July: Let's Do This!

Hello and welcome to my blog! 

Since it's the start of another school year, I thought I'd take a minute and explain what this is all about. I'll be using this blog to help keep you, my friends and family, updated on my life as a campus minister. This is really one of my favorite parts of the month because I get to take a step back and reflect on what the Lord has done over the previous month and brag on how good God is. I hope you find these encouraging, too! This will also be how I share prayer requests and I'd appreciate your help and support in praying for the things going on. Feel free to respond at any time and let me know if there's any way I can be praying for you, too!

Here's a random picture from my honeymoon because I think it's pretty.

Getting ready for another semester!

For as long as I can remember, I have loved the anticipation of starting another school year. I'm obsessed with school supplies (thanks, mom!) and I am always ready for any excuse to reorganize my life. I also happen to love school. This is my second August since graduating college so I don't quite get that same anticipation but working with college students means I somewhat follow their schedule. The summer is a strange time for a college minister because a lot of the students we would minister to leave town. We don't have as many planned events so there just aren't as many demands on our schedule. 

One event we did have in July was Pizza Theology! This is a really cool thing where we take a decent chunk of time - four hours - and spend it diving into one topic and also enjoy pizza because who doesn't love pizza. This summer, Bill Watson walked us through Philippians. The Philippians really are an amazing example of an imperfect community pursuing Jesus and loving people.

The majority of my time this summer has been devoted to raising my financial support for my salary and hanging out with students and other staff. It's been really great to get to slow down, reflect over the last year, and get ready for the next one. It's also really been helpful since I just got married to have some extra time to adjust to that life change with Jon! 

Didn't Hayli Gage do an amazing job on these pictures?? 

We honeymooned in Broken Bow, OK. What a great little getaway it was!

I really am so excited to jump into the school year in a couple of weeks. I've loved the slower pace, but now I'm ready to have some structure back as well as to get going with meeting new students investing in them!

Ways you can pray!

- Welcome week! Welcome week is what we call the week before school starts (so, the 17th-24th). At UNT, freshmen are required to be there during that week and participate in sessions and events geared towards getting them ready for their first year in college. This is a great opportunity for our ministry to reach out and invite new people into community and friendship. Freshmen, as well as a lot of other college students, have a track record for being pretty lonely but we often find that people are most ready to try things out and talk to new people during those first weeks before all the pressures of school hits. Please pray that God would start reaching out to the students who are going to be on the UNT, TWU, and NCTC campuses this year now and prepare their hearts for friendship and community. Pray that during welcome week, we would be diligent and welcome every student we encounter. Pray that hearts would be ready to hear the Gospel, whether for the first time or with fresh ears.

- Pray for the students who are currently a part of our ministry. Ask the Lord to be setting them up well to see him in deeper ways this semester so that they would be strengthened in their faith. 

- Pray for our Denton staff. We've had a lot of fun so far but we're a new team working together and many of us have experienced some pretty big life transitions recently. Pray that we would all press into the Lord and let him be our foundation, both personally and in ministry.'

- As an update, I'm at about 86% funded, which is amazing! The Lord has really blessed me a lot through this summer and shown up in some cool ways! Right now I am praying for four people to join my team at $100 a month. I would very much appreciate you joining me in prayer for that. 

Thank you so much for partnering with me in ministry! I'm looking forward to being a part of God's kingdom work with you!

Here's a testimony about that work from an alumnus of UNT!

Love y'all,

Reagann Smith