Good News from August!

 

Happy September! 

This is always my favorite update of the year to give, it's always one I feel is best captured in pictures. This was one of our best welcome weeks yet and one of my personal favorites. The attitudes and investment of our student leaders was at an all time high, the earnest desire for friendship from new students on campus was palpable, and the gift of the good news of Jesus was shared with many over the last several weeks. Thank you for continuing to make reaching students at UTA possible, my gratitude increasingly grows as the days pass. 

I had so many pictures I decided to make a few collages so you could really get a snapshot of what the last few weeks have looked like :) 

TNF

This is a look at our first large group meeting! We call it TNF (Thursday Night Fellowship), this was our biggest turn out ever, we had about 160 students there. Afterwards we went to an arcade to hang out. This was such an encouraging night, and  every Thursday since has been incredibly humbling and encouraging. God is clearly at work on this campus, I'm so thankful for our students faithfulness to bring others in. 

Welcome Week Events

This was one of our most popular events, a petting zoo!! This was such a fun way to connect with new students. A herd of goats and a pony is generally a sure way to attract attention on a college campus. 

This is a combination of a few events, just wanted to give a glimpse of what our week looks like! We did everything from lawn games to waffles to try and meet and connect with students these last several weeks. In these pictures you can see a few of some of our student leaders too! Graham is playing with Josh and Kamaal in the top left, right below him is Sarah taking a selfie with some girls, right below her is Dom with (fake) axe throwing, then in the bottom right is Kamaal again and right above him is another Sarah! I'm so proud of them all and touched by their commitment to bringing Jesus to their peers. I'm so excited for our leader team this year! 

Core

This is really one of the biggest parts of the first week of school, all the students we have connected with are invited to what we call core! Core are our weekly, gender specific small groups led by our student leaders and some campus pastors. We call them core because they really are the 'core' or heart of our ministry, this is where real relationships and connections are forged. It is always so exciting to see the immediate fruit of our labor during the first week of core, I'm always blown away by how faithful God is and who he connects us to. These are SOME of the first cores from last week!! These are the faces of the people we have been in prayer for all summer, I'm sure you will see many of them in my future updates. 

An Ask for Prayer: 

These last few weeks have been filled with such good news,  and I hope you will join me in praising God for it. However I did want to make you aware of a few things going on and ask that you join me in prayer. The past few days have been somewhat discouraging and frustrating. I think that our ministry at UTA is dealing with something spiritual that is breeding division and negativity, it's seems like something is at work to wreak havoc on our unity and relationships with each other. Something bigger than just the sinfulness of one or two people. Why wouldn't the enemy want to tear down what we are building here? I can’t recall a year where I have dealt with as much drama, complaining, and out of character behavior this early in the school year. I don’t want to disclose more than that, but suffice it to say that I welcome your prayers! Would you please pray over our students and staff that the Lord would protect them from a spirit of negativity and division and that they would have wisdom and discernment? 

Grateful to have you as a partner in the Gospel, thank you for making these stories and experiences possible. 

Sophie