New Beginnings

Marriage!

June was a very exciting month for me! I got married to my beautiful wife Tate, we had an incredibly fun and encouraging wedding followed by a restful and cool honeymoon in San Francisco. Now we are back and I'm hitting the ground running with prepping for ministry this coming school year.

Thank you to everyone who was able to come to the wedding and celebrate with us. Tate and I really were encouraged to see everyone there. I can't say thank you enough to our parents, friends and family for helping and for just making our wedding so special. The Lord really reminded me of how much he loves me by how kind, encouraging and generous so many of you were. Thank you again for being there and for making our wedding such a memorable day. We've already really enjoyed thinking back over that day. I wish I could live it again! Tate and I took our honeymoon in San Francisco, we just got back this past Friday. We had lots of good food, saw some really cool architecture, spent some time in the Redwoods and did plenty of resting. One of our favorite things was going and looking at antique and thrift stores. We returned with some San Fran one of a kind items! Tate and I are now living here in Denton. We are renting a house and have already begun setting things up! If you live in the area or are one of our students we plan to have you over soon!

Special thanks to Matt McElligott for the wonderful photos.

My parents and I.

Tate and her parents.

On our honeymoon, visiting the Golden Gate Bridge! We also got new hair do's in San Fran! 

Student Leadership

One of the main things you guys can be praying for is our student leader team. During the summer we begin to put together our team of leaders for the coming year. We started talking with various students and prayerfully considering who to have as leaders this coming year. We have close to 200 students that we're considering as leaders. We usually take around 40-50 students. So pray that the Lord would guide us in those conversations and that the Lord would direct those who should be in leadership this year. Here is a Testimony from one of our student leaders at Collin this coming year.

"When I came to the United States from Indonesia, I was pretty concerned about what life would be like. I immediately assumed I’d have a pretty lonely time at Collin. I heard about FOCUS but wasn’t really interested since I didn’t have a connection point. Interacting with strangers had never been my strong suit. Little did I know that God was listening and was ready to meet my needs. My first day on campus I met Graham, who told me about his involvement with FOCUS and introduced me to his friends. He followed up with me, and that was a huge way God started giving me a vision for what my life could look like. Through one-on-ones and pastoral messages, this community has taught me the impact of reflecting Christ in every word I speak and action I take. Through my friendships, I’ve been shown how we can best love one another by putting all our efforts into blessing strangers like me. I've also had the opportunity to honor God at home by getting to live with five other guys from our community. Being in FOCUS, I’ve learned that God wants to open my eyes and heart to truly be shaped into someone who loves Him and those around me in all areas of my life."

Harrison Wijaya

Collin College - Spring Creek

Finance

Freshman

Prayer

This school year we'll have a new group of pastoral apprentices coming on our staff. Please pray that God prepares them and faithfully provides all the funds for their 10 months on staff.

Please pray that the Spirit would rejuvenate our staff and student leaders and equip them as they gear up for another year of serving God and loving people on campus.