God Building Leaders For The Next Generation

June 09, 2022

Smiling atop Mt. Baker in WA

I am so excited to write to you this late blog post! Sorry about that, but thank you for your patience, for reading, and for any prayers or gifts you have given me to help make this happen.

May was such a wonderful month. As you should know from my previous blog posts, every May, FOCUS will send potential student leaders to Bellingham, Washington for a Discipleship training conference called SICM (Student Institute of Campus Ministry). Well it finally happened, and I got to go with our group of students as a chaperone. We sent about 20 students from UTA and TCC. FOCUS as a whole (meaning all campuses we are at) sent around 100 students!! God is good.

Some TCC and UTA students on the way to Pike Place Market

Taking the SeaTrac with students

We start off with some sight seeing days in Seattle, then in Bellingham before the classes start. It is a really great time for these students to make friends and memories with fellow Christians from their campus. I always love seeing the spiritual friendships that come out of SICM. I had a three guys I studied the Bible with come, and it was really sweet getting to spend some more enriching time with them. Even better than that, I got to see them and many other students become better friends with one another. These friendships are some of the most life changing over the years in college, and many of them started this trip.

FOCUS students in class at SICM

Once we get to Bellingham, we stay there for a week and every day our students are in class from 9-4 everyday learning about how they can be disciples for Christ on campus. These classes cover a variety of subjects: Evangelism, Spiritual Friendships, even practicals, like how to ask good questions! They also have a day where they practice going out and meeting people on Western Washington Universities' campus. So many of our students had never done anything like this and many were afraid to prior, but they all had such positive experiences and are excited to meet the people at their respective campuses when the Fall semester starts.

Eldrian and I at Pike Place Market. Love this guy.

Chris and I on the SeaTrac. He was very excited to come on this trip.

Chris and Eldrian are both students from TCC that I have gotten to study the Bible with. We got to stay in a house together most of the trip. Both are really nice guys, but it was so neat talking with them over the course of the week. After every class, I could tell they felt much more equipped and empowered to be disciples for Christ. Chris has told me multiple times "I never saw myself as being someone who could share God with others like this, it's honestly pretty exciting."

This is our mission as FOCUS. To make and mature disciples for Christ.

We took time to pray over each campus present, that God might use the students at SICM to reach new students to come.

The trip finished out with a field day celebration and reflection on what God had done for everyone that week. Friendships were formed, identities in Christ were found, and many of our students are talking about this next Fall and how they want to serve. Praise God.

We are now moving into the Summer. My ministry looks very different in this season, because classes are out. We spend the Summer fundraising for the next school year, reaching out to students who are still in town, and hosting Summer FOCUS, a sermon and worship night, every Thursday.

I am getting to spend a good chunk of my week studying the Bible with some of our newer TCC students. I am really looking forward to next semester, because we will have so many young student leaders ready to share their faith with incoming freshmen.

Be praying for our students, that this Summer can be a time of growth and not sliding back into their "high schooler" habits.

Thank you! Here is a good ol photo dump!