October Baseball Level Ministry

As a baseball fan, this time of year is when things in life get exciting, and even though it is not the wrap up of the ministry season, this is when you start really seeing some fruit bud in the people you work with. October was a month I can only really describe with highs. Most of the month that I worked on ministry was super rewarding, and the part of the month I spend celebrating my anniversary with Kelse was itself extremely rejuvenating and life-giving. 

The first week of the month was one where I was doing a lot of extra ministry meetings to cover for another one of our ministers who was out of town. I found it so cool to get to work with the small group leaders he trains and to invest some in relationships with those guys. One of the leaders he works with is a guy named Andrew. Andrew was someone who I met with some last year, and saw a ton of growth in over the course of the year. Getting to meet with him and hear how he is thinking pastorally about those guys and thinking of ways to serve them better was a big encouragement to me! 

Early in the month, after that fun week, I went on a short vacation with my wife. We had received a gift from my parents in-law, and that got us onto a cruise out of Long Beach to celebrate our 5th anniversary. It was so cool to get to do this! It was my first time in Southern California, the Pacific Ocean, and Mexico! My first day out of town in Long Beach, I got to see my long time friend Daniel. Daniel and I were students in FOCUS together, and it was my first time getting to visit him in California since he moved out there to work in the games industry. Spending the day with him was one of the highlights of the trip for sure, but it is hard to top going on a cruise with your spouse. We set sail the next day and got to visit Catalina Island, Mexico, and then spend one day on the ocean. It was a nice time to see parts of the world I had never experience, to spend time with my wife, and to finally take some time to recover from the blitz that was the start of the year. 

Kelse, Daniel, and I in Long Beach

Me and Kelse at the Wrigley Memorial in Catalina

View of Ensenada from our boat

A cool water feature we found in Ensenada.

As I returned and the month started to wind down, it became a very event focused time, luckily it was mostly others who were carrying the planning. One cool event I went to was a campus even called Pop-tober. It was a musical even where students got to pull bands together and perform their favorite pop songs through the ages. I attended because one member of my core group named Logan performed in a couple of the songs. He played guitar for a group performing "Jump" by Van Halen, and then he sang "All-star" by Smash Mouth later in the show. A lot of the guys in our group showed up to cheer him on. It was so encouraging and I was really proud of the guys in my group because Logan was definitely the most cheered for and loved performer in that whole show. He also did an incredible job in his songs! The last even of the month was right before Halloween. Our small groups had a "Trunk or Treat" competition. My group decorated my trunk as a monster called a "mimic". We didn't win, but it was really fun to be goofy with the guys and pull something off together!

Logan singing All-star at Pop-tober

My car dressed up as a Mimc

That was the highlights for October, thank you all again for helping to make doing ministry at UTD possible. So much this month has been so life-giving. I am grateful that you all and God trust me with this work, it is something I pray thanks for often! I do have two reminders to give you all this month. First is our upcoming UTD Alumni service on November 17th. If you went to UTD, please join us that night at 7:30 for a service both celebrating your contribution to our ministry, and the development of our ministry since you all left your fingerprints on it! Also coming up is our annual Keep FOCUS Growing campaign. I will be posting another update about that later this month, but please be praying about how you can help us with this goal. We are very close to fully launching at TCU in the next year or two, and as we build toward that, it is important that we will be able to fund our farthest west endeavor.