January Update

Hey everyone! I'm super excited to catch you up on January, it was an exciting month that can't help but make me thankful. So before I jump into that, I wanted to open up with a prayer of thankfulness. 

Lord you are so good to me! Thank you for this month where you revealed yourself in new ways to me and the people around me. Thank you for such sweet and fun students to meet with who are eager to know and love you, and to be my friend. Thank you for all the people in my life who generously pour time, energy, and money into loving me and loving college students. You are an extravagant giver, it is impossible to articulate all the ways you bless and care for me. May I reflect this attribute of your nature to the people around me.  Amen.

To kick off the month, before students got back into town, myself and my fellow apprentice's decided to plan several hang outs to build relationally with each other! We were able to get almost all 19 of us together to play Whirlyball- which is like a cross between basketball and wiffle ball but in go carts, and my roommates and I were able to host most of the girls at our apartment for a movie night. These were really meaningful times that we got to catch up on each others lives and have fun together. Generally we only get to see each other in classes so there just isn't a ton of time to build closer relationships. Each one of these people reflect Jesus to me and I am blessed to be able to work with them. 

Worship at Winter Camp

Which brings me to the big thing I want to share with you guys for this month, Winter Camp!! This is a four day weekend retreat with all of our FOCUS campuses across DFW, we bring in a guest speaker who teaches us and our students during a variety of sessions through out the weekend. Our speaker this weekend was Rikk Watts! He is a professor at Regent College in Canada, we were blessed to have someone as passionate and as incredibly gifted as him here with us. When we aren't in a session with Rikk, students get to hang out with their cores and even people from other campuses. It is such a neat weekend that helps our students see that God's vision extends far beyond them and their core or even their campus. I always walk away from Winter Camp with sense of awe and amazement after seeing how many people and campuses God is powerfully transforming. I loved getting to build deeper friendships with my core and watch them build deeper friendships with each other too. 

    This weekend also helps our students pursue God with their heart as well as their mind, Rikk's teaching definitely stretched me but I will be chewing on them for a long time. Something Rikk said that I want to continue to think about is the idea that "It is the Gospels not reason, that taught us that all people matter." Rikk's whole point this weekend was that the Gospel has won. This means that idea's and values from Jesus's teachings have radically impacted our world today, things like fighting against racism and exploitation of specific people groups is the result of Jesus's teachings permeating our world, not the result of reason. The Gospel has won. I want to think about this more, like I said, a lot of his teaching stretched me but it left me with a lot to chew on. 

Here are some fun pictures and videos from winter camp!

The girls in core who came to winter camp!
L to R: Kendry, Cassidy, Ashlie, Molly, and Lizzy. 

Lizzy and I 

Some of the UTA gals who came to winter camp. 
Love these girls, their friendship blesses me immensely!

Some more UTA girls, Jacie and Kodi with Lizzy and I.

This is a video Molly made to recap her experience at winter camp. I thought it was sweet and wanted to share it with y'all to help paint a picture of what it is like :)

 

    I wanted to leave you all with an invitation! I want to personally invite each of you to an event FOCUS hosts every year called, Spring Showcase! Each year hundreds of our college students are invited to attend the Student Institute of Campus Ministry (SICM) in Bellingham Washington, where they learn the foundations of being student missionaries on their campus. If you remember SICM from my August Update this is what I'm talking about! To help offset the cost of this leadership opportunity for our students, FOCUS hosts this annual benefit concert and artisan market. I will also be selling my pottery at the market as well to help raise money for SICM. This is such an exciting opportunity for these students, if you are local please consider attending, if you are not there is still a place to scholarship a student on the link I'm including. You can purchase tickets and scholarship students here! I hope to see you there, let me know if you have any questions! 

Thank you all for all you do to love and support me, and for your heart for bringing God's Kingdom to the college campus. Love y'all, 

Sophie