Friday, December 2, 2016

Christmas season is really here, y’all!

Hey y'all!

With the holidays coming up, things are winding down a little bit with the students wrapping up their semester. It has been a tremendous honor and blessing to be able to do ministry with these students. Thank you for providing support for me and praying often so that I can focus all the attention I am able to on this opportunity!

Two of my sweet friends and corefas at UTD, Joseph and Sarah, got engaged this past week. This is a picture of the group that got to celebrate with them that afternoon!

Pizza Theology
Pizza Theology is an event we do once a semester with all of our campuses together. We spend five hours together: four hours in a lecture environment, and one hour in fellowship eating pizza, hence the name! This year, our topic was Hearing God’s Voice in the Modern Age. I think this topic was really able to minister to all of our students in some way. It is so easy to get caught up in the daily grind and spend a good amount of time using technology. This can impact us to a degree that we lose sight of the Kingdom and feel isolated from God. Our guest speaker, David Knebel, who flew in from Bellingham, WA, is one of the campus ministers at Campus Christian Fellowship, a ministry that we work closely with in training our leaders. He was so fun to listen to, and really effectively communicated ideas about the value of silence, praying for God’s will for other people, and practicing various spiritual disciplines.

Around 450 students showed up for Pizza Theology!


Parent night
Once a year, we set aside a night to invite our students’ friends and families to come see what FOCUS is all about. It is always so encouraging to hear from parents about how they’ve seen God working through their child’s life, and how it has impacted their family as a whole. This year was no different. One of our student’s mom spoke in front of the community about the conversations her and her son have whenever they get to spend time together, and she just continuously expressed her excitement that he desired to talk about God with her. She claimed to not be a great public speaker, but you'd never know that with the joy that radiated from her that came from God’s work in her son. Our sponsor at TWU-Dallas actually came to this event, and I am so glad she did! She left feeling so encouraged from hearing these parents' testimonies and is super excited that God invited her to be a part of this organization at TWU-D.

One of our TWU-Dallas core's friendsgiving. I love getting to know these girls and their hearts!


Some encouragements
This month, one of our campus pastors spoke about God’s grace amongst other things at Friday Night Fellowship in relations to 1 Peter 3: 8-12. She ended her sermon with a time for students to come up and respond briefly to the statement “Because of God’s grace, I can…” I want to share some of the encouraging ones to me that help encapsulate how I’ve seen God’s grace working in so many lives, including mine.

“Because of God’s grace, even though I am broken and I am messy, He can still use me to serve His people.” -Nathan

“Because of God’s grace, I don't have to expect everyone to be perfect.” -Emma

“Because of God’s grace, I can stop worrying about who is loving me, and instead focus on loving other people.” -Rhett

This is the card a girl who visited our core for the first time made for us. She was so kind and encouraging, and I am excited to get to know her more!



Keep FOCUS Growing
I am so excited to share about our 3rd annual campaign, Keep FOCUS Growing, with you guys! We just celebrated our 20 year anniversary, and this campaign will allow us to be ready for what God has in store for us in the next 20 years. For example, some of you guys may know that we are prayerfully considering planting FOCUS at Southern Methodist University. If this is something God calls us to, this fund will allow us to be ready to send campus ministers onto the campus to reach out to many more students there. Our goal this year is to raise $55,000! I want to invite you to join us in prayer over this campaign, and to consider making a gift at www.anyfocus.org/KFG.  Please like our Facebook page if you have not already, and share the exciting news with your friends and family.



God is doing wonderful things, and I hope that you are able to see a glimpse of the impact He is making through these updates. I am so, so thankful for each and every one of you, and I am praying for y’all as we move into the holidays. Merry Christmas and love you lots!!


Wednesday, November 2, 2016

85° and Joyfully Waiting for Fall...

Hey guys!  



Our Monday core at TWU-D
Halloween is over, and November is here which means it is officially okay in my book to start decorating for Christmas! :) It’s crazy that we already have 3 months down in this school year and I am so thankful for what God has done in that short time, but I am really excited for the upcoming holidays and the chance to see my family. First, I want to share with y’all some of the exciting things that have happened over the past month (and I say “some” because this has been a fun, crazy, busy month full of activities and events).  

20 Year Celebration 
So at the beginning of this month, students, alumni, family, and supporters gathered together to reflect on and celebrate the work God has done through our community over the past 20 years, and look forward with excitement for what He is continuing to do. I loved getting to hear how FOCUS started from some of the people who were involved in that process and seeing how God has worked through this community so far. The celebration served as a wonderful reminder to myself to give praise to God for all of the work He has done and is continuing to do in my life and others'. It was also humbling that He is allowing me to take part in His work in this ministry! Thank you all for being an integral part of this experience and for providing continuous encouragement to me. I love y’all! 

Amber, Maria, Clare, and Tirzah at outreach at TWU-D
Status: #Official
This is big, guys – after some time, FOCUS is finally an official organization at TWU-Dallas! This is really exciting for many reasons, such as having more of a presence on campus. This also allows us to do outreach more effectively. By becoming an organization on campus, we now have more opportunities to meet more students and invite them to core, to get to know the campus better, and to be able to really serve the students. I am so excited that God opened this door, and I just pray that He continues to present more opportunities to invite others into a community and a relationship with Him.  

Leadership conference 
Worshiping God as a community
The Leadership Conference is a big annual event we do with all of the FOCUS communities across the different campuses, as well as three of our family churches. I love this event so much just because I get to see friends that I don't have the chance to see often as well as have the opportunity to meet new friends. This year, our theme was the inner-life of a Christian, and we spent a lot of time discussing quiet time, technology and entertainment, and the impact culture has on us as well as our interactions with the world and God. One of my biggest takeaways is the idea of embracing spiritual maturity and thinking deeply about things. I know, for me, this can often be difficult particularly when I get so focused on what I think is best for me and what I think I deserve. However, this idea of spiritual maturity and a deeper level of thinking really encourages me to step outside of this mindset focused on me and ask God questions as well as seek His perspective on things. I’d love to share more with you about other things I learned about and discuss these ideas with you! 

Tirzah, Amber, Ashley, Maria, myself (from L->R)
Please be praying for us! These ladies are our FOCUS leaders at TWU-Dallas and Callier Dallas.

Thank you! 
God is so good and faithful to us all the time. Thank you for being a constant and sweet reminder of this to me. I am so grateful that you chose to support me through this apprenticeship and I hope you know how much it has impacted me thus far. I really couldn't have done this without your love and support, so thank you for investing in this ministry and me. Please let me know how I can be praying for you and what I can do to bless you. I love y’all!

So Many Events Equals More Pictures to Share - Enjoy!
Questions on Display - an outreach event at UTD
Amber and I got the chance to talk with an international student about her experience in America and how she has come to know Jesus through her family's move here. It was such a cool story to hear and I loved getting to play with adorable daughter too!
Some cool people at 20 Year Celebration
TWU-D and Callier Dallas girls at the Halloween party this past weekend
The Lighthouse is where 3 TWU-D students, Amber (a TWU alumni), and myself call home. We hosted a fun after-FNF event one week and loved getting to use our home to serve others and have fun!

Saturday, October 1, 2016

October update

We had four campuses at our Dallas Fall Camp - UTD, RC, TWU-Dallas, and CD
(PC: Sean Do) 

Hi friends!
Wow. We are already two months into this school year! Two months! They weren’t kidding about how fast time can pass you by. Thank you so much for all your kindness and encouragement thus far, as well as your prayers! They mean so, so much to me. 

Fall Camp
Some of TWU-D girls on the way to Fall Camp

Fall Camp is probably our most exciting event of the fall semester, and it was so great this year. For those who don't know the excitement that is Fall Camp, let me tell you all about it.  Fall Camp is a short overnight retreat (less than 24 hours) that we do with the main goals of spending intentional time with our cores to develop deeper friendships with one another early on in the year. The time we spend in just a couple days at Fall Camp is more than we would have meeting 1.5 hours each week all semester long, so relationships have time to form a foundation for the work God is doing the rest of the year.

TWU-Dallas and Callier representing at Fall Camp!

Praise God because we had six girls from TWU-Dallas come to Fall Camp! With myself and the three other corefas at TWU-D and Callier Dallas, that’s a great showing from our newest campus. I really appreciated the time I had to not only get to know these girls even more, but also to get to witness UTD and RC embrace them with open arms into the community. It was a beautiful reminder that we are not just individual campuses doing ministry on our own, but that we are a part of something bigger and better. Something that we are all called to join God in – His Kingdom! How neat is it that we can have nothing in common with someone by the definition of worldly things, but through Christ, we can really share in our lives together. 


We also had worship and played lots of games over the weekend. 
This is us making our respective "wink card" faces for the game Wink!
Speaking of, sharing lives is a key to our ministry. This school year, our theme for FOCUS is Be Brave, and through the weekend at Fall Camp we did just that. We explored what it looks like as Christians to be brave on our campuses, and spent time thinking about where in our lives we have a hard time allowing God to work. One of my favorite things during the weekend included hearing some of our students share part of their testimonies where they chose to be brave and trust God. The fact that they were willing to stand up in front of close to 200 people and be vulnerable with what they were choosing to share was an example of being brave in and of  itself. The students’ testimonies covered a wide variety of topics like anxiety/depression, forgiveness, worship, evangelism, and living in the light. I loved getting to hear the impact these stories had on other students and seeing the encouragement they were to our community.

Amber!
Not our best picture, but it is a picture!
Amber is someone I met in core my sophomore year who has continuously encouraged me in my walk with God and, really, in all the other endeavors of life. I wanted to share about her with y’all a little bit because of her role in FOCUS at TWU-D, but also in my life. What is super neat about Amber is that she actually started coming to UTD FOCUS as TWU-D student on her own, and then the following year, she ventured out and began leading a core at TWU-D! (She is now a grown up working a full time job as a nurse, and of course, she is pretty great at it. She has a heart for God, and compassion and love for His people, after all!) Amber played a big role in me having a desire to get to know the students at TWU-D and now, Amber and I lead one of the cores at TWU-D together this year. So not only is she my roommate (literally), she is also my co-fa (co-corefa)! I really love this girl and I am so, so happy that God placed her in my life when He did. 



20 Year Celebration
One week from today, FOCUS will be celebrating its 20 year anniversary! This is such a big and exciting thing to celebrate. As a student who has learned so much, made so many lifelong friends, and gotten to know God more personally because of this ministry, I am really excited to reflect back on the FOCUS’ last 20 years with everyone and celebrate all that God has done. As a supporter of this ministry, I would love to invite you to come join us in this special time and see the fruit of this ministry and look forward to how God is going to continue to use FOCUS. You can RSVP here and I can introduce you to some of the students I’ve been sharing about!



Thank you!
Thank you to each and every one of you who has invested in this ministry financially and/or prayerfully! Your investment really matters and I hope you are encouraged to see how God is using it.  

Prayer requests
  • We are working to become an official organization at TWU-Dallas. Pray that God makes the process smooth and successful, and that FOCUS can grow its presence on campus to bring the students to know God!
  • I am 85% funded for this year! Praise God for how He has faithfully provided thus far and pray that He will open doors and provide the remaining!
  • We have two cores at TWU-D and CD each week – one on Sunday night and one Monday afternoon. Please continue praying for God to bring girls in and that we welcome them with open arms. Pray that God reveals to each of us what we need to hear and that we allow God to use us in His will.

Thank you again and please let me know how I can be praying for you as well. I love you guys!



Thursday, September 1, 2016

Pioneering with the TWU Dallas Pioneers

Hi friends!

Wowzas. I am in a little shock as I write this – one month ago, I began this journey not really knowing what to expect, but excited for what God is going to teach me and how he will use me. Thank you so much for supporting me in this year, whether with prayer or financially, and investing in me, and this ministry. I am so excited to share with you some of the specific awesomeness I got to witness in just this month alone.

Housewarming Party for TWU-Dallas/Callier Dallas girls at our new home!

Welcome Week

With a new school year comes new students who are excited to get involved and make friends. We get to step in and participate in shaping what that experience can look like during Welcome Week. Welcome week consists of many different activities and events put on throughout the week, some by the university and others by FOCUS.I personally got to participate in two different ones!

 Whataburger after a Welcome Week board game event!
At UTD, our plans kept getting rained out, and required some impromptu rearranging and creativity. One student planned a simple board game night, but took it to another level by suggesting we meet up in the largest residence hall where a good portion of freshmen live. That allowed for us to meet so many freshmen in their home and invite them to hangout out with us. It was super neat to see how intentional all of the students were with reaching out and inviting one another to events.


It is a slightly different scene at TWU-Dallas, however. The campus is a small building dedicated specifically to the programs of Nursing, Physical Therapy, and Occupational Therapy. The student population there can generally be described as students who are committed to their studies, compassionate, and busy. I think this just naturally goes hand in hand with students who would apply to and get into nursing school! So with that said, there really isn’t a welcome week there. We got to host a couple of events, and we were invited to participate in Welcome Back Bingo Bash where we got to set up a table and talk to students. My favorite event was actually at our new house! We enjoyed a potluck dinner while getting to know each other and build friendships. It was a great way to start the year and I am excited to do ministry with these girls.

Old Testament Class
I'M OFFICIAL!
As I mentioned in the previous blog, the apprentices will be spending a good amount of time each week devoted to the Old Testament Foundations class. I’ve been challenged and encouraged in many ways with this class. In particular, God has been revealing himself more and more to me through the Old Testament. I used to have a hard time grasping how the God of the Old Testament is the same God in the New Testament – but through reading through and studying it, I’ve begun to see how much grace God really does have and understand the sovereignty of our Lord. Over and over, his people keep turning away and rejecting their creator, but over and over again, our creator keeps seeking for us to repent of our ways and go to him for redemption so that he can have mercy on us. We are so undeserving and unworthy of his love but he desires for us to be in a relationship with him. What an amazing God.

Final Thoughts
Really, I cannot thank you guys enough for your love and support. I want to ask for continued prayers for the ministry, the students on campus, and myself. Please specifically be in prayer for ministry that is being planted at TWU Dallas and Callier Dallas (we have our first core at TWU-Dallas coming up this week) – Pray that God will direct our movements and give the students a desire to join him in his kingdom work. Please let me know if there is any way I can be in specific prayer for you as well. I love you guys so much!

The 2016-2017 Dallas Staff!

Sunday, August 7, 2016

New beginnings

Hello friends,

First off, I am so, so, so excited for this upcoming year and very thankful that I have such wonderful people to share this experience with. Thank you for joyfully joining me in this by praying expectantly and giving generously. I am looking forward to getting to share with you how I get to witness and partake in the work God is doing in His kingdom as well as the things He is teaching me!

Staff Retreat
This summer, I got the opportunity to serve at Camp Blessing on staff down in Houston. Just one day after I got back, I started the apprenticeship. I was feeling a little nervous about this short transition between a ministry serving special needs kids into a ministry serving college students. I felt like I was switching gears rather quickly and that I needed time to rest following this whirlwind of a summer. However, God provided wonderfully because the first day of the apprenticeship involved us leaving to head down to Lake Travis for a few days. This retreat allowed us time to really build relationships with one other, get geared up for the upcoming year, and spend time with our Lord. That may sound tiring to some, but for me, it was restful and left me feeling spiritually fed and even more excited for the upcoming year.


Old Testament Foundations
Guys, God did some pretty powerful things this summer. One of them involved me reading through Exodus and Joshua, which then left me questioning the character of God and desiring to know how a God can be both just and gracious. After a couple of weeks of trying to process these two books of the Bible, I was spending time in worship when God laid a thought on my heart for me to ponder which consequently led me to Psalms 103. I began to cry while reading this, because I knew this was God answering my prayers and replacing my anxious thoughts with peace. A few days later, I sat down and wrote this short poem.

hearts were hardened and anger burned against them,
but the Lord had favor.
His mighty hand moved and nations were destroyed,
but the Lord gives justice to the oppressed.
His children turned away and ignored His good works,
but the Lord has compassion.
we sin and sin until we dig ourselves into a pit,
yet the Lord still redeems us.
the Lord has established His throne in heaven,
and His kingdom rules over all – and He invited us in.
we are so undeserving, myself included,
but the Lord crowns US as His sons and daughters.
the punishment we deserve for our sins will never be known,
because the Lord removes us from our transgressions.
He took them upon himself and washes us clean with His love,
because He is our gracious Father.
the only Father who abounds in love, is slow to anger,
has unending compassion, and loves all His children whom
He formed lovingly from the dust with tender care.
from everlasting to everlasting, the Lord our Father
is with His children.

I share all of this with you to say that I am really excited for the Old Testament Foundations class I am beginning this week. God answers prayers in beautiful ways in my life, and in the Old Testament, but I still have so many questions. I believe this class will help me to begin to develop an understanding of the Old Testament and have a newfound appreciation for it, as well as see God in a new light.



Amber and I last year at SICM (Student Institute for Campus Ministry) - This year we will be working together on the TWU-Dallas campus AND roommates!


Expectations for the coming year
This year is a big question mark for me currently. I know that I am going to be a campus missionary apprentice at Texas Women’s University in Dallas and at University of Texas at Dallas (whoosh!) and that God is going to use this opportunity to grow me in exciting ways. Yet I still am not quite sure what it will look like (which is God already stretching me outside of my comfort zone). Here are some things that I am expecting, and I would love for you to join me in this throughout the upcoming school year, especially with prayer.
  • That FOCUS will become an organization at TWU-Dallas, God will equip our students to be bold on their campus, and students will have open hearts ready to seek to know the Lord more and more. 
  • That God will challenge me in areas that do not reflect Him, and continuously provide opportunities for me to grow.
  • That I will get to dig deeper in scripture, learn more about God, and pursue Him relentlessly.



Ways you can Pray
August is an exciting and busy month for us. We have Corefa (short for Core Facilitator who are our student leaders who facilitate small group discussions and relationships between our students, and strive to point students to Jesus) Training coming up next weekend, and the weekend after, students will be getting ready to start classes! This is one of our busiest seasons because this is the time when students are out looking to make friends and are deciding where they want to be connected. With that in mind, please be praying expectantly for the following.
  • Pray that our students and staff to have the energy and excitement, as well as health and rest needed to be effective in these upcoming weeks and intentional with reaching out.
  •  Pray that the incoming freshmen and transfer students can quickly be connected to and plugged into a campus ministry, and that they feel welcomed and loved on.
  • Pray for myself as I begin the Old Testament Foundations class – that I will not grow weary but that God would spur me on. Also, that God will provide many opportunities for me to get to know TWU-Dallas students as well as UT Dallas students.  Lastly, that God will provide the remaining support I need for this year quickly so that I can be fully focused on the time I have with students.

Thank you so much for the continuous love and encouragement! I love each and every one of you guys.