February blog!

                    Hi friends and family! Thinking about the love month made me reflect on how deep the father's love is for his people, and for how much love you have all poured out to me so generously through your support! Thank you so very much!

                                                                    Combined core galentines! 

                                     Typically for valentine's most small groups will try to do something to celebrate in some way. Since I lead two different small groups during the week now, I thought it was a great opportunity to combine both of them so that the girls got to meet some new people especially since one of my small groups are girls from UNT and the other are from TWU so they don't interact very much typically. We started off the night by listening to a a sermon audio from our focus winter retreat last year over the topic of spiritual friendships. We had them pair up with the person next to them and discuss questions over how to grow in being a deeper spiritual friend to those around them. Afterward, we got into teams and played valentine's themed family feud, and some other group games. It was ton of fun!      

                                                                    TWU Flower exchange!                                               

                                             One of the girl's Lilli (Very front left) is in my thursday small group and wanted to host a flower exchange with some other girls from our ministry at TWU. We each brought our own vase, and own bouquets and exchange with one another to form new bouquets. It was great to get to interact with some new girls that I don't get to see very much throughout the week.   

                                                                                    Pizza Theology                                                                                                      

Once a semester, we have pizza theology where we have a topic for our students to hear sermons over to dive in depth with their faith. This semester's topic was over "Biblical facts over stacks on stacks" which is kind of a silly way of discussing what a biblical way to look at how we can think about our money in a way that honors God. Money is often not something anyone wants to talk about and that people want to keep private, but money is one of the most talked about topics in scripture which shows us that God cares a lot about it. In this photo, Brandon (the director of our whole ministry) discussed: 1. God does not want us to live with a scarcity mindset, but to see His abundance. 2. Everything belongs to God. We are just stewards. 3. He wants us to share HIS wealth, not hoard more through oppressing others. 4. Don't mess with God and money. It was so beneficial getting to go deep on this topic, and I know our students got a lot from it too!

                                                            Black history month event!

For the past three years I’ve gotten the pleasure to help put on an event during black history month in place of our regular large group meeting. Originally me and a few friends coined the name “bloom” for  Black Lights Of Our Ministry. This year was our best year yet! The students that helped me out to put this on took so much initiative, which was a huge blessing. For instance, for the gospel choir, DJ, one of the guys in the UNT music program, and a friend of mine Kenedy, fully took over organizing the practices for the gospel choir. They rehearsed for four weeks prior to the event, and put in a ton of work! Some other students also helped me with the organizational part of things, I truly could not have done this event alone. I was so blown away by how much these students wanted to help out. What I heard from many of them was that helping out and being apart of this event felt like a reminder of home, and how they grew up in their own church environments that represented their culture and how that shaped their view of God. This was really impactful for me to hear because that’s the whole reason that I put on the event in the first place! It’s so important for students to feel a sense of belonging, and doing something like this that is more familiar to them, or lets them share and connect over similar ways of growing up. The night started with our gospel choir singing some traditional gospel songs, and hymns. We also had some personal sharings of the night where many students prepared answers to questions over different prompts that I gave such as:

Share a painting, poem, any other medium you’d like, or personal sharing with or without a family photo over these prompts of choice using scripture: 1. How has growing up in a black church/culture shaped your relationship with God and your view of Him? 2. Why do you think its important for us to celebrate black history month? 3. What is a hardship you faced bc of your culture growing up, and what has that taught you/ what would you want to communicate to other people about that? 4. Why do you think diversity in the kingdom is important? To you personally and others?

We had one person create a painting that represented how his grandpa influenced his faith growing up, and the difficulties of living in different places and how he experienced being called different names for not conforming to his peer's ideas of what they think being black means. What I have found the past three years in hearing from personal sharings like these is that there is a common theme of being bullied for being told you're not enough of this or that when it comes to being black. I know this has caused a lot of hurt in myself, as well as many others I know. This further shows how special this night is to me personally to be able to highlight to our students that God calls us each more than enough because we bear his image, and that is something worth praising and holding onto for our ultimate identity!

This was the first gospel choir practice that we had! One of the ministry homes kindly hosted us to come and set up the sound equipment, so that they could start on the songs for the event. Even though, I have no musical insight, it was beautiful to hear them and be apart of their rehearsal, and work on other things for the event with other students. 

I've mentioned before that we have after events following our large group gatherings, and we did three weeks of hangouts after our service for black history month. The first one was at one of the UNT ballrooms, where one of the students on our planning team with me, lead a line dancing class where he taught different dances to common black line dance songs. It was so much fun! 

This was our main after event that followed the black history month event. This was line dancing again, but we also had multicultural foods for our students to eat that were different dishes that were afro-centric, and from many areas of people's culture which was so neat to try. This event was hosted by one of our guy ministry houses where we often go to a lot. They are so servant hearted to always invite over 100 students to come to their house for game nights, or any kind of hangout which builds a ton of fellowship and fun memories for our students. I was so blown away by how many students offered to make dishes that they grew up with to share with our community, it was so meaningful for them to make the time to cook something despite their busy schedules. 

This was the night of the event, and this was more of the gospel choir, and myself. This was the end of the night, so we unfortunately didn't get a photo with everyone, (we had 20-25 people in the choir!) but I wanted to show at least a few of them that had put in so much work!

At the very end of the night we had a praise dance performance! The one in the front is my roommate Victoria who just graduated from twu as a dance major and who organized this group of girls in creating choreography. Praise dancing is a common form of dancing in black centered churches where a group will practice choreography to a gospel worship song, and then use movements to describe the words in the song as a deeper way of expressing their heart towards God. This dancing also includes use of flags or different symbols as bigger visuals as well. This was our first year doing something like this, and I heard many people tell me it really connected them back to their childhood.

Pretty early on into the night, the fire alarms went off in the building we were in, but the choir decided to keep singing the songs they prepared for about 10-15 minutes out in 20 degree weather! Although it was bit discouraging since it interrupted the night, It was a very special experience to worship with 200 students publicly at UNT where many students were passing by and could see us. I pray that it touched some hearts, and maybe even allowed them to be curious, and want to join some type of community. 

Community snapshots!

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I wanted to share some of the things our students are up to outside of our ministry settings as an encouragement! Every week at our large group meetings, we share snapshots from our students weeks, sharing what they have been up to! What is so encouraging to me is that so many of them are reading a lot of scripture together just because they want to! The foj books you see them holding is our ministry's 10 week one on one bible study that our student leaders go through with members in their small group! Our students also have many birthday parties together, a student got baptized last week, and so many guys showed up for him. The students are just so sweet, and I love getting to see these snippets of their lives.

Student Testimony: 

I hope this month was as encouraging to y'all as it was to me! Thank you for all your support so that I could be apart of all this!

Blessings and peace,

Keanna