August 2023: Is Bucee Going to FOCUS?

Greetings from Buc-ee's

Above is a photo from Buc-ee's on the fourth of July. We got to met the celebrity beaver while visiting my family. For any of my out of state friends, Buc-ee's is a huge gas station and this beaver is their face and mascot. I just had to get a photo of these two with him.

Here's a photo from our church's dog event. The guy above's name is Mauricio. The dog he is holding is his. We had a good laugh that his beloved dog was a pampered shih Tzu. He and Graham have become great friends over the year. He will be leading in the fall. Pray for our men's side of the ministry. What happens every four years or so is that many of our people graduate. We are coming into this year with fewer men leaders. Pray for them to have courage and boldness to reach out on campus to their classmates, friends and whoever. I'm hopeful with guys like Mauricio that we will meet the people God wants us to this year.

Ministry-wise, we have begun the preparations of events coming up in August. Pray for supernatural strength and energy as we prepare for those long days. Texas has been hot... very hot this summer. One of the events I'm excited for is called "Olympics for Everybody". We are going to host, with the help of my church, a big event were people will play different games and win prizes. We will have athletic events like jumping, accuracy while also having funny games like balancing and arm wrestling. The goal is to create an memorable event for incoming freshman to make memories and have a great time. If the games sound vague, it's because my role was getting freebees for prizes. I am a pro these days at getting free stuff. A local Raising Cane's is bringing lemonade, tea AND gift baskets. I'm amazing at God's kindness with how generous this Cane's is.

Here's me and my dear friend Jessica. Jessica and I have known each other since 2018... back when I started my FOCUS apprenticeship. She is now a graduate from UTD. She has been coming to visit during our summer service. This girl did not know Jesus when she came to college. She is faithfully following Him today. She makes Him known in her workplace.

Join me in praying for students like Jessica. Pray we can partner with God and connect with students who don't know Him. Pray we can work alongside God in the cosmic work He does of changing lives. I pray trajectories of lives are changed because people are bold for Jesus.

Here's a throwback of us!

Thank you for your support of ministry. Thank you for partnering with me!

If you want to watch something cool, here it is. We had some students and staff get together to preform a gospel choir at our service. God's church is diverse and we are blessed when people share how they grew up worshiping. Praise God!

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August Update!

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 Collin College serv

September Update!

How do I even begin? August was awesome. We just finished our first week of welcoming new students onto campus. We helped freshmen move in on Saturday and then we were on campus the rest of the next week. UTA and TCC both hosted events to kick off the semester. I want to walk you through my august as a campus missionary! I had the most exciting start to August. My dear friend Hailey got baptized and I got to do it. I am so happy she made this step in her faith. She is an amazing leader on our women's side. What's more college ministry than baptizing someone in an apartment pool? She was surrounded by family and friends. It was special seeing everyone come out to celebrate her. Baptism is cool for many reasons, but I found myself moved by how it unites us with the believers who came before us. After that, we moved into time preparing for school to start. Graham and I split our time between TCC and UTA. We were able to train up our leaders on both campuses for the welcome wee

Good Gifts

Hello again! It’s time for your ministry update. I have to start by thanking you for your prayers and support. This specific update is full special moments I got to have while doing ministry. God is kind to provide the way for me to work in ministry full time. Thank from the bottom of my heart. Since we last spoke, I went with our students to SICM. This is our annual leadership training up in beautiful Bellingham, Washington. This trip was such a fun change of pace from the end of the year. I know I’ve been honest on these updates about how tired I felt from this semester ending. It was a tough semester for me, so this trip felt like a gift because it let me relax and get to know our students better. It is a blessing taking students who have never flown or been out of the state before to Washington. I loved seeing this trip through their eyes. A sweet moment was when one of our TCC students ran up to me and exclaimed, “You have to go to Pike’s Market!” At first, I wanted to say tha

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