January Ministry Update!
I wanted to start this entry with a Psalm!
Psalms 95:1-7a
“Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.”
There is so much to praise God for! I love reflecting at the end of the year on all that God did. I became an Auntie to the most beautiful boy. I celebrated one year of marriage! I recommitted to FOCUS for four more years. I developed deeper friendships and made new ones. I got to go see my sweet grandparents with all of my siblings. I celebrated holidays with loved ones. I felt the sun warm my skin as I went on lots of walks with my dogs. I saw beautiful orangey, purple sunsets and heard loud cracks of thunder. I laughed and cried and danced and yelled and it is all such a blessing! There were challenging things about this year too. But overall, I could go on and on about the many blessings in my life, and God’s faithfulness is so evident.
I would love for you to comment on this post or email me about something you’re praising God for from 2023!
Onto a January recap!
Winter Retreat
Our biggest event of the year is Winter Retreat! Every January, we spend a Friday evening-Sunday morning with our students from ALL of our FOCUS campuses! It is simply a blast. We flew in a guest speaker, Dr. Lee, who is a seminary professor at Fuller in California. He gave some really amazing and thought provoking lectures on grace! It was a whole new perspective on the gospel for me and was so impactful. We also do worship, games, activities for students to connect, etc. It went really well this year!
Here is the link to Dr. Lee’s talk on Disruptive Grace (which was most impactful to me) if you’re interested in listening! If you like what you hear, the rest of his talks are on the same page.
On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6YwxnDXCHo50UgRCyKOj6a?si=iZTDi-qoR9-zZIzdUChFbA
On Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/disruptive-grace-part-1-winter-retreat-2024/id1727397163?i=1000642813802
We started the semester strong with winter retreat, and have been getting back into the flow of things after the Christmas break. Please pray for a really fruitful semester for us!
I’m sorry I was bad with photos this month. I will try hard next month to remember! :(
I hope to hear from you on anything in your life you want to praise God for! Love to you all!
Kylie Sanchez
What a GREAT update! I loved reading the Psalm to start, and then hearing you reflect on all the good things going on in your life! How blessed you are :)
ReplyDeleteI feel like you in that I feel like my cup is constantly overflowing with God's goodness. My marriage, my kids, my friends, the people in my faith community, the customers I get to work with in my business - I'm just blown away at how good God has been to me. One thing I'll often pray is that God will remind me of all these things in the future storms that are sure to come. For it is easy to praise in the good time - not so much in the hard times.
Couldn't be more proud of you, Ky! You're doing GREAT things! And I love you so very much.