More Things Of Heaven & Earth

September 2021 The last weeks have been a blur of camps, events, trainings, and lots and lots of new students, and there is so much to tell! As you all are getting back into the swing of this time of year, I hope you have had restful summers with lots of time to rest and prepare for life in this busy season. Staff Retreat Each year, our FOCUS staff take a few days at the beginning of August to pray, plan, discuss, and prepare for the upcoming semester. Since we do not work in an office together, our teams have few times like staff retreat where we can have concentrated work time and also little breaks together. It was meaningful to get to know the 3 apprentices we have at UTD (out of 19 total--our biggest apprentice class ever!). They fit right in with our group! Lailah, Michelle, and Taylor are already contributing great questions and ideas, and they each have a passion for God's work in students that is revitalizing to all of us.  UTD Campus Ministers' Lunch As a larger group

Spring Happenings We made it to the end of the year! And what a very odd, but very blessed year it has been. Our first indoor group! Remember back in March of 2020 when we went on Spring Break and it didn't end until now? I'm not sure if that's what COVID was like for you, but that is sort of how it was for me. It's SO STRANGE referring to "this time last year" and remembering how we hadn't seen other people in over a month, we went outdoors most days just for the sake of getting out of the house, and we were having to learn all kinds of new skills (like I learned to cut Chris' hair, for instance). Though it seems like it's been no time at all, when I say things like "this time last year," I remember that it has indeed been a year and that we did school and ministry for a whole year. I thank God that COVID is sort of beginning to come to a close! Summer FOCUS Kick-off We are so excited to have been able to meet in person indoors more and

On this snowy Valentine's Sunday, I've spent this unusual day practicing a rare kind of sabbath. Chris and I did most of our weekend work and play yesterday, since Sundays are reserved for time with our church family and meal planning and grocery shopping. With the frigid weather ruling out both driving and our outdoor church service, church leadership chose to have us all celebrate the Lord's day in our own homes and to take time in prayer for those who must brave these weather conditions anyway. And for us, it has turned into a sabbath day full of noticing God's beauty. We have admired the bouquet of Valentine's flowers as minute by minute petals open to reveal more colors, stems bend to expose new blooms, and hints of rose, lily, and limonium linger in the air you breathe just as you walk past. We have watched flurries of snow fall all day long, creating a kind of new earth for us and all our neighbors; we have soaked up all that it is to take the very first step

  My social distanced birthday party. These friends sat in the cold for HOURS to laugh and talk and celebrate with me. I'm so blessed to have them! (It was also the girl on the bottom right's birthday, so she got a birthday crown too. :)) I'm having a time trying to get these pictures to work, so since my blog really has nothing to do with them, I'll list captions here: Above, my birthday party Apprentice sermons held at our church on a very cold morning with all the doors open and fans blowing to create ventilation because of COVID. It was cold, but so good to hear God teaching through them! A Christmas photo with my handsome guy. Some Faberge egg matryoshka my grandmother got me for Christmas! I love Russian things, so I was thrilled! The first snow I've seen in almost 5 years! It was so beautiful! I also got a chiminea for Christmas so I can continue to meet with girls outside in the safety and warmth of our back patio. It has been really fun learning how to use

 November & December Update Happy holiday season to you all! My apologies for the long gap between updates. It has been a full two months of ministry! (Scroll past the picture gallery for the rest of this update!)  Holidays in the Park One of the most glaring differences in ministry pre-COVID and ministry now is the fun, relationship-building downtime student used to get with each other and with us when we were hosting weekly gatherings and service opportunities and parties. It has been an uphill battle for all of us this semester as we try to forge deep relationships that include that same mix of depth and daily minutia that somehow makes friendships so sweet. (And let me say, God has been really faithful here! We have been blown away again and again at just how many new students have joined cores and started 1-on-1 Bible studies and built real friendships even in a pandemic!) But with this reality in mind and (at the time) a consistent downward slope in new COVID cases in ou

Say it with me:  How is it already October?!?! As a teacher, I learned that October was the time of year when the  real  personalities came out of my students and I would have to buckle in for what I liked to think of as "the month of re-establishment." I.e., re-establishing classroom rules, re-establishing who is in charge, re-establishing the value in actually doing the work, re-establishing a vision for building relationships with  all  classmates (aka embracing new seating charts), and so on. It was a jarring--you could say awful--experience that first year, but honestly, I came to really value it in the later years because it was an opportunity for me to cast an even clearer vision for my students for what we were all really going to be about. In different ways, October in college ministry has this same "rubber meets the road" kind of feel. Students have gotten into the swing of their classes, they are settling into their friend groups for the semester, they ar