January Update

It snowed at winter retreat!!

 Happy New Year!! 

I hope the start of the year has treated you well, I'm so thankful we get to enter another year of helping college students know Jesus, together! School has been out, and students have been home since my last update. So I primarily wanted to share about two retreats we do in January. Let's jump in! 

Staff Retreat: 

Every January our staff all goes on a four day retreat together to connect and gear up for the semester. It is always such a meaningful time. We also read a book together over break and then we have teachings and discussions over the book while we are retreat! This year we read "To Love as God Loves" by Roberta Bondi. 

 The overwhelming message of the book is that love is the purpose of the Christian life, and humility is fundamentally how we move towards that goal. Which at first felt like really big black and white statement to get on board with, surely more nuance exists if we want to love as God does? Something that was really illuminating to me was Bondi explaining humility not as a virtue such as honesty, but as a means of relating with others. This is so easy to see when we look at how God relates to us and his people all through out time and the scriptures. I had never realized how fundamental humility is to being a Christian. If the God we follow clothed himself in the flesh of a human baby and died an innocent death, we cannot follow him closely with arrogance and self preservation. 

Winter Retreat: 

Our second retreat during January is winter retreat! This is when all of our students and staff from all of our campuses get together for four days. We usually bring in a speaker from a seminary to teach us on a specific topic, this year we brought in Dr. Lee from Fuller seminary and he spent the weekend teaching on "Disruptive Grace". If you're confused what that means, I also was confused at first. Essentially he means that God's grace is far deeper, bigger, and wider than we could ever fathom, it disrupts every part of our lives, and the way we think about God and ourselves, it is simply too good. 

It was such a meaningful weekend to be refreshed on the grace of God, and to connect with our students. Here are some pictures from retreat! 

Here are some TCC and UTA students at a fire pit on the last night of retreat. The last two days of retreat it was below freezing, so the fire was a fun treat! 

On one of the days that was not below freezing and snowy, it was beautiful! These are a few of our student leaders hanging out on the patio before lunch- L to R: Lindsay, Abi, Skylar, and Sam. All of them except Lindsay are first time corefas! Pray for them to continue growing in maturity and love for God and their peers. 

Here are some of our guys! I realized you don't get to hear much about the mens side of the ministry from me so I wanted to include a picture so you could see some of their faces. These are four of our corefas with some of the guys in their core. Pray for them and their guys in this upcoming semester! 

This isn't from winter retreat, but it is from over break! My parents moved to Washington DC around this time last year so for Christmas my brothers, sister in law, and I were able to go visit and we got to take some family pictures. I thought you may enjoy seeing an updated picture! 

Thank you! 

I am so humbled and excited to get to be partners in ministry with you in 2024. Thank you for being such tangible undeniable  evidence of God's heart for me and college students near to my heart. Your support will have an effect on so many lives and UTA itself long after my time there is over. Thank you for being so faithful and loving like God in 2023!

Love, 

Sophie