April update!

           Hi friends and family! We are quickly wrapping up the school year, and God has been abundantly good to our ministry this year. I owe the biggest thank you to you all for your support!

Apprentice team with Ronnie!

Each week throughout this entire year, our apprentice team has gotten the immense pleasure of having a class with Ronnie. As mentioned in previous blogs, Ronnie was the reason that the FOCUS ministry started over twenty years ago, and he is the senior pastor at the Garland church which he also started. Something I love about our campus ministries, and family of churches as a whole, is that so many people get direct contact with our pastoral staff members since they make themselves available to anyone and everyone, not just leaders. I think this is largely due to the family dynamic we try to have in our network of churches, and this idea came from Ronnie. All that to say, you can imagine how special it has been to be taught the importance of ministry, how to keep Christ at the center of our pastoring to students, and just the passion He has to share his decades of ministry with each of us. We get to come each week to ask any questions we have about our personal ministry, and Ronnie graciously shares his heart with us. There is no one I know who loves the Lord so fiercely. It's a gift to learn how to honor God in our ministry through him.

Solar eclipse!

The eclipse occurred during our class days, but we had a break in between to experience it together! It was so special to be surrounded by people who love God so deeply and get to marvel at his amazing work with one another. Ronnie read a verse in Isaiah over us about God's creation and it was just a sweet sight that brought tears to my eyes!

End of the semester outreach!

Cathryn (the other apprentice with me, top photo to the left of me) and I planned one last outreach event on campus at UNT so that the students who passed by, could take a break from studying for their finals to do something fun. This time around, we had the idea to do temporary tattoos as a light-hearted and fun activity. We also had mason jars numbered 1-5 where they could rate how they felt their semester went and had them share about it with us. We had a prayer request bucket as well if they wanted any prayer. Lots of students came up, and even one girl specifically said she had been looking for a ministry to get involved with, so that was super encouraging to hear! I was also so encouraged by the amount of student leaders/students in general from our ministry that showed up (as pictured). Our students this year have been so initiative and eager when it comes to outreach, which is so cool to witness. God is moving always!

    

                                                                                    Studying with our students!   

                                

       Another thing I love about this year has been how much our students care to be around each other outside of the normal small and large group times. This is the hope our staff has for what community looks like for the students in our ministry. Now more than in previous years, our students always initiate spending time with one another. This was taken directly after our outreach time and was uniquely special because although they study together often, this was a larger group than normal. We kept adding more and more tables as more people came by, and it was just so sweet to be in each other's presence! You may wonder what I was working on since I am no longer a student, and since we take five ministry classes throughout the year I often have a similar workload to the other students' homework-wise. In this photo, however, I was actually working on a sermon over the last few verses of Philippians chapter 4 that I shared for our last large group meeting. If you would like to hear it, please let me know, and I can send it to you via text message since it's in a voice recording format!

Combined core dinner!

A few weeks ago, my small group that I lead with Jenna (dark grey shirt on the left), decided to hang out with another UNT girls small group. This was super sweet because we don't often get a lot of time to spend with other small groups, except for our large group meetings each week, but since it is about 200 people it's hard to connect with each one. So, it was so great to have more intentional time with these girls at Ihop!

Adoption brunch!

Keelee (to the right of me) who is one of the UNT small group leaders, brought up the idea of having an adoption brunch to me a few months ago, and it instantly brought tears to my eyes because it was so meaningful to me. In her small group, she has about five girls who are adopted which is super uncommon. Since Keelee and I are adopted, she thought we could plan a hangout together at some point to talk about our stories so that others would feel a sense of belonging where maybe they hadn't quite before. Several of them ended up not being able to make it to the brunch. However, we did have Liberty (to the left of me), who had recently joined our ministry, and didn't know many people so it was nice to have the time to get to know her. She was adopted from an orphanage in Haiti, and her story was so beautiful to hear! We hope to host another event next fall!

Last peer team of the semester!

Within our leader team, we have lots of titles: Leader meeting which is our guys and girl leaders combined, Big peer team, which is guys and girl leaders separated, and then we have what is called peer teams. These are where our girls and guys still meet separately but in even smaller groups led by one or two of our staff members. Typically in our peer teams, closer relationships form between our leaders since it's a smaller group of them. Usually, the conversation is a bit more vulnerable since you're often sharing more personal things about your life, how you're doing spiritually, thinking through difficult faith topics, or how God is growing you. In this photo, one of our girl leaders was having some personal things going on, and we all took a break from our meeting to give her a group hug. This represents how loving the girls are, and how they have encouraged one another throughout the year!

End-of-year party with our leader team!

This photo only captures about half of our leader team. There are about 40 student leaders that we have in our ministry, and these are the students who lead small groups in pairs. Every other week we have what we call leader meetings, where we will share with our students different things to further develop their growth in the lord, and help refine their leadership skills when it comes to ministering to the students that they meet up with one on one doing bible studies with them. Their position as leaders exceeds far more than just Bible studies, it often consists of hard conversations they have to push people in their faith, or to help them when they are encountering the hardships of college life. Often this leadership position can be hard to deal with and to balance. However, this has been my favorite year yet because of the huge amount of perseverance I have seen from these leaders. They are so eager to know God deeply and to express that to the people in their small groups. They are very consistent and dependable. They show up to different events we have, and not only the "fun" ones but also the serious ones like a Holy Spirit discipleship class we've had going throughout this semester. These students are hungry to learn about God and it has been amazing to be a part of the team with them this year. As we shared different stories from our year together, it was so cool to hear them talk about one another in the ways they have seen God working in them to be an example. They've been a huge gift to our ministry, we couldn't do most of what we do without them.

Student testimony of the month!

Additional prayer requests: 

-Please be praying that our students will be intentional with their time management as they enter the summer break and that they would seek God and also their community around them during their break!

-Please also be praying for myself along with our staff team as we are beginning the fundraising season for our salaries for next school year. Pray that God would provide even when we may be prone to doubting his ability to move in big ways. Please also be praying for any fears surrounding the fundraising season.

Thank you for all of your support throughout this year, it has been so very meaningful and I hope you can see the impact your contribution has made for the kingdom!

Blessings and peace,

Keanna