December

Emily and I getting dinner with my core guy, Alex, with his family during the break.



Merry Christmas and Happy New Year y'all! What a year 2021 was. I wanted to start this blog with saying thank you to you all. These first couple months getting to do ministry has been very life changing. Emily and I have gotten to reflect on all the change in our lives, with getting married, moving, and both of us getting to work with FOCUS together. I have grown and matured in my faith in ways that will positively affect the health of our marriage the rest of our lives. These past couple months have been priceless, and I have been very blessed to serve in them. So thank you!

Things to update you on at TCC: We finished out the school semester strong, I will be starting some new Focus on Jesus studies with 4 of the guys there, and we had an end of the year Christmas party. 

 Celebrating our fun Christmas party
L to R (Austin, Olivia, Eldrian, Kade, Jefferey, Me, Emily, Taylor, Chris, Stephen, and Rowan)

I will be studying with Austin, Chris, Kade, and Eldrian in this upcoming semester. God is good at connecting people. Very thankful to know everyone in this picture. We will continue to have core at TCC and I am looking forward to God growing these students shown here, maturing and equipping them to lead future TCC students to Christ. 

We also had a UTA Christmas party. It was a fun night with candy, karaoke, and skits. Each core got to film and present a Christmas skit for the rest of the community to vote on. My core made admittedly the most interesting skit. Here's the link if you want to share in the ridiculousness. I love getting to make memories like these with my core guys.



Coming soon in January is our first Winter Camp retreat in 2 years. Winter Camp is a time when every FOCUS Campus comes together at Sky Ranch, we invite a speaker (this year, it is theologian, Rikk Watts), worship together, and bond over meals and games. Winter camp my freshman year was a very impactful time for me. I saw God's vision for community being played out in front of me. I have been bought in ever since. So we have been actively preparing and trying to invite as many of our students that can go. I will have plenty of updates to share with you in the next blog about how Winter Camp goes. Please be praying that we are able to have Winter Camp safely, and serve our students well through it. 


This is Alex. We started FOJ earlier this semester. He invited Emily and I over for dinner during our Christmas break. We got to meet his family, see his pet bird, and hear more of his family's story. It was a sweet night. Be praying for Alex as he learns to be more open to the Spirit and to community. I am blessed to seek him out as a friend.

The only final update I have for you is that my first sermon went well! I had a really good experience writing it and preaching it. God reinforced my own testimony in new ways through the process of writing and sharing it. The sermon was all about my personal testimony: What's my Gospel! If you would like to watch I have the link here.



My First Sermon (Skip to 2hr 58min for mine)



Thank you all!


 

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