I just want to take a moment to say Happy New Year! I am having such writers block and have no idea what I want or need to tell you.  So I will apologize right now for that!

Taking time to reflect on last year, I am so thankful that I have friends like you. I really am so blessed. Last year was just such a great year at our campuses but right now I am looking forward to the next semester and even into next year.

January is always such a busy month as we prepare for the second semester of the school year.  We just got back from our annual winter staff retreat.  24 of us (Reese got sick so Brianna and Tyler couldn't go) went down to the Texas Hill country for a time of worship, bonding with each other, and some planning.  For some of our discussion time we read a book by Eugene Peterson called the "Contemplative Pastor" which was personally challenging to me.  For me, the book was such a good reminder for me to slow down, pray for people, and really show them God rather than just giving advice or fixing problems.  As I look forward into this next semester, these are things that I really do want to think about and grow in.

 

Looking forward to next year we have to figure out where our staff will be.  We have decided to start the ministry at UT Arlington this fall and that means we have to shift people at some of our other campuses.  So exciting!

We are headed into winter camp this next week.  I am praying that this is a powerful weekend for our students and really jump starts the second semester. Personally, I am really excited to hear from our speaker this year Iain Provan. I will make sure to tell you all about camp in my next post.

Please be in prayer as our students are coming back to campus and the students are starting their ministry back.  There is so much work to be done this semester.

I love you all!

There are so many things that I could write about this month.  There are just that many things happening right now.  There are stories about studies that are happening, events that we are doing, interns to tell you about, our big fundraiser, and of coarse my trip to Europe.  So many exciting things!  I will start with my trip to Europe since I am on the plane headed back and it is so fresh in my mind.

Andrew and I went with Brandon and Casey to Paris, Venice, the Cinque Terre, Rome and a quick night through London.  It was so great and I got to see so much.  I wish I had time to tell you about everything that I got to see and experience.  I got to see several of the world's most famous churches.  St. Mark's, St. Peter's, Notre Dame are all great buildings.  So beautiful on the inside and out.  Each has unique architecture, art, statues, and history.  So much for me to take in.  I am so thankful for the experience to see these great places.  Upon reflecting, on the churches specifically, it has made me so thankful for people like you who consistently give to this ministry.  This ministry isn't great because of the impressive buildings, art, and statues.  I am so thankful for people like you who share in the vision of investing money into people.

I was prepping a sermon a few minutes ago out of John 15 for next Friday night.  We are doing a series on dicsipleship.  I was struck in verse 17 when Jesus simply says "This is my command:  Love each other."  Of all of the things he could have told us to do, he commands us to love each other.  Your generosity has made it possible for us to show these campuses what it really means to love and be loved.  I think that is what will outlast the fancy buildings which take so much money to upkeep.  Your generosity is changing lives everyday.

This leads me to a very specific prayer request.  As you know, our vision is to be on the campuses in the DFW metroplex and we are considering when to go to UT Arlington.  We are thinking that God is leading us there in the fall to start a ministry.  This means that we have to figure out who to send and that God will lead some students to go there as well.  Please be praying that God will open doors and make it clear who should be there.  We will also be doing a fundraiser, in the next couple of weeks.  I will post specifically about that in the next couple weeks but one of the things we really want to do with the money that we earn from this fundraiser is start the ministry at UT Arlington.  Please be praying about this!

UTD is going well.  I have really enjoyed the series we are doing on discipleship.  The sermons have been so challenging and the students have been responsive.  I can't wait to get back and hit the ground running.  I have a busy weekend with Friday night Focus and Pizza Theology all this weekend!  Good thing I had a vacation.  My girls asked that I post on Facebook so you will see a bunch of pictures there from our trip.

Please email, call or text me anytime and I would love to tell you more!  Thank you so much for your support and partnership.

October

This year our theme comes out of Isaiah 55.  One of the students that goes to Texas Women’s University that I get to meet with each week wrote this wonderful story that I think goes so well with that passage.  Ann Haven has really begun to let God’s word transform her and Jesus, The Word of Life, has begun to bring her new life.  Her story is the same as our story when we accept the invitation of God and drink from His truth.  I hope that this story is encouraging to you…..

I'm so tired. My body is bruised, beaten, and bloodied. I'm so disoriented that I can't tell if the blood is mine or someone else's. I thought the battle would never end and in many ways it hasn't. The smoke has cleared, the shots have stopped, but I can still hear the shrieks of the people around me crying for their mother's, brothers, and friends they have lost. But the real war lives on inside me. Images are burned into my mind of people dying slowly. I can feel a sticky darkness - like tar - coating my mind and the inside of my heart. I'm unclean, impure, and internally broken beyond repair. 

   Eventually, I muster up enough strength to stand. Aimlessly, I walk from the carnage toward what looks like a forest.

   I've been walking for what seems like years, and with every step I feel the despair and fear growing inside me. This journey I'm on has not only been taking a toll on my body, but my mind as well. I'm suffering from exhaustion yet all I can think about is how thirsty I am. My lips are cracked and bleeding, my throat so dry that not even the slightest cry could be heard. 

   The sun has been down for some time now so I hear it first. Water. A bubbling stream nearby! I try to pick up my pace but I loose my footing and collapse to the ground. I lay there stunned, dizzy from the fall. I realize my hand has fallen into the stream! I cup my hand and sip the water. I feel it run over my deadened lips, against my swollen tongue, and down my larches throat. "There's something special about this water" flickers through my mind, but only briefly because my eyes slam shut and I'm asleep. 

Sometime later, I feel something pulling on my feet, a tingling in my toes. Startled, I blearily glance down at my feet. My toes have started to take root in the earth! Frightened, I try to pull away but I can feel the nutrients from the water being pulled up through my roots - swimming through my body. At first I'm scared and slightly panicked but the relief is so palpable I let myself sink back down to the ground. As the throbbing in my head dissipates and the aching fades I allow myself to drift off to sleep again. 

Again, something wakes me. I feel soft caresses against my skin. I peal back the kids of my eyes and examine myself. Like a ballerina dressed in gold and white I see the suns rays dancing gracefully over my skin. Where the sun touches my bruises, porcelain buds burst from my skin and bloom into delicate crystal flowers. With every new bloom some of the tar is evicted, expelling toxins from my body. 

 I'm fully awake now. I desperately want to be closer to the light and the healing it's bringing. I realize somehow I've managed to stand. Like a child reaching longingly for a parent, I extend my hands up towards the light. All I can make out is the sillowet of my hands and arms. Quickly my arms begin to change into what looks like sturdy branches of a tree and I watch in amazement as my hands explode into leaves and more crystal flowers. My branches are twisting and bending up towards the sun and the life he brings. 

 Warmth spreads through my body and an inexpressibly joy is spilling from my eyes. Water, sweet and pure spills out from my eyes and joins the stream below.

Once again, I look down at myself. I'm not crystal, wood, glass, iron, or porcelain. I'm a completely new substance so unrecognizable that my elements couldn't even be found on the periodic table. I resemble a tree, but I'm not quite a tree. In fact, I'm not sure what I am. All I know is that I'm new and I'm beautiful, I'm stronger than I ever once was, and I stand among other creatures similar to me, yet completely unique. Created and joined together by same healing water.

 Soon after the sun begins to sink low over the horizon leaving splashes of pink, orange, red, purple and blue across the sky. In the distance, I see another lost soul making it's way toward me. Running from the same war I was fighting in. I try to call out to the but what escapes my lips is a song that tells my story. The notes are clean and pure - Beckoning the weary soul towards the water. 

I watch as the soldier makes his way toward me and frantically gulps the water, then collapses to the ground. Dead. Worried, I try to speak but again, I sing. Black tar starts to run from his eyes and his toes slowly stretch towards the water. I keep singing my song over the man and gaze at the moon as it reflects the suns light - reminding me that soon it will rise again and make this solider, this soul, completely new. 

I get to work on a team of some of the best people I know.  This year, I get to work with Ana, Rachel, and Autumn at UTD.  They have been such an encouragement to me and have really invested in the women at UTD this year.  I really need to take a picture of all of the women leaders and post it here so you can see their beautiful faces.  For now, here is a picture of Ana and me and then Rachel, Autumn and me.  Please be praying for them.  Rachel is co-leading a core with a student, Ashley.  They have such a large core with around 20 women they are investing in.  Autumn and Ana are currently each meeting with 11 women small group leaders each week.  They help the student leaders plan their group each week and help them in their own walk with God.  Please pray that they can be a blessing to our student leaders!

In other news, we just got back from Fall camp last weekend.  It has been so encouraging hearing the stories of people who were impacted by it.  One girl, who is seeking God, came back from camp already ready to start making some life changes.  She and her boyfriend are sharing an apartment on campus and she is considering finding new living arrangements because she feels like their relationship won’t allow her to really figure out what she believes about God.  She knows that this moment will define the rest of her life.  One of our student leaders and Ana are about to study the Bible with her.  Please be praying that she will come to know Jesus. 

Looking around our ministry this year, I can already see that God is calling people.  He is moving and working all around us.  Please be praying for these young people.  So much is being thrown at them to distract them and tempt them.  Many of them have believed lies for so long that it is hard to know that they are lies.  He is changing these lives one by one.  Thank you for your prayers and believing in this ministry!

Well, it has been well over a year since I wrote my last blog.  So much has happened and I have so much I would love to tell you about but I will keep it short.  This past year, I have been absolutely blown away by how many amazing women God has brought to our ministry.  One of them is our student testimony on the Staff page of our website.  I could post story after story like that.  God is doing such amazing things in the lives of the women in our ministry.  My spring and summer were spent getting to know the women I didn’t know as well and putting together our women’s leader team for the 2014-2015 school year.  It blows me away but we have 26 women core facilitators this year at UTD.  I wish I could personally introduce you to each of them.  I will take pictures and post them soon.:)

These women have done such a great job of meeting other students and inviting them to different events on campus and to events we (FOCUS) have had.  Last week we had our first large group meeting of the year and there were so many new faces.  Sloan, a corefa from last year who is leading again this year, really was touched by the service when she saw girls from her core last year reaching out and befriending new people.  Sloan told me she teared up when she saw a girl she met in the café a couple years ago who was not a Christian at the time reaching out and inviting people to her own core.  Katy, a past intern was sitting during the service reflecting back on when she lead core the first time.  She remembers sitting in the very room we were meeting in writing a vision for what UTD FOCUS could look like.  She said she was so touched when she got to see the vision being realized Friday night.

This past weekend we had a FOCUS leader retreat with leaders from all of the campuses we are at.  We have almost 150 LEADERS in FOCUS this year.  That blows my mind and is so encouraging to me.  My heart breaks when I think of our city and see how many people don’t know God.  All of the sacrifices that have been made for us to have the Bible, in our own language, so accessible to us and there are so many people who don’t know the good news.  150 leaders excites me because of what they can do to change that.  They start on a college campus but will change the world.  God is so good and loves us so much!  The kingdom of God is near!

Please continue in your prayers for us!  

Peer Team Girls this weekend at the retreat

Our First Large Group Meeting at UTD

Leader Retreat this weekend

The Chefs this weekend at the retreat 

(Yes, we were crazy and made 3 meals for 150 people!)

April Update

I know that I say this every school year, but I cannot believe that this school year is wrapping up already.  We have already wrapped up our leader meetings, our students are having their last core meetings and we are getting ready for our end of year banquet.  Summer is almost here and we have some great things planned for the students that stay here.  I will wait until next month to tell you about that! With the year wrapping up, I have been thinking back on the school year and all of the things that God has done in and through our ministry.  It is so exciting to think about.  You need to know, that we could not have done it without your financial support and more importantly, your prayers.  God is answering our prayers to change lives at UTD.

With that said, I have a huge prayer request I want to put before you.  I think that I have already mentioned this but, we have selected 9 interns for next year who all have to raise their own support.  Each of them has started fundraising now so please be in prayer that they can raise the budget they need to do the internship.  Some of them have a smaller number of people to ask for support and really do need your prayers.  The FOCUS internship has become such an important part of what we do.  The internship teaches them leadership skills, biblical knowledge, and other ministry skills that will help them the rest of their lives.  We have more and more students who want to do this when they graduate.

I have been so proud of our interns this year.  Courtney preached her first sermon a couple of weeks ago on Friday night.  She did such a great job!  She posted a link to her sermon on her blog.  If you have a chance to listen to it, you should.  At the beginning of the year she was terrified to speak in front of FOCUS and now just 9 months later, she is preaching.  Katy Jordan also preached her first Friday night sermon the week after Courtney.  She did great too!  She challenged the community on unity and made some great points.

Our last Friday night FOCUS is this week.  We are going to have the students get up and share what God has done in their life this year.  I will try to take some videos of that and share them with you.  I can’t wait to hear what they will say.

Thank you again for everything!

March

I can not even begin to tell you what a busy, yet fruitful month this has been.  At the beginning of the month, we chose our intern team for next year.  I am so excited about the people who have decided to serve on our campuses next year!  We have at UTD Autumn Priestley, Emily Slatkovsky, and Laurence Glenesk at UNT Matt Wills, Grant Trotter, Sarah King, and Danielle Rodriguez at Richland Tabby Kamtala, and at Collin Melissa Collini.  This is such a great group of people who I know will do great things next year.  Please be in prayer for them as they begin fundraising for the internship.  The internship will be full time next year so they have a larger budget to raise.

Spring Break came and was gone so quickly!  I really got some well needed rest that will get me through until the end of the school year.

Last week we had a group of students come down from Western Washington University to spend their spring break ministering to our campus.  We got to host them all week and let them minster on all 4 of our campuses.  At UTD we had huge posters set up in the middle of campus each with a differnt misconception about Jesus and then an explanation of who Jesus really is.  Our students and the students from Washington had conversations with people who read the posters and also went around on campus and talked to people about their thoughts about Jesus.  The students had some amazing conversations and several students want to check out CORE and FOCUS based on conversations they had.  The week really was such a blessing and we now have new friends from another state.

Thank you for all your prayers!  We are getting close to the end of the year.

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.  

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!  I pray that 2013 is a great year for you.  I know that 2012 was another good year for Andrew and me.  God has just given us so many blessings and is continuing to work in our lives.

December was a great month for our campus ministry.  We had a Christmas party for our ministry at the Northeast Church.  Our theme was “Comet Christmas” since we are the UTD comets.  Our decorations were space themed as was our photo booth.  We had some appetizers for them to eat while they spent some time socializing and then the entertainment was provided by our cores.  Our cores performed a Christmas song and had some specific rules to go along with our Comet Christmas theme.  Here is the link to the video one of our students took if you would like to see it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pi1IA_N8nU&feature=youtu.be

One of the most exciting things for me of the semester is to see the impact FOCUS is having on our students and ex-students parents.  Jamiann’s dad was baptized last week and is fired up about Jesus.  Jamiann was a student at Collin and led core there for 2 years before transferring to UNT to start a campus ministry with a few other students there.  Last year she did our FOCUS internship and had an amazing experience doing that.  Jamiann is now a youth minister a Northeast.  Jamiann’s dad has been coming to Northeast and Ronnie studied the Bible with him for the past few months.  FOCUS was able to reach Jamiann and then the church, her dad.  I am so thankful for the partnership of Northeast and FOCUS!

Also this past week, Griffin, a student at Richland was able to baptize his mom!!  Travis Jones met Griffin at Richland, studied the Bible with him and baptized him over a year ago.  Griffin’s mom came to his baptism where Brandon invited her to Northeast.  Kristen Chapman and I met Leanne at Northeast and started studying the Bible with her.  She was baptized as an infant which wasn't her choice so she decided to be baptized and confess Jesus as her Lord!  Leanne already has a vision for studying with other people.  Again, I love the support Northeast provides.  Leanne has a great church to serve in and grow in.

Lives are changing everyday and entire families are being impacted for eternity because you have chosen you give and support us.  Thank you seems completely inadequate for how I feel.  May God bless you richly!

Love,

Mandy

November at UTD

November was such a great month for me personally and for our ministry at UTD.  At the beginning of the month, Kelly, who was a FOCUS intern up at UNT last year and alum of UTD, baptized one of the international students in the core she participates in.  Enjoy the video!  

Bringing people to know Jesus is what it is all about!  There are so many studies still going so I can’t wait to see what God is going to continue to do.  Please continue to pray for all of these studies.  I know with all my heart that God answers our prayers that we lift up on behalf of people.  Jesus is changing lives.

Each week on Friday night at FOCUS we have had students share their testimony of how God has made them new.  This month I think that I literally wanted to cry (happy tears) after each one of them.  All of the students who have shared so far are student leaders this year.  What blows me away is how God continues to work in so many people lives, changing them to be more like Him, year after year.  Some learn to overcome the fear of shyness and selfishness and others get a heart for evangelism, but in all of them the Spirit is working. 

A couple weeks ago we got students from all 4 of our campuses together to do a lecture on sex and marriage. We called it Pizza Theology because we served pizza for dinner.  Ronnie and Brandon delivered that and did such an awesome job.  The week before and after that Casey and I did sermons on dating.  I think that over the years, FOCUS has done some really challenging sermons on dating.  The fruit of the challenging sermons and dating culture has been some really awesome marriages.  I pray that with pizza theology and these dating sermons, our current students will catch a vision of dating in such a way to have an amazing marriage.  Please lift up our students as they date, our current culture makes dating so difficult.

Thanksgiving was such a great break for me.  I feel well rested and able to tackle the busy month of December.  

With December here and the Christmas break ahead of us, I would ask that you especially pray for students as they go home.  For many of them, going home is great.  I have already heard of a handful of students though who are really worried about going home for a month.  Home is not a good place for them and they don’t have the Christian community there that they do here.  Please pray that these students will continue to seek God and can grow closer to Him over the break.

I have so many other things that I could tell you about but this is getting long.  God is so good!

October Update (Because I am telling you about October.)

As each month goes by, there are so many things that I could share with you.  When I sit down and reflect on the month I can see all of the things that God is doing around me.  If I shared all of them, this would be a very, very long blog!

At the beginning of the month, Brandon and the campus pastor from Baptist Student Ministries at UTD, Beth, planned a meeting to get all of the campus ministers at UTD together.  That meeting was so encouraging to me because there isn’t a spirit of competitiveness for anyone’s ministry but a spirit of unity.  On a secular campus, unity is so important if we are going to reach this campus and show them Jesus.  There are so many students who haven’t been reached yet at UTD so I know God is going to do great things here.

In the middle of October, we got all the women leaders together for a meeting at La Madeline.  There are almost 30 of us when you get us all together!  We had desserts and then we went around and shared good news of what was going on in our personal life and ministry.  Every one of the women shared good news and that would be too long to write here.  But God is working in so many ways big and small.  We have international students who are asking to study the Bible during their first meeting with a corefa, non-Christian students getting to experience Christian community and friendship, women in cores opening up and sharing their lives with each other, new people wanting to be involved in studying the Bible with others in their core, and one of my favorites, 2 sophomores who are planning a mission trip for our ministry this summer because they had it on their heart to do so.  I really could go on and on!!

Please, Please keep praying for FOCUS.  When you think of the almost 20,000 students at UTD we are only scratching the surface of what is possible.  God has answered our prayers this year but I know he wants to do even greater things.  As the year goes on students get distracted, busy, and stressed.  Please pray for protection of those who are seeking God and wisdom and protection for the corefas.  Your prayers are so critical to the work we do!  God is so good and answers our prayers!

September News from UTD

I cannot even begin to explain how excited I am about FOCUS at UTD this year!  On Friday nights in our large group we have had such a diverse group of people still coming.  The week before last, I looked around the room and over 30% of the people there were international students.  Many of them have no experiences of Christianity until recently.  We have had American students from various places on their spiritual journey.  Some are atheist or agnostic exploring Christianity and some with a strong faith just looking to be part of a Christian community.

This diversity is also flowing into our cores.  One core had 4 Americans and 15 women from China who all want to study the Bible! Another one of our women’s cores has only a couple of Christians and about 8 who are not yet Christian.  I could go on with so many stories from cores.  I could not be any more proud of this group of leaders and really ask you to continue to pray for them.  The needs they are filling are great and I know they feel such a burden because they love the women in their cores.

We had 153 people sign up to come to Fall Camp which we just got back from today.  I CAN NOT wait to hear the stories from the corefas about how people were impacted there.  I will share those with you when I write again.  It was a great weekend though!

I want to leave you with a scripture and some thoughts on it that we read in time of worship, prayer, and communion last night at camp. Revelation 4:9-5:14.  Renee Doty read part of this aloud to us last night and it brought such powerful thoughts to my mind and heart.  I wish I could share them all with you but I will keep it really short.  John weeps because no one is worthy to open the scroll when the elder tells him not to weep because the Lion of Judah has triumphed.  How powerful to think of Jesus as the Lion of Judah.  He is so great, powerful, strong, and fierce.  All sorts of thoughts like that come to my mind when I think of the Lion. BUT, when John turns to look at him he sees a Lamb looking as if it had been slain. This has to be one of the most powerful images to me in the Bible.  The elders sing a new song to him because he is worthy and with his blood he purchased for God all people.  Our God, the Lion of Judah, is a slain Lamb.  We serve a God like no other.  We serve a crucified God and we lay our crown before him.  “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power for ever and ever!”

I am literally so humbled by how great, awesome, marvelous and merciful that God is.  There are no words that can be used to describe Him.  The fact that He chooses to use me, sinful, imperfect, me to do great things, literally blows my mind.  I am so unworthy of the Love and Salvation he gives to me.  Ronnie was discussing Ephesians 3:20-21 yesterday and this really resonated with me.  The passage says:

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within in us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen   Ephesians 3:20-21

The thing that is so unbelievable and so immeasurable and that God can Love and Save us and still use us.  That is truly unbelievable that he is so good.

I say all of that to say that He is doing so many good things through the prayers and financial support of so many of you.  I really do not know where to start, so many good things have happened this month.

A couple of weeks ago, Melissa, a senior in our ministry was baptized by one of her good friends and an alum of our ministry, Brittney.  Through the friendship of Brittney and others, it has been so neat to see God completely change Melissa’s life.  I literally cannot imagine our ministry without her.  She brings joy where ever she goes!

We have gotten through welcome week and all the events that go with it.  Our corefas have met so many people!  Their hard work really showed when we had around 150 people show up our first Friday night.  It was such a diverse group.  God is so Good!  Our small group leaders have been so busy calling people and inviting them to core.  I cannot wait to see the fruit of that.

These past few weeks have been busy but now the exciting part starts.  We get to start investing in the people we meet.  Please pray for us as we do that.  And pray that God will give me what I need to be great leader because I am so unworthy to do this.

August...Almost time for school to start!!!

A brand new school year starts in a couple of weeks which is so exciting.  We have really spent the summer planning for it.  We just had a staff retreat this past weekend with our brand new staff for the year!  It was so great.  We were able to spend time singing, getting to know each other, and thinking about our ministry.  My favorite thought from the weekend was our new theme from Revelation, Everything New.  God has a bigger plan for redemption than I can even comprehend.  It is really encouraging and got me really excited.  We were also asked to journal the question “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” which also got me thinking.  We have nothing to fear and fear often paralyzes us.  We can’t do God’s work like that. 

    

God has blessed us with such great people who really do want to pour into students to see more people reached.  Our new staff at UTD will be Casey, Sirak, Courtney, and me.  All four of us are alumni from UTD, know the campus and have a heart for it.  I am so excited about this year because we have 16 women who will be Core facilitators (group leaders).   Most of them are brand new Corefas who will be back again next year.  The thing I am most excited about are our 6 women Peer Team leaders who will mentor the Corefas!  Our small group leaders are going to be supported very well!

Right now I feel like I have so many things to ask you to pray about.  Please pray for Sirak and Courtney as they start their new internship at UTD.  They are going to be spending time learning God’s word more deeply, learning to preach, will lead peer team and all the little nuances of campus ministry.  Pray for Casey as he starts working at UTD again after being at Collin for several years.  Pray for our new student leaders as they begin to meet new people.  Pray for all of the new people on campus that they can know the Lord God through His Son Jesus!

It's summer time....

I came into summer expecting to slow down a little bit and relax some before August comes.  I did get to relax at the beginning of June on vacation with my family.  That was so fun and rejuvenating for me.  When I got back I had to hit the ground running.

I have spent the remainder of the month trying to figure out our small group leaders (Corefa’s) for this coming school year.  I have been having conversations with the women who went to SICM and the leaders from last year to try to determine who our leaders will be.  Please be in prayer for these people already.  These are the people who in so many ways are the ones who will be doing campus ministry.  They meet people, invite them to CORE and FOCUS, and then they are the ones who will sit down and study the Bible with people in their group.  Please pray that God does great things in them and through them this year!

This summer is also a time of transition.  July will be the last month of this year’s interns.  I cannot tell you how much I am going to miss Jamiann and Andrew.  Please pray that they have a great last month with FOCUS and pray God continues to do great things through them!  Also, we have started to fundraise for next year.  Please pray for the staff and new interns as we work on that.  

The spring semester is now over at UTD and summer has officially begun! I feel like I have so much to say! May was a very busy month for us. We had a great end of year banquet where we were able to celebrate the year as a community. We were able to thank all of our students who lead in so many different ways this year and those who are graduating which is bitter sweet for me.

The most exciting thing this month for me was we got to take over 50 students to SICM up in Bellingham, Washington. We left on a Thursday afternoon and let them spend a couple days seeing the sites and then on Saturday SICM started. These students got to spend a week learning how to do campus ministry. It is such an intense week of learning about many different aspects of ministry. They begin every morning with Praise and Worship and then spend the day in classes. They learn about leading small groups, asking good questions, evangelism, Bible study and so much more. I cannot wait to see how God uses what they have learned to really bless the campuses they are part of.

We officially started summer FOCUS when we got back from SICM. We are doing one large FOCUS meeting for the students who are staying in the Richardson are. Richardson East has been gracious enough to let us use their church building for FREE this summer. Our theme for the summer is “Fired up.” The idea behind it being to “never be lacking in zeal.” So our sermons are going to be Fired up about…worship, serving, the mission and so on. We are so excited about the momentum that this will bring into the Fall.

We also have officially started our summer School of Ministry which we do every year. It is offered so that students can think more academically about their faith by reading a book and discussing it. This year we are doing something a little different. Regent College in Vancouver Canada has audio recordings of different classes that you can purchase online. So our students can choose between Old Testament Foundations and New Testament Foundations to listen to and discuss in groups. Both of these classes are so good!! I have learned so much through them!

Please pray for us as we start fundraising this summer. Our ministry has grown so much this year and we are trying to add staff to be able to give students the support they need.

Spring is Here!

March was such a great month.  Spring is here!  There is something so revitalizing and new about spring.  God takes the dead looking grass and trees and brings new life to them.  The flowers are blooming everywhere, the grass is green and the weather is warm.  I thank God for all of his amazing work in nature but I especially am thankful for the work he is doing in people’s lives.  I think that his work in us, bringing the dead to life, is even greater.  There is just so much for me to share.

This past Sunday, Stephanie Greene decided to be baptized.  She and I have been studying the Bible together for several weeks now and through her study she decided to be baptized.  She is one of the sweetest women I know and just has such a heart for Jesus and for his people.  While we have been studying the Bible together, she has also been studying the Bible with two international students sharing about Jesus.  I cannot wait to see what God is going to do in her life!  Her baptism was so special to me because we had it at my house and invited about 40 people to come and have lunch with us before it.  It was fitting since she was “getting married to Jesus.”

This past week we did a huge event on campus that focused on human trafficking.  It was our “not for sale” campaign.  We had booth’s on campus on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday that had information about this modern day injustice.  The booths had stories of different people who have been sex slaves here in the United States.  The students all wore “not for sale” shirts and engaged people in conversations about the stories they were reading.  Students were given information on what they could do and that God cares deeply about these issues.  On Wednesday night we met on the Union steps outside in the middle of campus and showed a video about all kinds of trafficking.  It covered modern slavery in other countries to sex trafficking here in the United States.  It literally broke my heart.  Then on Thursday night we had a speaker in the same place who talked about this issue.  The whole week was a huge success!

Several weeks ago one of the women from Collin, Cierra, told me that she wanted to put together something for all of the women from all of our campuses to talk about insecurity in women.  She felt like this was something the women from FOCUS really struggle with just like the women of the world.  So this past Saturday we had three different women from Northeast come and share with us about how sinful insecurity is, how to fight insecurity, and who God says we are.  It was such a great event with about 50 women from FOCUS.  We had lunch, heard the speakers, and shared in small groups.  Cierra did such a great job!  I cannot tell you how proud of her I am.  She saw a need and took initiative to do something about it!

So all of that was this past week!!

Spring Break was earlier this month which I think was much needed for the students and for me!  I think the time of rest really gave them a renewed energy to finish this year off strong.  Our women’s cores are still going well and there are still so many studies happening.  The fruit of the year is really starting to show.

It has really been another great month.  Please pray for the studies going on and that people make serious commitments to Jesus.  Pray that the students can end the year strong!

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! 

Winter Camp!!!

I feel like often God teaches me so much more through my time with people than I actually teach them.  The past couple of weeks have been no different.  I really do get to spend time with some great women who are so serious about their walk with God.  I am studying Focus on Jesus with 2 different women who ask some really great questions and who really want to do what God wants them to do.  They are so open, consistent and prepared each week.  The women in my peer team are constantly asking for advice and spend so much time really loving the women that God has given them this semester.  It just really inspires me to continually be a student of God’s word, to be open with the people in my life, and to constantly be a person who asks advice.  It is so encouraging to see the heart that they really have for the people they are reaching out to. 

We just got back from Winter Camp a couple weeks ago. We had over 250 students from our 4 campuses there.   Eddie Howard came from Colorado to spend the weekend with us.  He preached 5 sermons out of Joshua and did such a great job.  I have heard nothing but positive feedback from students.  It is so neat to see what just having a few short days around God focused people can do.  It was just such an encouraging weekend for the students who came. 

For me, the week going in to camp was really difficult.  My grandmother died the week before camp.  I literally walked in the door from staff retreat and my dad came to the door and told me she had died so we got in the car and headed to Tyler to be with my mom.  Then, a couple days later we went to Vernon for her funeral.  It was a couple days after that I ordered all the snacks and headed to camp.  So going into camp I was really worn out and emotionally exhausted.  God is so good though, he takes away special people but then he turns around and blesses us in special ways.  I got to be around so many people who loved on me, encouraged me, and praised God with me.  I really, really love Him.

Camp was also a really neat time to catch up and have conversations with people that I don’t get to on a weekly basis.  It was really encouraging to hear what is happening in their cores and in their lives.  God has really blessed me with some really neat friendships through doing campus ministry.  I am so challenged by them.  God is changing lives on our campuses and it is great to be a part of that.

So, in short, God is so Good!

Happy New Year!!

December was another great month for our ministry at UTD.  We had our Christmas party in December at the Northeast Church.  Our theme this year was Christmas morning.  We were expecting around 100 students and we had over 130 students come!  We served breakfast and had some great entertainment.  Each of the cores could participate in a competition to perform a Christmas carol.  It was absolutely hysterical…We have some creative students!!

The Friday night after our party we had a FOCUS Christmas service focused much more on the true meaning of Christmas.  We sang Christmas carols, read parts of the Christmas story, and shared thoughts.  It was such a neat time for our ministry.  Then it was off on break.

The break was a much needed time of rest but now I am ready to hit the ground running.  We just had a staff retreat this past weekend which I think got us all excited to go back and do ministry.  My favorite part of the weekend was on Friday night.  We used that session to simply pray for one another.  It was some much needed strength for me. 

This weekend is our annual winter camp.  We are taking all the students from all 4 campuses out to Bridgeport until Monday.  This is such a spring board for so many of our students.  Please pray that the students who really need to be there come and that that the weekend will really impact them.  I just cannot wait to see what God is going to do!!!


The students all will start back to school the Tuesday after Winter Camp.  Please pray that we have another great semester and just pray for all of our student leaders.