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!
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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
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| 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
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!!
