Jackpot!

I hope you are doing well, and that you enjoy this update of the ministry and student lives you choose to generously impact.

I sometimes wonder what would my faith had looked like, who would I be if my parents had not crossed the boarder. Blows my mind how I had a plan to pursue the complete opposite of campus ministry. Here I am writing this blog thinking there is nothing better the Lord could have me doing. I've hit the jackpot!

We had location complications for core but thankfully God provided. One of our Collin pastors, Pedro, connected us with one of his ministry partners and allowed us to use their home for our core to meet! We have a new addition to our core and that is Kally, I am really excited for her to befriend the rest of the students in our community!

Murphie and I went to go support two of our friends in core, Megan and Kaylin! Because of their school commitments and rehearsals it's been at times hard for Megan and Kaylin to be consistent to core and TNF but we wanted to make sure to go cheer them on this final performance and they rocked it!

Every year before our Collin students go off for Christmas and New Years we host a Collin Christmas party. The tradition has been to make a fort competition, worship, eat some food and fellowship with our community. Left is my core after attempting to build a camping theme fort with hammocks, lights, lawn chairs and a wood latter! We weren't first place but the joy of building it together and laughing at our failure was definitely worth it! Right is another group of guys that bought pipes to make a sturdy Mario theme fort.

Every year we throw a small party for all of our corefas (student leaders) at Garrett's house. This year we asked everyone to bring a wrapped gift, something they don't care about, fun silly like a can of food and when a person opens it we have to guess who brought it etc. fun game! We had Torchy's donate chips and queso which was a hit, some of our students brought baked goods and everyone had a great time! 

Left we have some of the girls in my peer team playing a board game. Bottom right is Garrett and Renee daring each other to eat a hot pepper.

This is our core grabbing some Andy's custard after a nice dinner in this crazy cold weather. Our friend Sabrina (curly hair girl on the right) was going to head back to Colombia to reunite with her family and so we had to go big! We miss her and hope we can see her again one day.

After the Holidays before classes start we have all of our DFW campuses meet for Winter Camp at Sky Ranch. Without fail the Lord did his thing!

I just realized our peer team doesn't have that many pictures together haha well here it is on the left!

Two of our staff started this tradition during Winter Camp where we have this LatinX party where we make space to embrace the culture of some of our students. This year we broke a piñata and enjoyed some pan dulce, candy and other treats! Picture of everyone that showed up at the bottom right.

This is Andrea, one of our pastors at UTD. I love spending time with her any chance I get and sharing what the Lord is doing in our personal life and ministry.

The picture below is a gathering at Sandra's (one of our Richland pastors and one of my close friends). Andrea, Sandra and I gathered some of our LatinX students from our campuses and played Loteria, played spanish music, ate pan dulce and drank mexican hot chocolate!

One of the my most meaningful experiences as a student was having friends that came from the same background and or looked like me. This allowed me to feel more part of this community and lean on some of those peers and so we created that space for our girls again!

I got COVID and had a rough couple of days but thankfully I got better. Through it I was able to be reminded of the value there is in rest and spending intentional time with the Lord.

I had to move things virtually for various interactions. Here is my core I got them at the wrong moment lol but we had a lot of fun I promise haha! 

More people/moments I've loved!

My computer stopped working for a while and made it hard to do some things etc. but here is my bud David who is staying on our pastoral team at Collin for 2 more years! He walked 20 min from his house during a snow day to drop off his computer so that I could get things done. Sweet friend!

I co-lead with Jacy who is someone that I've loved working with. We've face some challenges together but coming out of those challenges its been neat to see how we see each other less as co-workers and more as two sister who deeply care about each other.

Here she is being silly.

Old picture of Sophie (cofa, the student I co-lead our small group with). The Lord has used Sophie to remind me to take myself less seriously and find joy and laughter in the "imperfections" and unexpected.

One of my favorite memories is us taking a trip to the "reindeer field" (i believe thats the name lol) we went to see lights and decorations at this neighborhood and jammed to some Christmas music.

Laiya always willing and faithful where the Lord calls her. I've been blessed to see up close the obedience and commitment she has to God and community. 

Here we are acting a fool before church service at Wylie.

Recently I had the opportunity to go share about outreach at Denton North Church, the first church I got involved with while I was a college student at TWU. While I prepared to talk about outreach I was able to reflect on the people, outside of Jesus, from who I've learned and seen outreach be an encouragement to my life. 

One of them was Garrett, our Collin director and my supervisor but I like to say that he is best at being my biggest fan and friend. In the little time we've worked together he's become a friend and a positive influence to my life and ministry. Here he is talking to our team about values we want to heat up within our Collin ministry.

Every year we have staff retreat and without fail this one was enriching and the best one yet! Our staff went through 5 sessions where we talked about values as pastors, roommates, spouses, leaders and most important as disciples. The humility session is one where the Lord spoke to me and encouraged me to reflect on how much I lean on control, myself, pride and at times ignorance.  

Staff retreat is also a great opportunity to engage with the rest of the team we don't usually get to spend time with. Here is Taylor from the UTA campus and Andrea from the UTD team playing Mah Jong.

Madi and Murphie, two girls at the Frisco campus that I brag to everyone every chance I get. These girls are great friends to each other but also the best outreaching, caring and friends to their classmates. They are not just reaching out to christians but people that are the complete opposite of them which encourages our community and keeps blowing my mind!

Madi and Murphie were invited to come to SICM our Student Institute of Campus Ministry that we have every year in Bellingham. Before coming to Collin and getting involved with our ministry they took a gap year with a ministry that was difficult and somewhat scaring.

I invite you to pray for these two girls as they process and heal from that experience.

SHOWCASE IS THIS SAT. FEB 26!

I hope you can join us in making an impact for students like Madi and Murphie. We will have two shows and in between those two shows we will have an Artisan Market where we will be selling baked goods, art from photography, paintings, drawings to woodworking, t-shirts, earrings, coffee and plants! You can buy your tickets today at anyfocus.org/showcase if you cant attend you can still give towards these students!

Thank you for believing in what the Lord is doing at Collin. Thank you for being so generous and faithful so that I can invest full time in this campus and the lives of these girls.