Catching Up

March 03, 2022

Catching Up

Its been a long and crazy year, but in spite of that I feel so blessed to have been a pastor in 2021. In September, I was removed from our admin team at FOCUS, and put on the ground, doing ministry with the students at UTD. Praise God that COVID was a practical nonfactor at UTD this year so that I could have my job change this way! Doing ministry with the men at UTD has been so fulfilling. I got to visit all of our student lead small groups and meet almost all of the men who are a part of FOCUS at UTD. Part of what has kept me busy the last handful of months is that I have been training a new member of our team, Angela, who has taken off my plate a lot of the more administrative things I used to have going on.

With all of that said, here is what I have been up to so far this school year.

I have been leading a small group this year for students at UTD, and that group of guys has been so cool! I have a really diverse group in terms of both race, age, and field of study. It has been such a blessing watching my guys come together and grow closer to God together. Their difference in way of thought, background, and experience has been so great for helping each other out. We have had discussions on topics such as Doubt, Shame, Prayer, and other things like that. The guys have been so vulnerable and empathetic with each other, and I have seen them be such a great blessing to our group! One guy in particular, Zhen, is from China and even though he sometimes has a hard time understanding our conversations, he is still so engaged, and cares so much about his friends in the group.

As part of taking on a larger ministry role, I have started meeting with a handful of guys who we see having the potential to step up into leadership roles in the future. One of these guys is named Angeloh. throughout the year, Angeloh has been stepping up a lot! In October he volunteered to organize one of our after events for Friday Night Fellowship, he has taken on a larger role in his small group in helping the leaders recognize needs and write plans to speak into those. This is all so cool because he is doing all of this and completely rewriting what his college experience was like before! I would also like y'all to keep him in your prayers, Angeloh is currently thinking through baptism, and I know that with prayer, God can lay on his heart the course of action He wants for Angeloh.

This year we also were blessed to get to return to Sky Ranch for our Winter Camp. We had to skip this major event last year because of the pandemic, but by the grace of God we were able to go back, and only by him, we were able to come away from the event with minimal COVID numbers. We had a professor of the New Testament from Regent College named Rikk Watts come speak to our students. We put all of his sermons on YouTube, and they can be watched here. Aside from having great teaching, the students had so much to do during free time and really seemed to make the most of it, building great friendships and having a ton of fun right before classes got back in swing.

The most recent thing that took place for us here at FOCUS was our annual Showcase fundraiser. We do this fundraiser every year to help raise money to send some high potential students to SICM (the student institute of campus ministry), which is every May in Washington state. If you would like to watch the show, or feel called to give to this cause, you can do so by clicking here! I was really blessed to see a lot of you at the event, even though for most of it I was busy with working tech.

Having my schedule settle down for the rest of the year will definitely allow me to be more consistent in keeping you all in the loop on my ministry. I appreciate you all continuing your support as I couldn't have such a fulfilling job without you all!