Skip to main content

January Update!

Happy New Year!

We are back! Students are on school and we are preparing for our annual winter retreat. I hope yall had a restful Christmas season. Ours was made sweeter by having little Bonnie around. I found myself looking forward for future Christmases as Bonnie grows and becomes more aware. It is so exciting to think of the ways we will get to point our little girl towards Jesus using the excitement and truth of Christmas. 

Anyways, our last semester ended with a bang. We threw an awesome formal for our students. It is special getting to plan these events that make college so memorable for them. Below is a photo of our TCC students. I was blown away by how close these students have gotten over the year. It can be hard getting people to buy into being friends. TCC has really grown close and it's always the highlight of my week meeting with them. Pray that we will use our community on TCC's campus to be a light to students who don't know Christ. Pray for new students to get connected with us in this new semester.

 I am taking a class this spring in hopes to meet and befriend new students at TCC. For a multitude of reasons, we have found our ministry to be a bit stagnant in growth. Some of this is due to amazing students transferring, and I believe some of this is due to opportunities at TCC changing like organization fairs. We are faithfully at every event to connect with students, but these community college students have very strict schedules. We have found if they are on campus for Tuesday/ Thursday classes that they are not there other days. Our small group meets Wednesdays. I am hoping to create opportunities to meet new students this next semester. Pray God will connect us with people who want community or are curious about Jesus. 


Photos from the past month:

Our TCC students are the formal.


We decorated cookies during our last meet up. 

Above is a photo from our UTA leader team party. We did games that were family themed. It was so much fun. 


Here is my dear friend Emily holding Bonnie. 

Here is everyone doting on Bonnie at our winter staff retreat. 

Crisp morning walks. :)

This photo is so funny to me. Garrett is the student above wearing Bonnie. He actually watching Bonnie every Wednesday so Graham and I have a date. He loves her so much. It is so special giving college students the opportunity to care for a baby. This is such a ministry.  

We opened our home to host a New Year's Eve party. So many students live at our complex. We had over 13 students over. It was a blast. 



Ministry is inviting people into our life and family. Above is two of my fellow pastors meeting up. They asked if they could hold Bonnie while they met.  

Here's a happy Bonnie photo to close. Thank you so much for your support in ministry. I look forward to updating you next month with how the semester is going. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

February is a little slim on photos. Forgive me.  The photo from above is from my small group making valentines for our ministry. Here's one of cards: I know, it's baby Yoda. So basic. Much of this past month has been much of the same: meeting up with girls and doing bible studies. We have seen some recent growth in our ladies side of the ministry. This has been encouraging, but it feels like we are bursting at the seams. It feels like there are always more people to meet up with. Pray that we are able to build up new leaders to help with this growth.. Especially pray for God to bring ladies to lead.  Something exciting and new is that I have picked up some studies at DBU. Yes, there’s a FOCUS at DBU. It’s small and still growing, but we are there. It has been mostly pioneered by students from other FOCUS campuses. The staff at UTA has recently over the past three years joined in to help this group. For me, this is the vision of our ministry: equipping...
Post a Comment
Read more

Below Freezing Baptism

Happy Snow Day! Of course, January would end white and icy. Graham, Waldo, and I are holed up in our third-story apartment. Pray, we figure out when to take our dog out in this weather. Waldo doesn't really want to put his paws on the ice and I can't blame him. While the month started off restful, the end of the month was full of activity fairs to meet new students. Graham and I were constantly printing off flyers and buying candy to prepare. We got a lot of free lunches, so I can't be too mad. Be praying we meet students who want community. The spring can be awkward for students because they assume everyone has friends except them. Pray they have the boldness to overcome that.  We had our annual Winter Retreat this past month. A short story time: this retreat was my only interaction with FOCUS before working with them. This is where I learned about the ministry internship and saw this amazing community in action. I had never seen so many young people praising Jesus ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Summer

Hello, July!  I want to start off just sharing some praises! God has been incredibly kind (again). Graham and I have both hit our fundraising goals. Thank you how generous you have been. Thank you for believing in campus ministry. Thank you for seeing value in people like me getting to be available on campus to minister and share the good news. You are an important and integral part of this mission. I hope you feel just as blessed as I do. June was restful. Graham, Waldo and I got to go to Hot Springs.  Work-wise, we have already begun planning for welcome week in August. Welcome week is one of the most important rhythms of the year. Freshman and international student alike flood the campus looking to make memories and friends. This where my prayer warriors come in. Please be praying for the students we will be meeting. Pray that our leader team will have the boldness to invite people to our ministry. A little refresh about our ministry is that our student leaders ac...
Post a Comment
Read more