This is the Power of Christ in Me

Christmas

Wearing crowns because we're British now

Thank you guys so much for caring about me and praying for my holiday season. It meant a lot to hear from you. Our Christmas ended up going well. We skyped most of our family in the morning, minus the mom and dad who were with our grandma in Taiwan. And then we were welcomed into one of my friend and coworker's house for Christmas lunch. Our first Christmas as a segmented family went off as well as we could have hoped. 

Corefa Class

Taking notes in corefa class

To get ready for the semester we get all our corefas back to prepare for the new year. This time we brought in a psychiatrist from the Meier Clinic to help our students better understand mental illness, the causes, and the different ways to treat it. It was helpful to hear from a professional, one with a Christian perspective, how he views mental illness in its physical and spiritual facets. He also explained the effects of certain medicines and when he chooses to prescribe them and how he chooses to wean people off of them or keep them on indefinitely. As anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts plague this generation, our leaders face these challenges more and more. Whether it's within themselves or in their groups, the problem is pervasive and we want to equip our students to be able to handle those situations with grace and understanding.

Winter Camp

From on-stage

Look at everybody!

And finally, we kicked off our semester with our annual Winter Camp. This is the biggest event we put on all year with all of our campuses joining together for four days of retreat. As with most retreats we have services with worship and guest speakers. This year we had Geoff and Jessica Mumley from Campus Christian Fellowship at Western Washington University come and talk to our students about being sent ones. What makes this conference different is our community, how much they love each other how much they look out for each other, and how anxious they are to build new relationships and build on old ones across these campuses. It's a time for them to get a vision bigger than themselves, bigger than their small groups, and bigger than any individual campus. If our mission is to establish a ministry on every college campus in the DFW Metroplex we're going to need a lot more hands and a lot more laborers in his vineyard. Pray for students to continue catching the vision and considering that God could be calling them to a life of vocational ministry. Pray for students rising to leadership and accepting the opportunity God has given them in their college years. And pray for students who are finally taking the chance to be a part of this community and experiencing the blessings God has poured out to us.

Thank You

Our UTD Staff

Thank you all so much for your constant support. This past summer our FOCUS staff had a CRU minister come and share with us his wisdom on support-raising. He said a curious thing, would you rather have 30 donors giving for your salary or one? While it makes logical sense to not have one donor to whom you would be beholden to, what about one vs. 300 or one vs 3,000? Would I not rather have to keep track of one person than hundreds? Well this year, God has surprised me in this arena, as if to teach me something. So many of you have come out of nowhere to support me. Some without me asking, some with just a few words, and all with such joy when choosing to give. Now, without a doubt I would choose the many over the one because that means there are 3,000 people who are willing to sacrifice some of what they have for me. That is something beyond any amount of money, so thank you all so much for being in my corner and believing in the work God is doing here.