August Update Part Two!

Hi everyone! I'm so excited to share with you about the last few weeks so I'll go ahead and jump right in! The day after I sent out my last update, I left to go attend SICM ( Student Institute of Campus Ministry ) along with about 200 of our students from all our different campuses.

These are most of our UT Arlington girls who attended SICM! It was so neat to get to spend the week with them learning about our God, his vision for us, our campuses, and our friendships. They are all so special to me. Attending SICM is really like trying to drink out of a fire hydrant and hoping to get as much as you can, there was such amazing teaching there by our Campus Pastors! I am still chewing on two ideas from some of those teachings. 1. Intimacy with Jesus will always lead to being sent out. 2. If the people you are reaching out to can't break your heart, you are not loving them enough. Overall both of those ideas were incredibly convicting and helpful as I prepared for welcome week at UTA. I could give you a lot of thoughts on both of those ideas, but I still have so much more to talk about! Quickly though, here are some other pictures from SICM:

This is my friend Juli, she is a student leader who attended SICM. Be praying for her as she leads this year and enters her first year of Nursing school!

These are some more of our student leaders that attended SICM ( L to R: Sam, Me, Lindsay, and Morgan).

After we got back from SICM, we hit the ground running at UTA. Since the 20th, all of our campus pastors and student leaders have been attending and hosting a ton of events at UTA in hopes of meeting people who are looking for christain community and hungry for friendship (and those who aren't!). This picture is from one night we played lawn games and met a lot of students just by being present on campus!

This week and last week have been so encouraging and have highlighted how desperately people are looking for friends and belonging, it has been a privilege to get to meet that need so quickly. The picture above is from one of our biggest events, as you can see the room is packed out! This is my fourth year participating in welcome week at UTA and the reciprocity and eagerness from new students is unlike any other year I have experienced. God has placed an abundance of people at our fingertips and I am so excited to see how God will grow and use these students!

Fittingly, I will leave you with some of the fruit from welcome week, this week I had my first core for the year and these are the girls that came!! Cores are same-gender groups facilitated by student leaders and campus pastors, they foster the chance to share closely in each other’s lives and learn about God. Eleven girls came to our first core of the year which is so encouraging!! Please pray for God to move deeply and that he would use this year to transform their affection for him and his people, regardless of where they are at right now. Also please pray for me and my co-leader Lizzy ( she is in the gray shirt right behind me) as we lead this sweet group this year. Thank you so much for partnering with me this year, these girls are the recipients of your generosity and investment just as much as I am!