Praise to the King, His Throne Transcends

So the past month has been a busy one! (Has there been a laid-back one yet?) Three of my coworkers have gotten married (two to each other) and it's been an exciting season of change for the staff. Above is one of our student testimonies that we do every month. Josh is one of the students that I lead a core group with when I was a student! He is such a sweet guy, servant-hearted, and concerned for the things of God. 

SMU Prayer Meeting

"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us." 1 John 5:14

It finally happened! We kicked off our first meeting at Southern Methodist University this month. We had a small gathering of students from our communities bringing friends they knew attending SMU and we had a night of casting the vision, worship, and prayer. Please continue to pray as we follow God's hand faithfully at this new campus. 

Future Student Leaders!

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." Galatians 6:9

We've poured in a lot of energy this past month into identifying and inviting students who we see God powerfully shaping into potential student leaders. It has been so fun to meet and get to know these students that our current student leaders have been so excited about. Please pray that God continues to provide workers for his harvest here at UTD, and that we are attentive to who he is calling. 

Keep FOCUS Growing

"For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that my name may be there forever, and my eyes and my heart will be there perpetually." 2 Chronicles 7:16

We wrapped up our Keep FOCUS Growing campaign for this year and made $48,000 of our $55,000 goal! It has been such a nice change of pace to work on this campaign this year. I have enjoyed learning how to direct and shoot videos, how to edit and produce them, and just hearing the stories that are happening on our other campuses and how they've impacted donors has been such a blessing. Big shout out to my work buddy, Sarah Hubbard (now Glenesk) for directing them with me, and my very good friend Sean Do for volunteering so many hours to come with us to shoot and edit these videos! Be sure to watch our thank you video here. I'm very proud of this one!

Thank You!

"May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace. Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God. Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy," Philippians 1:2-4

A lot of what I've done this month has just been mundane but tiring kingdom work. Nothing flashy, nothing that has quantifiable numbers to prove its success, no big story to write home about. However, it has been such a joy to meet so many new guys who are excited about being a part of campus ministry. So often I've heard people say that they're experiencing community like they've never experienced in their life before. This is why we do it. This is why I do it. Because I've experienced the love of Christ so much in this community. Through surprise birthday parties, massive birthday parties, weddings, Chinese new year parties, celebrating other cultures, making new friends and being able to catch up with old, watching people grow as men and women of god, watching people grow as husbands and wives, as servants and disciples, to see them think differently about life and choose Jesus, and to watch all of that in myself as well. There is nothing that could make me think that this wasn't worth it. So thank you all so much for being a part of this, for allowing me to be able to witness this and be a part of God's work here. Thank you for your faithfulness, your love and support, and your friendship. You all mean so much to me, and I hope I'm able to continue to communicate that to you as long as I am able.