Friends and family,
I'm so excited to share this update with you! August has been an absolute sprint and such a blast.
We started off with a retreat for our staff! What a cool and passionate team I get to work with. They push me to be better and to pursue real discipleship to Jesus.
Then we jumped straight into welcome week, which really ended up being welcome month! This is our time to invite new students into community on campus with the hopes that they will catch a vision for the gospel and the kingdom God is building. I'm struggling to find the words to describe how good this month has been. We've met so many people where all we have to do is mention Jesus and they are chomping at the bit to get involved. So many people are intrigued by Jesus right now. We prayed for God to go before us and prepare people's hearts and He has gone above and beyond.
After the first week at UNT, we took our corefas (student leaders) on a retreat to build them up as a team and do some leadership training. These students impress me so much, their willingness to give up so much of their time to serve others is truly inspirational. And they are just a ton of fun!Owen loved hanging out with his college friends.
And his bestie, Eli.
Our TWU corefas, minus two. These girls have already been such a blessing to their campus and to me!
We got to baptize a couple of the corefas and pray for them as a team. What a cool way to kick off the year.
After retreat, we got right back to meeting new students!
Becca, Owen and I hosted trivia.
And we made prayer vision boards.
...and painted a flower garden. We like crafts a lot at TWU, okay?
TWU stands for Texas Woman's University, which means that somewhere between 80 and 90% of students are women. But these guys showed up consistently to meet the guys on campus. Their faithfulness was such an encouragement and they ended up meeting so many guys who were interested in community and Jesus.
We served free coffee during the first week of school as a way to bless the students!
The babies were the biggest attraction, of course.
Okay okay, we did another craft - we painted tiny pots and cactus rocks!
Orr corefas' faithful work came to fruition at our first Thursday Night Fellowship (TNF) where we were bursting out of the room with close to 300 people.
Finding a room on campus that would hold us was a real challenge but again we saw the Lord provide. The next week we were able to meet in a bigger room and the energy and life in the room was crazy. This is the liveliest group I think I've experienced in ministry in almost 10 years. But the thing is, it's not performative. As a whole these students are genuinely worshipping the Lord and wanting to submit their lives to Him.
The last few weeks have been a whirlwind - retreats, campus events and hangouts, planning, praying, so much talking. Owen started daycare a couple days a week, seems to enjoy it, and got his first cold. I left him overnight for the first time during staff retreat and while that was hard, I got to actually retreat with God and work through big feelings with Him. That was a breath of fresh air.
I know you all have so much on your plate but I hope you are encouraged by how active and present God is on these campuses. Whatever you have going on, know that the Lord is just as present with you.
Thank you for your prayers and support. They mean so much to these students and to me. Let me know how I can be praying for you!
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