to fight some of that stress. One way has been praying for their exams. I swear that becomes one of the main prayer requests around this time (and for the rest of the year for that matter). Be praying for our students and their time management. Anyways, we fought the stress in another way: we went on our annual fall camp this past weekend. Playing games, eating chick-fil-a and singing worship does wonders to a stressed out soul.  At our camp, we had a pretty typical structure of lessons and free time. Our sessions focused on our year’s theme based on John 10:10, “ The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full ”. Every year focus staff prays over what we...

Hello Again! There is so much to say since my last update. I was standing on the edge of a month full of events like our leadership camp (SICM) and UTA’s welcome weeks and now I’ve lived them. It’s been quite amazing being back on campus experiencing the excitement of new life as people arrive for the year. I can’t believe it’s been two years since I have been on campus for welcome week; a quick refresher: I had covid around this time last year. I am grateful to be a part of welcoming people this year. There have been so many new faces at our events… I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s get into the details of what all I’ve been upto.  After our staff retreat, we had a couple days to wash our clothes and pack up for another trip. This trip was our leadership camp, SICM! Normally, we go to a ministry up in Washington and are taught by some wonderful leaders. This year, we were outside of San Antonio at Camp Eagle and FOCUS put on their own training. The training we do is mostly about ...

  This update is full of prayer requests and news! Let’s get started.  I just got back from our summer staff retreat with our entire staff team. One of the key parts I want to underline is: we have not had our entire staff together on a retreat since my apprentice year. Our staff has boomed in size because we are taking on nineteen apprentices this year. Nineteen. It’s exciting to experience a surge of new people and to see our team grow. I had a strange moment during the retreat where I realized some of these apprentices were students when I started back in 2018. Now, I get to partner with them in reaching our campuses this fall. I guess that’s what happens the longer you work at a place.  One of the most exciting updates I have is that we will be pioneering five new campuses this fall. Each team is focusing on a different campus. One thing that has blown me away during my time in FOCUS is how the Lord has worked on community college campuses. I remember visiting a Colli...

It’s that time again: time for your monthly update on what all I’ve been up to. I mentioned in June how this summer season is just much different than the school year. I said that the pace is typically slower as we fundraise and connect with students who are still in town. Well, that was June. July is picking up as we prepare for this upcoming year. There is much for us to prepare for!  This past year, UTA FOCUS was given a huge donation of $50,000 dollars from a generous family in Arlington who love the campus and have a student in our ministry. This money will be used in several different ways, but I want to share the one I am most excited for. FOCUS will be hosting two large welcome week events to meet students and bless our campus. The first one will be a casino night and the second will be a petting zoo. The casino night will, of course, not involve real money. We will create our own funny money with our logo and give students the opportunity to cash out to win free textbooks ...