June Update

July 19, 2023

June Update

It's officially summer,

I hope the warmer months have treated you well so far. Summer is a much slower time for me, I'm able to work at a much different pace than during the school year. I've been able to slow down a lot and spend a lot more time with friends and family. I hope the same can be said for you!

It has been so cool to see how God has been active even in times when I have slowed down. Something Exciting I want to share with you all is that I have met my fundraising goal for the '23-'24 school year!! This is such a big deal, and I was blown away time and time again by your generosity and God's provision. God is providing means for me to be an active missionary on UTA's campus for a long time, through you all. That is good GOOD news! I can't help but think of the incoming generations of students and how God set's in motion things such as funding campus ministers in order to reach new students in the coming years. God's heart for those he loves is so big. It would not be possible for me (and many other campus ministers) to be on campus reaching students without your generosity and God's great love for us. THANK YOU for your generosity and prayers, God is so faithful.

Welcome Week..

L to R: Taylor, Lauren, Me, Caitlin, Chelsea

It was my birthday earlier this month and I got the chance to get together with a group of friends to celebrate. I met these four women during my first week of college six years ago. Taylor and Caitlin led a core (small group) and all of us were in it together. Since my first week of college, these friendships were some of the means that God used to vastly transform how I thought of and related God and community. Friendships like these often come to mind as I approach the first week of school in August every year. You just don't know what God is going to do. I never would've dreamed of the work God would do in me through these women.

Welcome week is less than a month away and it is always such an emotional time for me because I can't escape reminders of what God used to transform my life. I remember meeting Taylor for the first time at a board game night, I remember meeting Sarah Worsham in the cafe during lunch on the first day of school, and I remember hanging out with Caitlin after my first core. It was through women like them that God revealed himself in a new way to me. For the first time I began to understand and connect with the truth I had grown up with. It blows me away because as I think about my first welcome week as a freshman, I had no intention of connecting with them, but they had prayed and prepared to meet and disciple someone like me for a very long time. My life was changed drastically because of their faithfulness.

I always wonder who God will connect me with this welcome week. Join me in prayer for those students. Pray that God prepares the hearts and minds of the incoming freshman to encounter God and community. Pray for my mind and heart to be sharply inclined to where God is at work. Friendships like mine with these four women are the vision that I get to paint and story that I get to share with these new students, pray that it grips them and intrigues them towards the God who transforms. Pray that they come to UTA looking for God, it would be our joy to introduce them.