Beginning and Deepening Relationships

Winter Camp was a huge success! We had hundred of students from campuses all over the DFW metroplex come worship God for four days in a row. Each day we had one or two sessions with worship before and a guest speaker, John Stackhouse from Regent University. The talks were incredibly powerful and if you're interested in checking them out, they're available here. (They're actually pretty short and inspirational. I'd most recommend the Sunday night one.) Two girls from our small group (Wulan and Nathalie) came, and the four of us (two of them plus Ada and I) were able to grow a lot closer together.

This is during one of our worship services at camp

(If you want to hear the songs we sang all during camp, here's a Spotify playlist of the whole thing!)

John Stackhouse speaking at Winter Camp 

We had a particularly bonding experience at the Sunday night service. Every few years, we do a lament service at Winter Camp, where we give people space to grieve things they've lost, and the community supports them. This year, we had six different people share their personal testimonies. It was particularly emotional and there was a whole lot of crying, but I think it was able to bring people a lot closer together, and I know some of the girls from my core had conversations they would not have had otherwise. If you could pray for the people impacted by that night, I think it is needed and would be greatly appreciated.

This month, we came up with a new idea for outreach. On one side of the board, we asked people to write down on a notecard something that makes them anxious, then we hung it up with a clothespin. On the other side, we had notecards with notes that were funny or encouraging or both. They said things like "Trust God," "You can do this!" "But did you die???" and "If you survive today, you never have to survive another today again." Some people wanted to take an encouragement and others wanted to write a note for someone else. I think it was really successful! Some people stuck around for an hour or more just asking questions about us.

Some of our students (Ben and Andrea) participating in outreach

Thanks so much for reading and for supporting this ministry! I appreciate all of you and your prayers. This month, the biggest thing I'd like prayer for is our invitations to SICM (Student Institute of Campus Ministry). It's a week long training we have in Washington state that we send all of our potential student leaders to. It's not until May, but we are inviting people now, so I'd love prayer that we make the right decisions and that the right people get the opportunity and are able to raise the funds to go! Thank you!