Summer is here and God is cooking!

Happy summer everyone! I hope you are all having a great start to the summer and that it has been at least a little bit restful so far! We here on the FOCUS staff have finished the spring semester now and are starting to transition to our summer schedule, but I’d love to share with you some of the things that we had the opportunity to witness and be a part of in May!

On the very first day of May, I had the opportunity to go to TCU to lead worship with my friend William at their VERY FIRST WORSHIP NIGHT! The previous day, on April 30, we received the notification that the application to register FOCUS as an official student organization had been approved! It’s a huge deal! Rhett and Lindsey, two of our campus pastors who were at UTD a couple of years ago, have been dedicating some of their time to starting a core there and meeting up one on one with TCU students. God has really been sweet in bringing students who are excited to be a part of a ministry that is just starting. At the worship night, you could feel God’s presence as the students loudly praised him through songs and through their sharing. Lindsey and I met and became close friends while doing our apprenticeship together back in 2020 and have been working together on the UTD staff team ever since. Although I am sad to think that I will not be working with her as closely, I am SO excited to see what God will do through her at TCU this next year. Please join me in praying for her and Rhett as they explore this uncharted territory!

For our last Friday Night Fellowship of the semester, we had a night of open sharing where we invited students to come up and share their answer to the question, “How have you seen God working in yourself and others this year in our community?” It was a really sweet time of sharing, laughing, tearing up, and praising God together as we celebrated how God had moved in our ministry and on our campus that year. Here are some of the things I wrote down that students shared: “This year I have seen God grow me by helping me learn how to be confessional and vulnerable. God has met me with so much grace as I have opened up to friends from core about my life” “This year I learned that following God is a constant choice that I have to choose every day” “Leaning on my own strength does not work. It only leads to self destructive patterns. But leaning on God’s strength is always the best choice” “I am not a Christian, but this year I have become curious to learn why people want to know God and why they believe in him” “God loves me when I fail. He is mighty and is my protector” “You’ll never get to the other side of the storm regretting following Jesus” Praise God for providing a sweet community where students feel the love that God has for them.

This month, we sent 150 students to Washington state for SICM (Student Institute of Campus Ministry), where they got to spend a week learning how to be disciples of Jesus on their campuses and take part in what God is doing! This is one of my favorite things that we do each year because it truly can become a turning point for many students who previously do not see themselves as leaders, who by the end of the week feel empowered to go and share the gospel with their peers! One student came back and told one of our campus pastors, “SICM was the best 10 days of my whole life”. Several others came back telling us how excited they are for the fall and asked us if they could lead core in the fall. All of them came back having made new friends from UTD and other campuses in our ministry, with great stories to tell, and excited to share what they’ve learned. Isn’t that awesome?

As the summer begins, so do the freshman orientation sessions at UTD! At each orientation this summer, we will have a couple of our students run our FOCUS booth at the organization fairs, where freshman will have the opportunity to hear about our ministry and hopefully join us in the fall! We will be having students who are interested fill out their information so that we can keep up with them during the summer and invite them to join us for our summer FOCUS fellowship if they are in town. Please be praying that each student that walks by our booth would feel the warmth of Jesus and that our students working the booth would be bold in inviting students to join us! It’s an exciting time! Thank you so much to all of you for your incredible support! As we begin our fundraising season, I am reminded of God’s faithful provision through each of you. I love you dearly and pray that God would bless each of you with his abundant blessings! Your sister, Andrea