February 2013

I am so excited to tell you all of the great things that have happened this past month.  The momentum we have had from winter camp has been so amazing.  God is working and he is changing people’s lives.

If you haven’t already done so, please read the student testimony on the main page.  What an amazing story, but there is more I would like to add.  A few days after Skyla wrote that, Sarah who is studying the Bible with her, went through the Rebirth study in Focus on Jesus.  The study went great and Skyla was contemplating making a commitment to make Jesus Lord and to be baptized.  She just had some more questions.  She and Sloan had a conversation about it and Sloan sent her a couple of short videos to watch about baptism.  The next morning Sloan asked her if the video answered her questions.  Skyla replied, ”yes, but I do have one more question…When can I be baptized?!” 

Skyla made Jesus Lord and Sarah baptized her.  The amazing thing about this story is Sarah just made a commitment to God last spring.  She did not grow up in a Christian home and came to college here at UTD.  Sarah found FOCUS and Kendall studied the Bible with her and baptized her.  God is so good!

Here are the videos of Sarah’s baptism. 

Last week we had our open house/parent night.  We wanted parents to have the opportunity to come and see the ministry.  The room was packed full of students and their parents!  We sang some worship songs, Brandon shared about our ministry, and then we got to hear from a few parents that wanted to share.  It was such an encouraging night.

I really do have so much more to share!  There are so many great things happening in all of our women’s CORE groups (small groups).  Please continue to pray for all of the students who lead those.  The real work of the ministry is done by them.  I am so proud of them and the way they are ministering to their peers.

March is going to be such a busy month as well.  We are about to interview and select our interns for next year.  Please be praying for us and these students as we select them and they start fundraising.  I will have a list of next year’s interns on my next blog.  Also in March, we have a group of students coming down from Bellingham Washington to spend their spring break ministering on our campuses.  Please pray for safe travel and that they have a great impact on us and our campus!

January-Winter Camp

The biggest thing that I want to tell you about is Winter Camp!  It was so amazing!  I wish you could have been there!

This year we chose a new camp for us, Sky Ranch in Van, TX.  This camp was hands down the most well run camp I have ever been to.  The food was great, the staff was great, the facilities and cabins were very well kept, and there were so many activities for everyone to do during free time.  On Monday morning the even had a huge breakfast buffet for us.  I felt so spoiled!

As great as that was, God was really moving there.  We had about 370 people come to camp this year from all 4 of our campuses!!  Geoff Mumley from Campus Christian Fellowship in Bellingham, Washington was our speaker this year.  God really spoke through him at camp.  He spoke about a New Kingdom.  That was such a great topic since one of Jesus’ main messages was about the Kingdom of God and it encompasses everything in our faith. 

Our praise teams from all of our campuses did such a great job. We had Violas and Violins and great singers who really lead us in worship to God.  God has been so good to us.

God really changed people at camp.  There are several students who are trying to decide if they are ready to make a commitment to make Jesus Lord and camp really helped with that.  Please, please be praying for them.  Other students just got a bigger vision for God’s kingdom and our place in that.  There have been several students invite their roommate or classmates to core in the past couple weeks.  Our cores have really started growing and new one on one studies have begun!  The thing that I am most encouraged about is that it is the newer people who got studied with last semester who are studying with the new people.  God’s Kingdom is growing and it is so exciting to see it. 

Thank you so much for your partnership in this ministry.  Without you, we couldn't do this kind of ministry.  Thank you so much for investing in the vision.  I know that God wants to do great things on the campuses here in the metroplex.