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Final ministry update!

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Some of the beautiful ladies I got to work with this year Full disclosure, this is at the beginning so that the blog thumbnail is not my face. My ministry update this month comes both in a video and written format. They essentially say the same thing so take your pick. I wanted to save this update for later, because it's my very last one. I've got two weeks left with FOCUS, and then I'm heading off to grad school in the fall! Thank you guys so much for the prayers and support over the last two years. It's been amazing. There are at least a million things I could reflect on looking back at my time with FOCUS, but there are these two connected themes I felt like he specifically wanted me to share: trust and surrender. Last year at this time, I was dead set on campus ministry being a long term job. I had visions of great things I was gonna do for God, and I was really excited. And if you know me, you know I'm very task oriented. I like to set goals and

April Update

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What a crazy month it's been. I hope all of you are staying home and staying healthy. I think during this time it's both sad to see the state of the world and encouraging to see how people take care of each other. Thankfully, my experience in the ministry at Collin FOCUS has been almost entirely the latter. It is still a really strong season and I'm so blessed by the girls I work with. We've continued with our same schedule and groups, but we've switched everything to virtual. So basically I'm now a Zoom expert, as are all of you I'm sure. Here are a few specific pictures and updates on what we've been doing. Virtual peer team meeting with our small group leaders Claire, Vanessa, Shannon. I've definitely mentioned them before. They're still pretty cool. Both of these are from the same core meeting, it was just on Google Meet, which only allows you to see four people at a time. But aren't they all so cute? Ugh I love these girls. 

March update/exciting life update!

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Hi all! I have exciting news I'd like to share with you, but before I get to that, I wanted to give you the background. This goes all the way back to late high school, but I'll be quick. Scroll to the bottom if you want the news without the pictures. 😉 (Also, if you're new to my email list or blog, they're usually a lot more specific to ministry, but I'm making an exception. Check out previous blog posts if you want to know more about my ministry!) My senior year, I was trying to figure out what to do with my life and I had two options. I either wanted to study Bible at Liberty University in Virginia to do some sort of ministry or study math at UTD to be a math teacher. I entered a random drawing for a huge scholarship at Liberty and I won. So it seemed like my choice was made! I made plans to move to Virginia. But at the last minute (like in July - literally the last minute) the scholarship fell through and I was devastated. By that fall, it was clear that I w

February Update

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Hi all. This month has been an intense one for our ministry. Over the break, we had a lot of students just making some sinful decisions, and it has all been coming out slowly since we got back to school. I'm here to ask for your prayers. In December, several students sinned and gradually confessed these things over the next few months. This has happened plenty of times before in college ministry, but it seemed to be more than usual. In response, the staff decided that we wanted to hit it with everything we've got. We're doing a sermon series on sin and confession, we talked about it in the leader meeting, we are having them lead small groups around the topic, and everyone is instructed to go through 1 John 1:5-10 with anyone who studies with them one-on-one, confessing their own sins and asking other people to do the same. I do want to note, though, that we are not entirely discouraged. In any given group of college students, there are always students sinning i

January Update

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Hi all! Happy New Year! I wanted to give you a couple updates from this last month. For starters, we wrapped up the year with an awesome Christmas party, which included a fort building competition. Our igloo fort (pictured below, but not very well...) was actually adorable, and apparently it didn't win because it was too short. But it's fine, we're preparing for a comeback next year. Maserati, me, Hailey, Lauren, Miranda, Jasa and Vanessa with our igloo fort Same peeps being weirdos. Love them all. Since then, we've all been on break, and I got to go to Colorado to visit my family. It was lovely and snowy and I'd missed them a lot so it was great to see them.  The whole fam: parents, siblings, cousins, grandparents, boyfriend. It was a good time. Finally, we started off this semester with our annual all staff retreat. We spent the four days together hanging out, doing worship and in Q&A sessions with Brady and Shirley Bobbink who have be

December update

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Today, December 3rd, is our annual Keep FOCUS Growing fundraiser! We do it every year on giving Tuesday, because Facebook uses that day to waive all transactions fees for online donations. We are trying to raise money for staff salary shortfalls, outreach budgets, supplies, administrators and much more. Some generous donors have agreed to match up to a total of $36,000 in donations to the FOCUS ministry today only. If that's something you'd like to participate in, please go to our Facebook page and donate. Also, if you're reading this before 1:30, I'll be going live on Facebook at that time to tell you more about it!  In other news, the Collin ministry is still going amazingly and I'm loving it. I wanted to give you a specific few highlights from this month. I would also like to formally apologize because I am terrible at remembering to take pictures of people.  1. I'm finishing a Focus on Jesus study with my sweet and incredibly faithful friend Laur

November Update

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Ministry is great and I have so much to be thankful for, but honestly, it's also pretty rough sometimes and this month, I have a lot of prayer requests. I want to tell you about what God's been teaching me, a few great blessings, and then share some more difficult things. First, something God's been teaching me about - suffering for the sake of Christ This is an ongoing discussion we've been having as a staff team. My biggest question was, what if my life is just going great? Does that mean I'm not following God well? I've been praying about it and earlier this month I feel like God answered me. There were several days back to back when I felt particularly burdened by other people's struggles. And I realized that that is part of suffering for Christ. We should put ourselves in situations where we risk getting hurt sometimes if we're doing it to love other people. And I don't say that to preach at you. It was a pretty shocking realization to me, be