January blog!

Hi friends and family! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season, and are staying safe and warm with these weather conditions! 

                                                                    Winter Retreat 2026! 

Winter retreat is our biggest event we put on each year where all of our campuses come together for a time of worship, fellowship, and most importantly spiritual development! Winter retreat is often the time our students decide to really commit to the Lord after getting to experience God in a new, or different way than they ever have. ur staff spends many months prepping to make this a really foundational experience for our students to have! This year was our biggest year yet with about 700 students across all of our campuses! 

This year at winter retreat, we got to experience something new with a praise dance performance from our staff who have a dance background, and different students from different campuses that they asked to join in. This was so powerful to get to watch and experience worship through movement that many have not been exposed to, but is so impactful!

One of the biggest blessings of this years retreat was getting to have the guest speaker Marty Solomon come out to share with our students! Marty is the host of a podcast called: The BEMA Podcast which invites people to engage Scripture through its historical, Hebrew, and Greek context—challenging us to read the Bible with deeper curiosity, greater intentionality, and a renewed hunger to understand the heart of God and our identity as His people. Many of our staff members have listened to Marty's podcast for many years and been deeply impacted by him so much that we really wanted an opportunity for him to come speak to our students! He also leads a campus ministry of his own, and shares in our love of young people growing their faith in more depth! 

Marty walked our students through the book of Genesis, intentionally highlighting Old Testament stories we often overlook. Many students shared that they had never heard the full Genesis narrative before and were deeply impacted by it. What resonated most—again and again—was Marty’s consistent reminder that we are God’s beloved children. He wove this truth through every story, showing that belovedness is not earned by behavior but rooted in identity. That message is simple, yet radically freeing in a world where shame, failure, and misplaced identity weigh so heavily.

Here are some of the bigger things that Marty had to share that I loved: 

“Creation is a good place, but we often don’t believe it.”

Marty challenged us to stop viewing the world only through what is broken and instead see it as God declared it—good, though not yet complete. We are invited to delight in what God has given while holding onto the hope of full restoration.

"The core of humanness is not sin, but fear and insecurity and the byproduct of those things is sin."

Marty continuously imbedded the theme of fear and insecurity throughout his talks and how those are at the root of what prevents us from remembering our belovedness in who God says we are. He goes through each story in Genesis to communicate this, but one of them is Cain and Able and how it was Cain's fear and insecurity about how God viewed him that caused him to sin against Abel. He discussed how our own fears and insecurities distort our view of God, ourselves, and others, and how we must actively surrender and give up those things.

Something that Marty shared that he does every morning is read truths over himself and over his day that help keep him rooted in truth. He says: I am not loved and valued today by what I produce today. Should I fail in anyway in large or small ways it will not affect my worth. God does not change His position with me based on how I respond today.

These are such freeing words to speak over ourselves, and something I want to implement in my own life, and that I hope our students also do in their lives since its so easy to stray from whats true.

He reminded us that our worth is not about producing, but simply being. We are Human beings not human doings. Our worth comes from God alone—not striving, proving, or producing.

"We have to learn to be people of resilience in the gospel. When there is no way we can get through something that's where our faith has to come in."

Marty reminded us that Scripture is filled with stories of endurance, and we are called to that same resilience. When we reach the end of our strength, faith begins. God is trustworthy, present, and faithful to us in every season, and in whatever we face.

Here is the link to Marty's sermons at retreat. I would highly recommend listening to them, they are so life giving! I would also love to hear your thoughts on them, please reach out to me!

Link: https://open.spotify.com/show/5yrx4jslg0f9tmNO7S0eVX?si=v9SMa9iERLWlOAQcJpY37A

In between sessions, we have chunks of time for them to do various creative activities that we have for them each year that different ones of our staff lead. One of the nights, a few of our staff women put on a girls night event for students to come to! We had a movie, snacks, and crafts for them to do. It was a great turnout, and I loved getting to see our students meeting and bonding with others from our different campuses! In the photo, these are some of our denton students, two of them were in my small group last year, and another one I've gotten to know more since meeting last year! This was my first winter retreat not coming with a small group that I lead, so I had the freedom to befriend lots of different students from our denton ministry and others. I loved getting to spend time with various groups of people, getting to hear what God was teaching them in the sessions, and what they were being impacted by.

New Year's Eve Worship night!

One of our students at UTD FOCUS has put on a worship night into the new year the past few years for all of our students to come to! I have been to a few of them, and every year is such an encouragement! This event is completely student led and its neat to see the ways our students seek to serve in this way! The planning team is made up of those from several of our different FOCUS campuses which is neat that they get to interact with those they don't always see! Even more than thoughtful worship, they also are intentional to plan time in the night to have our students reflect on their year, pray for one another, and have goals in mind for the new year in how they'd like to further their discipleship in Christ!

Staff Winter retreat!

Every year before the school year begins again for the new semester, our staff goes on a retreat for spiritual refreshment, and fellowship with one another to prep for the busy semester ahead!

Some of us took a day trip to a state park nearby the retreat grounds that was a lot of fun, and we had some group game and boardgame fun! I love getting to know more of our staff team better since we have a team of about 60 people at different campuses which can be hard to know everyone in depth, but retreat gives us a chance connect more!

The best part of retreat this year was having Ronnie Worsham come, the one who had the vision for FOCUS years ago, and is the reason it exists! He came to share with us over his book called: "Seeing God seeing you" which covers the gospel, and how God desires for us to view ourselves the way He does, and to share that freedom with those around us. Clinging to the truth about who we are, and surrendering the lies that often so easily entangle us. Some notes from his sharings that stood out to me: "You can only see people to the degree you see God". "God can use you as you are but you have to be willing to be used by Him". Here's his link to his book if you're interested in that or his website with his other books:

Seeing God Seeing You: This Is My Gospel – Ronnie Worsham

Student testimony

Thank you so much for your continuous support towards my ministry! I'm so full of gratitude that you would join me in mission to reach young people to know Christ!

Blessings & Peace,

Keanna