Happy Halloween friends and family! October was packed, but I think it's been my favorite month so far!
Thank you for your continued generous support that allows me to share all that God is doing each month!
Fall Retreat 
Let's start with Fall Retreat! Every year our ministry has two main retreats, one in the Fall and one in the Winter. This year was probably one of my favorite years I've gotten to go. We got to try a lot of new things that we haven't done in the past, such as combining our small group with another group the week of retreat. This was to form teams with an assigned color (reflected in this photo) and so that relationship-bonding could start ahead of time. I felt like having teams allowed for a more unified feeling among our students, and we also got to do a gospel choir during our worship night which consisted of students who volunteered to practice late into the night for two weeks prior to our retreat. This was such a special thing that I got to join in on, and I loved getting to bring more diversity into the songs we sang that we don't usually get to do.
This is my small group that we call "core" as well as a guys core that we were paired with to make up the green team! This was taken after we found out that our team won what we called the "Camp cup tournament". This tournament consisted of various relay-style games that were a lot of fun and where I felt like a lot of relationship-building occurred. Also, several of the girls in this photo had never been to a christian retreat before and walked away with a lot of takeaways, praise God!
This is a photo of Ronnie Worsham who was the founder of the Focus ministry over twenty years ago! God gave Him a vision for planting campus ministries across all the DFW campuses, and twenty years later we have eleven established focus campus ministries across DFW with the mission that Ronnie had to make and mature disciples on DFW college campuses to the glory of God. It has been such a special gift to have grown up in the family of churches that support Focus because I've gotten to see what God has done through major life change from the students who had been in Focus for many years before I even got to experience it for myself. Getting to see this change in the lives of others around me is largely the reason that I did the apprenticeship, and a lot of that I owe first to God, but also to Ronnie. There is no one else that I know who loves college students so fiercely. Our theme during this year's retreat was "Decision Points" and on our first day of the retreat we had three student interviews, two of them who were from students who have just recently decided to follow Jesus, and one of them on someone who is a close friend of mine and has followed Jesus for most of her life. We finished the retreat with Ronnie's sharing, and he has followed Jesus for around 50 years since he became a christian in college. One of our students shared about her struggle with giving over control throughout the difficulty and instability in her life. Another student shared about how filling himself with worldly desires and living the life that others around him were living was not fulfilling enough, and he found true meaning and friendship in Jesus-loving community.
Another student shared about making the decision to follow Jesus despite it meaning that his family would not be supportive of him, yet, he made a decision to change his entire college major and life plan for the sake of being available to ministry in the evenings. This was so impactful to hear from one of the girls in my small group, that the next time our small group met together the following week, she shared that she is changing her major to be available for ministry and to not be tied to a restrictive schedule in her future. This is just incredible the sacrifice these students are willing to make to glorify God with their whole lives, and not just in their season of college. During Ronnie's talk, he shared that his desire for Focus has always been that it would be filled with students who are sold out for God, not choosing to live lukewarm, but being fully devoted disciples. Something that stood out to me the most, was how he opened his message with sharing a love-note from one of his sons stating how much he loved his dad Ronnie (Ronnie frequently wrote his children love notes as well) and how thankful his son was for all that Ronnie had instilled in his children by living His life for God. It brought me to tears just thinking about the impact I'd want to make on my future family, and if I ever do have children how I would want my own kids write me love notes because of the example I had set for them to love Christ well.
Thursday Night Fellowship
These are photos from this past week's large group gathering where we had our students dress up in their halloween costumes. On the left is my small group, and on the right is Cathryn who is the other Denton apprentice and myself. We dressed up as a duo as Cece and Rocky from an old Disney Channel show called "Shake it up".
This was again at this week's large group gathering that we called "Hocus Focus" during our time of singing worship songs. After our large group meeting, we had various halloween parties for them to attend afterward at our different ministry houses that our students did a great job of organizing and hosting for our community. I was behind the computer this week controlling the powerpoint slides. I like being in the front because I'm able to look out and see all of our students worship, and this photo just captures how the spirit moves at our large gatherings and it's so special to witness and be apart of. (It was also hilarious to have a great view of them all in costumes here haha).
The sermon for this week was over "Wandering in the Desert" referring to the Israelites as we began our series over the Old testament. This was a challenging sermon to hear as we discussed that God's kingdom is not a democracy where we get to have a say as to how we live our life, but instead that God has to have full authority. We have to have the faith that Caleb in the book of Numbers had to overcome in impossible odds, and not live like the ten spies who lacked belief and thought they could save themselves. We discussed how true freedom is found in serving Yahweh, and this comes from being repentant and confessional. Lastly, we learned that to go where the Lord is not leading is deadly, because apart from God we can do nothing of spiritual health. Something that especially stood out from this sermon was the story shared about how our campus pastor, Shayla entered a dangerous situation that a student was in, and it wouldn't be until three years later where that student would thank Shayla for helping her and being invitational, which added to her positive interactions with christians that paved the way for her to choose to convert from Christianity from Islam!
Volunteering event
This is a photo of a group of students who volunteered to go serve at Our Daily Bread last Saturday morning. The staff was blown away by the amount of students who came to help them out. We got to help clean out their shed, and cleaned their women's and men's locker-room bathroom and showers. I'm so proud of the heart that so many of our students have to willingly give up their Saturday morning for the good of others in our community who are less fortunate.
Baptism!
This is a photo of a few of the girls in my small group who were able to come and witness the baptism of Sierra who is pictured in blue here. It was such a special experience getting to drive out to her hometown, vist her home church and to be treated to lunch by her kind family. We also got a tour of the town where Sierra, along with Jenna (in the green dress, who I co-lead small group with), and Sophia (in the brown dress) also grew up in the same town! What a small world! Before we left lunch, Sierra's grandma expressed her extreme gratitude for Sierra joining our small group because this was an answered prayer of hers that Sierra would find Christ loving community in college. How cool to be apart of an answered pray she had, praise God! This was a day filled with sweet memories, that I'll hold close to me!
Apprentice TeamHere's a photo of some of our apprentices, missing three. This was taken this past week in between our classes at the church where we went to HTeaO together. I love our growing bond, and have been so thankful to do ministry alongside such God-honoring people! Something I've especially loved about our apprentice group is how we have been intentional about regular time to grow in friendship with one another. One of the ways we've done this is by having sabbath dinners once a month at one of our houses that one of us will host. This has been a really sweet time to connect with one another, unplug by putting our phones away, and just to feel rejuvenated by one another's presence!
Annual Focus Fundraiser
At the end of November each year, we have our annual fundraiser for Keep Focus Growing in order to fund the things God is doing in our Focus ministry! Each year, we encourage our own students to raise funds, and our staff team will give matching funds up to $10,000! It would be a huge blessing if you would please consider giving or let people know of this amazing opportunity. If you are interested, feel free to send me an email, and I can connect you to our admin team!
Monthly student testimony!
Continued prayer requests:
Please be praying post-fall retreat that the bonding that occurred would continue into even deeper friendships with one another, a deepened interest in God, and making life-decisions where God is at the center of their lives'.
Please be praying for the student's stress levels that are increasing as the semester gets even heavier towards the end of the semester, and that they would seek God as they learn to time manage and still prioritize community!
Thank you again deeply for being on my support team and for caring about all the life change occurring in campus ministry!
Blessings and peace to you,
Keanna
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