Good News!

For those of you that I haven't told, I would like to take this opportunity to share some great news! As my internship year is coming to a close I have had to prayerfully consider what my next step will be. Thankfully the FOCUS staff has offered me the opportunity to continue in college ministry as a second year intern! I will be completing my second year internship at Collin College, one of the community colleges where FOCUS is working. That means at the end of the summer I will be moving back to the Plano area. I will be sad to leave Denton but I am so thankful for the time I have had to do ministry here. This summer I will be working hard at fundraising again for the coming year. I hope that you will also prayerfully consider continuing your support and partnership with me as I continue in ministry. I will have more details as the summer gets closer!

SSI Week

As I mentioned in my last post, we had SSI week (Student Spring Impact) March 24th through the 29th. SSI happens once a year when students from Campus Christian Fellowship at Western Washington University come to Texas for their Spring Break to do evangelism at our campuses. We had 18 students and 3 interns come to stay with us last week, some of whom had never even been to Texas before! They were able to visit all 6 of the campuses where FOCUS is, which meant a lot of traveling throughout the week. At the UNT campus our theme was "Questioning God." I know at first that topic seems a little unusual, but we really wanted to attract all kinds of people to participate in spiritual conversations with us. It turned out to be a great success! All week long we paired our Washington student visitors up with our UNT students to do conversational evangelism around our displays. We had two whiteboards available for people to write down questions that they had about God or for God. We also had some quotes from famous Christians and atheists displayed, as well as some deep and puzzling questions as examples. Many Christians on campus were a little confused by our approach...some of them thought that we were members of an atheist organization.

The non-Christians on campus were intrigued by our willingness to ask questions and admit that we didn't have all the answers. I was able to have several conversations with non-Christians who were open to the possibility of God. I had one hour-long conversation with a non-Christian UNT student who said that our conversation helped change her mind about Christians and their ability to engage in spiritual conversation without judgment or forcing their beliefs. I had another conversation with a Christian student who said he has been afraid to evangelize on campus. I encouraged him that he could do the same thing with God's power behind him! I also spoke with Christians who encouraged our efforts and said they were so glad we were spreading God's word on campus.

The week was very challenging but also really fun! I was able to learn a lot from the conversations I had. Having the Washington students out there with us was incredibly encouraging. I learned a lot from their boldness and their service to our campus. Praise God for an awesome experience!

Some FOCUS staff with SSI students
 (I'm on the bottom left)

I wish I had room for all the neat stories from last week! If you want to read more, please visit the other FOCUS staff blogs. Thanks for reading! I greatly appreciate your continued support and prayers! Please email me with any prayer requests you have. 

Much love! <3