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!