March Ministry Update

WOWWWW, it is already March!!!! Can you believe it? I'm almost positive that it was August just yesterday. Just to give everyone an update, around this time last year, I made a 10 month commitment to do ministry full time from August to the end of May. Here we are, in March. WOW, I can't believe it. It has just flown by and I have been learning so much. As many of you know, I have decided to transition off of our FOCUS staff at the end of May. I have decided to pursue my alternative teaching certification. I am in the process of being certified to teach math and science, grades 4-8.  I am so excited to what the Lord is calling me to after this apprenticeship and I can only hope and pray that he will continue to be faithful, as he has always been, and work through me as I learn how to minister to students, parents, and even fellow teachers. Thank you so so so much for all of your financial support and for all of your prayers. I would not have been able to do this without every single one of you.

Apprentice Classes

A part of the apprenticeship is taking ministry and pastoral leading classes. We just completed our Evangelism class as well as our Worship leading class and it has been so incredible to get the opportunity to study these topics with people who have a lot of experience in these areas. We have classes every Monday and Thursday. Although the days can be long, they are packed with information and ministry advice. I'm so thankful that I've gotten the opportunity to take this year and reform my foundation with God. In all of our classes, I've learned how to minister to people in their specific situations, I've learned how to ask good questions, and I've learned how to work on a team and plan events. However, there is still so much to learn! I'll keep having ministry updates on what I've been learning.

Family Night

This month, on a Saturday night, we had Family Night. Family night is a time where we encourage students to invite anyone they consider family to join us. It is a time where we get to invite parents into our ministry and so they get to see what exactly their students are apart of. It is also a time a time where parents of students who have been in our ministry for a while, they get an opportunity to share with other parents, how they've seen their kids grow while being in our ministry. The whole night was incredibly encouraging and it is my favorite night of the year!

My family wasn't able to come, but my niece and nephew got to come and spend the weekend with me! 

New Sermon Series

This month, we have started a new sermon series called "Pillow Talk". We are going through dating, relationships and sex. We live in a culture that has certain expectations of what college relationships should be, but we are talking about how we can go against what our culture thinks and really glorify God in the way we date. We want to change expectations and be able to have conversations about this with other students on our campus. 

 One of our Denton directors gave this sermon over "Violating God's Image". He talked about how our culture and generation has become so desensitized to sex because it is everywhere; in magazines, movies, and especially music.

Pizza Theology

One of the things, we really value as an organization is intelligence. We believe that as college students, we should have a college level understanding of the bible. So, every semester we have an event called Pizza Theology. This event is usually 5 hours with an hour pizza break in between. When we aren't eating pizza, we are learning about a specific biblical topic. For this semester, we went through Exodus and the importance of what it means for us and the bible. We also had a Q&A to end our event, so if students had a specific question, they could text it in and it was answered by a panel of staff.

My favorite quote/takeaway from this was when Kristen Stroud was talking about the tabernacle and the details that were described and repeated throughout Exodus. Her point was that God only wanted the finest and best materials, so what does that say about us? God uses us, so he thinks we are some the finest materials that he created and what an encouraging send off.

Prayer Requests

• Pray for our students who are fundraising to go to SICM (student institute of campus ministries) in May.
• Pray for our annual SICM fundraiser called "Spring Showcase".
• Pray for me, March is the month that my dad passed away and this year it'll 5 years since he died from cancer.
• Pray for the safety of our students as spring break approaches as many will be traveling.
• Pray for me, I will be having surgery on March 13th, the get my tonsils removed.

Student Testimony

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your support! None of this would be possible without you.