Thank You

I want to start my monthly blog by saying thank you to everyone who has been supporting me! I have been so blessed by you all, and am so grateful for the opportunity I have to work with and for the Lord because of you all. I really believe that I have the best job in the whole world, and again, I could not be more grateful for the opportunity to do this. I love serving the students at UT Dallas, and speaking on behalf of the students, thank you for investing in them! As we finished the semester, much earlier than normal, we were given lots of opportunities to be thankful, and I would love to share those in this blog. 

Our first big thing in November was "Holidays in the Park". As the only major event, we had this semester, this was our only chance to put anything major on for our students. This was a miniature version of our fall camp. We had crafts, snacks, organized games, and organized worship activities. That was just the time we spent at the park. Around dinner time, we all drove to the Northeast Church and sat out on the lawn, and had a Thanksgiving-style meal catered by Cowboy Chicken. After the dinner, and a thankfulness activity, we had a Christmas devotional and worship night. Looking back, we lost two of our major events, Fall Camp and Christmas Party, due to covid, but I think our staff and student leaders made the absolute most out of a single event. It was phenomenal. The students had a great time, nobody came away from the event with the disease, and we were able to celebrate our community and our Lord together as a large body. That is something that this year has made me extra thankful for. Just the opportunity to be with some of the students I am working with, meeting the people in their small groups, and worshiping with our body are all so much more special because of our context. Here are some great pictures from this event, credit Sean Do of Complexity Gaming:

As we wrapped up the month, our weekly Deep Dive service moved into the crucifixion. Our service was a little different as a response to this. We had a live reading of the scripture by our very own Amy Knoles, and instead of a student lead song of the week, Rhett Hayes and a former member of our community, Pico Dickenson, wrote a song about the crucifixion. If you would like to listen, it is here on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahdpYQn2Wg4. We had this service the day before Thanksgiving break started for the students. I can't think of a better topic to get to cover when moving into a time of thankfulness. What greater gift could we possibly have to be thankful for? 

Thank you again to everyone who has partnered with me in ministry. Next month I have a lot of exciting news to share, so stay tuned for that! If y'all could be praying for our students this month that would be greatly appreciated. They have 2 extra weeks of a break this year, and that means a lot of extra opportunity to fall into laziness, selfishness, and many other temptations while separate from accountability. Just pray that they keep in step with the lord, and continue to stay in touch with each other so loneliness doesn't creep in.