Danielle's April Update

Before I tell you about what our ministry has been up to this past month, I first want to remind you of our fundraiser Spring Showcase! This entertaining event is happening tomorrow! You won't want to miss it this year! Here are the details again:

Tomorrow, April 2nd, 2016

Art sale begins at 6:30

Concert begins at 7:30

North Dallas Community Bible Fellowship

Purchase tickets online here or at the door

Tickets are $20 for adults

This event is to help raise funds for our students who can't afford SICM. There will be art sale with pieces that have been donated by some of our SICM students and other members of our community. You have to get there at 6:30 if you want to get your favorites! Last year I waited too long to purchase a picture of a squirrel that I loved, and now it's hanging on my friend's wall instead. Moral of the story: get there early! The concert will include vocal and instrumental performances by some of our most talented students. Please consider attending (or even donating to) this special event!

Okay, so now that you're going to Showcase, let me tell you about March in FOCUS. For all the Collin FOCUS parents that may be reading, I want to thank you for coming to our Parent Night this past month! We love meeting the families of the students that we work with, and especially getting to see who looks like which parent :)

Garrett speaking at Parent Night

Every year after Spring Break, we host a group of students from Western Washington University who have chosen to spend their break reaching out to students on our campuses. They call this SSI (Spring Student Impact). This is also a great time for our students to continue engaging the campus in spiritual conversation, as we do every week. We had display boards with questions like: "When you die, you rot! But does the real you disappear?" and "Everyone talks about love. What does it really look like?" The goal is simply to create an environment where people can talk openly about spiritual things, as well as get the chance to learn more about God if they choose.

Having the Washington students reach out on our campuses is really encouraging. One of them (his name is Austin) told us a story about a guy he met at UNT three years ago when he came to Texas for the first time with SSI. Austin remembered that the guy was blind and was sitting on a bench in the middle of campus. He felt the Spirit drawing him to this student so he stopped and asked if he could pray for him. The student declined but they ended up having a long conversation about life and spiritual things. Well, Austin had the opportunity to run into the same guy at UNT, who happened to remember him too! The student still wasn't interested in talking about Jesus, but this served as an encouraging reminder to Austin the lengths that God is willing to go to show how much he loves his people. What a neat story! God is constantly pursuing us, even those that have yet to give their lives to Him. Praise God for his goodness!

One last bit of news I'm excited to share with you: Just a couple of weeks ago I got engaged to my sweetie, Matt Clark. We are getting married in July and we couldn't be more excited! Over the summer I'll be moving to Denton and will start working with the Denton FOCUS team, primarily at Texas Woman's University. I'm sad to be leaving Collin College but am looking forward to an exciting new beginning. For those of you who have been on my support team for a while, you may remember that I completed my internship year in Denton at UNT. I'm so thankful that I'll be going back and get to make relationships with a bunch of new students! Please pray for me during this time of wedding planning, which can often become pretty stressful.

I get to marry this guy!

Much love to you and thanks for reading!