August: It's the CRAZIEST time of the year!

 Hello!

It's been a while since I've last written. We had our weeks of welcome, our first couple of Friday Night Fellowships, meetings with peer team girls... it's been a blur. But so, so sweet. I realize some of this terminology may be confusing, so here's a guide to some of our FOCUS "lingo":

Friday Night Fellowship! 

Friday Night Fellowship (or FNF) is our weekly meeting with everyone involved in FOCUS! All of our staff and students come together for a service with worship, an announcement time, and a sermon. We also hang out after and it's super fun :) Here are some photos from our FNF Kickoff! It was so great to be all together again after a long year and a half with COVID. Getting to do FNF on campus is amazing! 

Core

Cores are our weekly small groups where people build deep friendships and learn about the Bible/Jesus together. They are split into guys and girls and stay the same throughout the school year! 

Corefa(s)

A corefa is one of our student leaders who volunteers to help facilitate a core. There are two corefas in each core who work together to create lesson plans and facilitate hangouts between their members! It's about 10 hours a week that they commit to when they volunteer for this position in our ministry. We could not do what we do on campus without them! 

Peer Team

Peer Team is where a group of our corefas get to be poured into by one of our campus pastors. I have 8 amazing girls in my peer team this year! (4 pairs of corefas). I also get to take 2 girls for this semester because their peer team leader, and my fellow staff member, had a baby!! So I will have 10 girls in my peer team this semester, and I am pumped. We will meet every other week all together, and then I meet with each pair of girls weekly to pour into them and support them in their ministry this year. I'll try and get some photos of them so y'all can (virtually) meet them :)

We made it through all the terminology! Hopefully that will be helpful in later blogs, as I will mention these words a lot.

Welcome Week Overview

Thank you to all of you who prayed for our weeks of welcome! We met SO many students who were interested in friendship and community. We did events every day for about 13 days straight. It was tiring but really paid off. It was hard to remember to get pictures, but here is one from one of the game nights we did in the residence halls! 

Prayer Requests:

-We have our Fall Retreat this weekend! We invite all of our students to come and spend their Saturday/Sunday morning at a camp about 45 minutes from UTD. We eat together, fellowship, worship, and hear testimonies from 8 of our students! Please pray that whoever is able to make it will come, that God will prepare all of our hearts for what He wants to do in us this weekend, and that we will come away stronger as a ministry! 

 - COVID is still very much apart of our daily lives, as we are all experiencing. Please pray that we will continue to get to be on campus, and do ministry this year. It has been so sweet and special and we hope to have a full school year of this! Also for the safety of our students and staff, and anyone affected by this terrible virus. 

Thank you for your continued prayers and encouragement. I get to do what I do because of you all, and I am so grateful! See you next month!