Hi friends,

The month of September was busy, fun and super rewarding! So here’s a debrief of all the cool things God has been up to in our ministry.

Fall Camp

This was my first camp with our Dallas (UTD/Richland/TWU Dallas) ministries and I was blown away by how much good can happen in only 24 hours. Since our theme for the school year is Be Brave we spent the weekend exploring the topic of bravery and how as Christians being brave means that we are choosing to trust God with our lives. During the weekend we had several of our students share different stories of points in their life they chose to be brave and trust God. This required a lot of vulnerability for those sharing because they were choosing to speak to a community of over 170 students over things that are difficult, the student testimony topics included trusting God in our anxiety, forgiveness, worship, evangelism and others. From different conversations I had with our students these testimonies were so powerful and encouraging to our community! I know for me I was so emotional and filled with gratitude throughout the testimonies because these students had chose to give up control in these areas and let the Lord work through these things and how cool that they got be an encouragement to everyone in that room to not live in fear and instead trust in our Good Father!

During our time at camp the students also got to spend time playing games, getting to know the other students and worshiping with them!

All three of our Dallas campuses (UTD/Richland/TWU Dallas) at Fall Camp
Picture of parachute and our students by Sean Do

Classes

This month was also the start to many of my apprentice classes and they have been so good! To pick a favorite one would be impossible so I’ll give you a short blurb explaining a take away from some of those classes.

Old Testament Foundations: As we are wrapping up this class, it’s crazy to think I’m almost done reading through the entire OT, I have learned so much about God’s redemptive qualities and what seemed like a scary read has only shown me more about His goodness and unconditional love for us.

New Testament in Christian Ministry: This class has helped me think through some of the things I value and believe in and has turned them upside down. I am becoming a better learner by thinking through my belief system and reshaping some of those things to help me a better minister.

Richland/UTD FOCUS:

Our Richland Wednesday morning meetings have been so great. We have around 20 students that have been coming each week to learn and build a community at that school. The students on this campus are so excited to be together every week to learn more about what it means to live life through the Spirit.

Our Friday Night FOCUS at UTD has also been so great, we have been reading through 1 Peter and we just finished wrapping up chapter one. At our last FNF meeting our students got to write out an encouragement to someone from the community that has loved them deeply so far this school year. It was so great getting to see everyone move around and give notes to each other, God is moving through these students!

Richland College FOCUS meeting!

20 Year Celebration!!

Next week October 8th, FOCUS will be celebrating their 20 year anniversary as a campus ministry. As someone who supports this ministry I would love to invite you to come see all that I talk about and meet some of the students I get to work with! This will be a time of celebrating God and reflect back on the past 20 years and to cast a vision for the next 20. You can RSVP here!

Thank You,

For your support and prayers because of you the life of so many students are being changed!

Your Friend,

Sandra