A Lot's Happening at UTD

This has been a really neat month for our ministry.  Jamiann volunteered (or actually was assigned) to head up Valentathalon this year.  This is an event we do every year right around Valentine’s Day.  It is an event for our entire UTD ministry where we do all kinds of zany games.  Jamiann recruited several people from our ministry to plan the event this year and they did an outstanding job pulling it off.  They planned a choreographed dance medley for a warm up which was led by 10 team leaders, several stations with crazy games for the teams to compete in, and finally each team had to pick a song and act out a marriage proposal while singing.  The entire event was so fun and really, really funny.  We put fliers at the campus apartments for the event and had several visitors come. 

This month our staff at UTD was able to meet with the Intervarsity (another Christian ministry at UTD) Director, Lisa, to begin make some plans to do some joint events with all the Christian groups on campus.  We were able to plan a joint worship night which we did last weekend on campus.  It was so exciting to see all of the different Christian groups come together to praise God together.  The thing that I am most excited about though is Lisa has a vision for doing a Not for Sale campaign on campus toward the end of March.  The different Christian groups on campus are going to get together and raise awareness for human trafficking around the world and really focus on the fact that there are things we can do about it.  We can be a voice for those that don’t have a voice.  We have the opportunity to show our campus that God does care and that Jesus is the solution to injustice in the world.  Please be praying as we prepare for this campaign on campus and we will tell you all about it next month.

Finally, one of the things I am most excited about is we have started inviting students to SICM (Student Institute of Campus Ministry) for an intense week of ministry training in Bellingham, WA.  We send students who we think will be leaders in campus ministry to spend a week learning how to lead small groups, study the Bible, reach out to other students, and so much more.  It is an expensive trip but these students will learn things that will allow them to truly be missionaries at UTD for as long as they are there and they will learn ministry skills that will help them the rest of their lives. 

The small groups are still going well.  One of the girl cores has had 8 international students start coming to it this semester.  There have also been several girls step up to study the Bible with these students and they are really excited to do it.  Please be praying for all of the studies that are happening in FOCUS and that we will continually be making disciples. 

I got to see yesterday what an impact we are having.  I am studying Focus on Jesus with Jessica right now and we were and Starbucks yesterday doing our study.  When we were leaving, a guy who worked there asked us if we were studying Focus on Jesus.  We told him yes and asked him if he was part of FOCUS.  He said he was a student at Collin College a few years ago and Focus on Jesus literally saved his life even though he was only at Collin for one semester.  It was just a neat reminder to me of what a small world it is and that Jesus really does change lives.  God is so good and I am so thankful that we all get to partner together to share the Good News!