Happy New Year!

Hi friends!

Happy 2017! I hope that you were able to spend time this holiday season with friends and family, and that you got to reflect on God’s love and kindness to us through it all. I am praying that God will bless you in this new year, and that you will get to experience His love more deeply and grow in your relationship with Him.

The apprentices did a gift exchange for each other at our Christmas party!

We are more than halfway done with our 10 month apprenticeship! It blows my mind how fast the time has flown, and it’s bittersweet because I feel like the end of May will be here before we know it. However, I am so thankful I have gotten to spend so much time with this group of people getting to know them more personally. I love getting to see how God is growing each of them and hearing about their reflections on what we’re all learning. It is very encouraging and I really cannot express how grateful I am to you guys for supporting me so that I could have the opportunity to devote a large amount of time to learning and growing myself. Thank you!

The TWU-Dallas girls who dressed up as ladies in our 80's from the 80's!

 The FOCUS communities at the Dallas campuses wrapped up the end of 2016 with a fun "Very 80's Christmas" party. We spend the night hanging out with one another and then we get to enjoy a show of core skits put together by each core. The two TWU Dallas cores decided to dress up "as ladies in their 80's from the 80's" or maybe just the Golden Girls. We wrote a rap song and got to perform it up front. It was so much fun getting to work with them beforehand and share our work with everyone! I loved wrapping up the end of the semester with this party full of laughter and smiles, and I know all of the students really enjoyed themselves (especially the ones who go all out). I think I might even start wearing curlers more often too.

This upcoming weekend, we have our annual FOCUS Winter Camp at Sky Ranch in Van, TX. All of our campuses from across DFW come together to spend 4 days away from the "normal" to devote time to extensive learning, worshipping God, resting and preparing for the year, and growing deeper friendships. It is probably one of my favorite times of the year and is always so rewarding in the memories I leave camp with. I want to ask y'all to pray expectantly this weekend for every student that takes the time to come to encounter God and to make and grow new friendships. It really is such a refreshing weekend, and I am praying that God uses it to get our students on fire for what He is going to do in the coming year. I know for me, Winter Camp was a defining moment in my desire to invest in campus ministry and grow more intimately in my relationship with God.

My core the first time I went to Winter Camp!

Thank you guys so much for your continuous love, prayers, and support. Please let me know if there is any way I can be praying for you and how I can bless you this year.  I love you all so much!

P.S. Check out this student testimony. Not only is it very encouraging, it is a testimony to how God uses people in our lives. Autumn Priestly introduced her to FOCUS, and she also later on studied the Bible with me and invested a lot of time into my spiritual growth. God is so cool.

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 3^rd 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!!

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!