Spring!
Spring Student Impact
This last month we had 12 students from Washington state come and help us do outreach on our UNT, TWU and NCTC campuses. This was their Spring Break in Washington, so they chose to use their break as an opportunity to learn and practice reaching out to fellow college students so that they could take those skills back with them. We call this week Spring Student Impact (SSI). Below I have lots of pictures that hopefully help outline what this week is like for them.
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| Our twelve Washington students! |
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| Outreach display at UNT. We met so many students and our FOCUS students did a great job in jumping in and having conversations with people too. |
Our main way of developing conversations with students during this week is though these display boards. We had display boards like these set up at all our campuses for most of the day everyday that week. We had different questions displayed for students to respond to throughout the week. Here in the picture you can see the questions, "How are you personally sorry for the ways you have misrepresented Christ?" and "How have you been personally hurt by a Christian?". These questions are meant to gauge conversation with Christians and non-Christians. Our goal is to bring up questions that challenge all of us and move us to a place of understanding and humility. With this approach students are much more likely to stop and have a deep conversation about religion when they know we aren't there to argue, but to have a conversation and lead each other to a better understanding of who God is.
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| Some of our FOCUS UNT students and Washington students after outreach one day. |
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| Display board at NCTC. I realized this picture looks like I might be having a heated conversation with the guy in the green and white. We were actually having a really great conversation and he has been coming to our small group the last couple weeks! |
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| We also offered prayer for anyone. This is at NCTC as well. |
Spring Showcase
Thank you, to all who attended the Showcase, preformed or donated artwork! It was such a successful event. All the money we raised from this event will go to sending our students to Washington state to lean more about discipleship and campus ministry this summer. We have a strong relationship with another campus ministry in Bellingham Washington. We do a lot to support each other. They send students every spring break to learn how we do campus outreach and we send students to them every summer to learn more about discipleship and campus ministry. We will send around 100 students to them this summer! We call this trip in the summer SICM (Student Institute of Campus Ministry). On this trip our students will participate in classes lead by their ministers and learn about, one-on-one bible study, group bible study, outreach/evangelism and more! So again thank for supporting these students!
These are some of our students at the Showcase. Some of these students went to SICM last summer and some will be attending this year!
Student Testimony
I really hope you take the time each month to read these testimonies. Out of everything I include in these monthly newsletters the testimonies are the one thing you shouldn't miss reading. These are the stories of how your support is impacting college students! We ask students every month from our various campuses to write a personally testimony that we can share directly with you. This months testimony is by a student I've talked to you about before and who I care a ton about. I've been meeting with him for a couple years now and have seen God grow and shape him. He is a strong disciple reaching out to our NCTC campus. He cares a ton for people and has worked really hard the last couple years to get back in school and at the same time love on those around him.
"When I first moved to Denton, I wanted to find a church group that I could connect with like the one I had back home. I prayed fairly frequently for a church at first, but after a few months I gave up. I started to feel extremely lonely and somewhat depressed without my former church family nearby. A little over a year later, I was invited to FOCUS by my roommate, Brad. At that point I wasn’t a student so I felt strange going to FOCUS. But Brad was persistent, and he invited me to his Core as well. It was in that Core that I began to feel the sense of community I had lost. I had a group of guys opening up to me and giving me the opportunity to do the same. My Corefa asked me about my plans and goals for the future and I told him, at that time, I didn't really plan for the future. He asked me about school, and I told him I wasn't interested in school. I thought it was silly and a financial waste. He brought this conversation up multiple times, and I always shut him down by telling him I had no reason to go to school, but I could tell it was important to him. I finally asked him why he cared so much about something I could care less about, and he told me he cared about my future. I finally decided to hear him out and he started talking to me about North Central Texas College. We researched NCTC
together and found it had programs I was interested in. We also knew that FOCUS was wanting to build a ministry there. I was afraid to become a student, still using finances as an excuse, but so many people were willing to walk me through the financial aid process. After making the decision to become an NCTC student, I committed to being a leader as well. God not only answered my prayer for community, but also radically changed my life as a student and a disciple."
Jon Smith (First Year, North Central Texas College, Web Design)
Prayer
- New Apprentices: for their fundraising to be at 100% by or before August 1st. For boldness and peace. For their hearts to be prepared for what the Lord would have them learn this year.
- SSI: Praise God that it went so well and that so many got to hear the Good News! For the Lord to continue to work in the hearts of all of the students who participated in any way.
- Fundraising Season: many of our staff, including myself, are beginning to work on raising their funds for this next year. Pray that the Lord provides abundantly so we can all be full-time on campus without worrying about finances.
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