Skip to main content

Many Reasons to be Thankful

Praise God for the 90 Degree Weather! 

Our team is celebrating. We made it through the welcome week at UTA. It was hot. The days were long, but we met so many students. Our first service had 135 students attend. This was mind-blowing for us. Last year, we averaged around 85 students each week at our weekly service. I am finding myself celebrating the boom in our attendance and also, celebrating the opportunity for these people to hear the gospel through our service. It can be so easy to measure success by having more bodies in seats. I am praying that our student leaders will help us as we connect with each of these new students. I am praying we have tons of new one-on-one bible studies. Pray that no one will be overlooked as we experience this surge of people. 


Our theme for this year is "Between Two Worlds". In the past two weeks, we have been preaching through the Beatitudes, exploring how Jesus compares His kingdom to our world. It starts in verse 3 by saying: 
 
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 
Blessed are those who mourn,
    for they will be comforted".

   We see Jesus elevate such different qualities that we don't typically highlight. He says these people are blessed. My heart has been heavy recently despite all of these exciting welcome week events. I am just reminded of how students come to college with such different stories. Much of my conversations recently have been full of excitement for this new chapter. High school is hard for many people. Many people have an eager expectation of new friendships and joining our ministry. They say that they can't believe they found a group. These stories energize these early weeks when we are on campus all day. They are the good news. But, I have also experienced students who are grappling with grief; the loss of friendships and even loved ones. The Beatitudes are good news to both of these groups. Pray for my students who are grieving and hurt. Pray praises for those who feel like their beginning of college feels like a homecoming, and some of that has to do with our ministry! 

Thank you so much for your prayers and support! You make this ministry possible! 

A glimpse of the past few weeks: 



At TCC, we hosted a game hang out. There was a very intense game of Jenga. 

We hosted a karaoke night in a local coffee shop. We had a blast and many of our new students came. 

Here I am with some students at our annual Waffle-opolis. 

We hosted an event called Zombie Tag. We ran around a building after hours. Graham dressed like a zombie. 

Here's a photo from our United Worship event. Five different ministries came together to pray over the new school year. UTA is a very special place: the ministries on campus have great relationships with one another. It's a glimpse of heaven. 

Here's a photo of me and some gals. I did our one-on-one study with all of these ladies, and now they are leading. How exciting right? Praise God!




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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
1 comment
Read more

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
Post a Comment
Read more

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
Post a Comment
Read more