December blog!

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 Merry Christmas friends and family! I hope you had a wonderful and restful time with your loved ones! During the break, I tend to spend some time reflecting on gratitude, and of course that includes your generous giving! I want to express my upmost thankfulness to you for your continuous support towards me in my ministry this year!

                                                                        Pizza Theology!     

                                                                       


Once a semester, we put on this event where our students from all of our DFW campuses come together for two hours of content, one hour for fellowship and pizza eating, and then two more hours of content. Something we emphasize in FOCUS is having a college-level faith that continues to mature and grow as our students learn to know Christ more deeply, and this event is a huge way that we do this. This year was super sweet for me personally because we got to fly in Rikk Watts to share about 1 and 2 Samuel for our students. Rikk was a professor at Regent College, a Seminary in Canada, and in the apprenticeship last year, we listened to his lectures from his New Testament Foundations course. That course deeply helped me see and read scripture in a new way. Rikk is gifted with teaching in a way that reflects his passionate heart towards God and scripture. A theme he really focused on when discussing 1 and 2 Samuel during this event was by repeating throughout his talk how important it is for us to cultivate having a tender heart towards God and scripture. He also encouraged us to ask questions like what is this scripture communicating, and not putting ourselves into the story, but to  dive deep in understanding the story of scripture.
If you would like to listen to what Rikk talked about during Pizza Theology, you can find that by clicking here.
Rikk has also allowed us to share his seminary class audio files for you to listen to, if you are interested, where he teaches on 1 & 2 Samuel! They can be found by clicking here.


Cassandra's rooftop birthday party!
I recently started leading a second small group since one of our student leaders was unable to continue, so now I get to lead with Cassandra! (on the right). We have only just started getting to know one another, but she is so sweet, and kind, and I can tell she is eager to know God and share that with others which is super encouraging! Her birthday was the right before winter break, and she hosted a dance party on the rooftop of the TWU parking garage that was so much fun! It's nights like these where I am so thankful for a job that allows me to fellowship and get to know college students in more laidback settings! Earlier that day, I took her to get all of her birthday freebies, which was such a sweet way of bonding, and I'm looking forward to the spring semester when we'll get to have more time growing in friendship, and where I'll get to know the girls in small group better as well!

Denton focus Christmas party!
Every year we host a Christmas party for our students, and we continued the theme from last year of doing a semi-formal which is always fun getting to see everyone dressed up! We had a time of worship like you see here from the photo where we sang some christmas carols/hymns, and had different students come up to read various scriptures. Afterward, we had christmas trivia and crafts, honored our December graduates, and had a dance party to end the night! I love getting to do something light-hearted with the students to celebrate them as they worked hard all semester, and to send them out in the christmas spirit for their breaks back home. 


Core Christmas party!
Kaitlin in our core hosted a Christmas party at her house for our core, and it was so thoughtful and fun! She decorated so nicely for us, had these relay games for us to play, ornament making, gingerbread house making, and made dinner for all of us. She has been a huge blessing to our core this year. We also talked through winter break goals and that went well getting to hear what things the girls plan on being intentional about, and I wrote them down to check in on them sometime over break. We also had them draw a slip of paper to pray over someone and follow up over break so I’m really hoping they reach out to one another, and connect in that way. Something I love that we also emphasize in our ministry is spending break in a way that will refresh you spiritually, mentally and emotionally. It can be easy to spend time off filling ourselves with endless amounts of entertainment, and falling into unhealthy habits, but those things dont actually fill you up, and we often see that students who don't come back to school as motivated as others that did spend their time resting well, so during our party we wanted to make sure we encouraged our girls in this.

Graduations!


Three of my roommates who I'm closest to, and have been friends with for several years now graduated two weeks ago! I'm so proud of their hard work especially since each of them had various hardships throughout their journey that pushed back their ideal graduation timeline, but I witnessed them each persevere, serve others despite their busy schedules, and lean on the Lord through it all! The bottom photo is super special to me because Olivia (in pink) and I led core together a few years back, and Catherine (second to right) and Jesenia (in orange) were in that small group where we formed close friendships with one another that has continued to this day. Jesenia got her masters degree the same week that the others graduated, and this same group got to celebrate her at her grad party a day prior which was so sweet.
Towards the end of the semester, we offer seniors in our ministry to give a senior epistle which is a letter to our students in the format of the letters from Paul where he uses words of encouragement, and also challenge. This is a time for seniors to reflect personally on what God has done for them throughout their college years, and to share God's faithfulness with oru community to bless them. If you would like to listen to Catherine or Aileen's (pictured in the very middle), here are the links to our ministry's instagram page. If you can't access them, and would like another way to listen, please reach out to me!
Aileen's: 

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DC9rZQnRQkV/?igsh=Mmh3d2poNGo2aGpo

Catherine's: 

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DCxXhNKvyQg/?igsh=MTd2MnhmdTBoa2U2Nw==



Student Testimony!


Thank you all so very much for your generous support,
Blessings and peace,
Keanna




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