800 students at Winter Retreat???!! :O

 

Hello everyone!! I hope that each of you is warm in this cold Texas storm. I am currently at home with my roommates, enjoying spending time together, but I am getting a little stir crazy!! I had the flu this past week and during that time, my family had to put our 12 year old dog down. So just to preface this blog, I am struggling a little bit emotionally, please pray for me!

This month has been eventful to say the least. At the beginning of the year, we had our annual staff retreat where the entire FOCUS staff goes down to Marble Falls and spend a few days in fellowship with one another and with God. It was really special. With the start of a new year, there is always a mix of both hope and a bit of personal fear of what will come that following year. I can look back with gratitude at the ways God has made a path for me and those that I love and wait in hopeful expectation that he will continue to lead. At the retreat, we got to spend some alone time with God, and I went on several walks to enjoy God’s creation. After having a pretty difficult conversation with God where I was honest about how I was struggling, I heard above me a pecking sound and I searched the trees and saw a woodpecker! Woodpeckers are one of my favorite birds, I love the game of trying to find them when I hear them. I praised God for being such a sweet friend and father to me in giving me a little bird.

How have you and God been doing lately? Is it time for you to go on a little retreat and spend some time with him? Even if it’s just a few hours in your backyard or neighborhood, we all need some alone time with him.  This month we also had our annual Winter Retreat with the students from all across the DFW metroplex. Over the last couple of years, our Denton ministry has grown at a rapid rate, and that was reflected in our attendance for Winter Retreat. Last year we had 650 students come and join us in Glen Rose, TX and this year we had over 800!!! Can you believe that???

Our weekend was full of fellowship over meals, games, worship, and we learned so much from Marty Solomon, our guest speaker and host of the BEMA podcast. He spent the weekend teaching from the book of Genesis and it was very enriching to hear him speak so passionately about how God created humanity and called it good and that at the foundation of our faith should be the belief that we are beloved. Throughout the weekend he kept repeating the phrase that sin is a byproduct of fear and insecurity and that at the root of all external behavior and attitude is a deep fear and insecurity that can only be diminished as we believe God’s belovedness of us. I have seen this to be true in myself and in the lives of the students I meet with, so it has been something that has stuck with me since. I pray that as each of us, myself included, would continue to pursue God’s point of view on ourselves and others. If you’d like to listen to the talks from Winter Retreat, you can go here. I leave you with Romans 8:14-16 today, which says, “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.” Thank you so much for all of your support. I love you each! Andrea Sierra