What a great semester we've had! Lots of people are studying the bible for the first time and lots of people are maturing and changing in Christ! That's great news. Praise God!!

I have a couple other good news reports. I've gotten with and heard about a number of students dealing with anxiety and depression. This is not good news obviously. Sadly, it is super common, and students all over our campus are dealing with these issues. The good news is, I've gotten to see improvement in these students. God is working in them and through other things, to bring healing to their lives and allow them to experience life closer to what he intended for them. That's exciting! These students are now more equipped and able to share with others how God can work in their lives to bring healing as well. How cool!

Another interesting piece of good news...
Last year my heart was broken when I found out a student I invested in for years in a very deep way had been lying, and basically living a fake life. She was caught up in serious sin, and wasn't willing to admit it until it was obvious I knew, and she wasn't willing to give that up. It really was heart breaking to me. Sadly she ended up leaving our ministry. Aside from being a student I minister to, she really had become one of my very dearest friends. I loved her and still love her so much. Well, yesterday I received a long hand-written letter from her. We had gotten together a couple of times since she left but nothing too serious was discussed. To get this letter from her was so encouraging and uplifting. She apologized and said thank you. She realized now how much I loved her and how much I really cared about her relationship with God more than anything. I didn't need to be apologized to, or thanked, but it brings me much joy to know God is still working on her heart and in her life and that she hasn't given up. Please pray for her. She is so dear to me, and I am glad that God is working to restore her as well as our relationship, although I never turned my back on her, things have been estranged.

God is good, and so powerful. He is working and doing great things on our campuses. Thank you for being invested in this. It means so much to me, truly. You are making a difference in generations!

If you haven't seen this already, please take the time to watch this short video and share with others.

MUCH LOVE AND THANKS,
Bri

I am excited to update you all on how well the school year is going. We have tons of students coming to Focus, tons going to core, and tons starting to study the scripture! The exciting thing is not that we have a lot of people, although that's great. It's kinda easy to fill a room full of people. Serve free pizza and it's a done deal on a college campus. The real EXCITING thing is people are intrigued by the message and call of Jesus and are actively pursuing him! That is so cool. And that is something only God can make happen. Praise to him!!

Another exciting thing is how well our Corefas are doing and how much they are growing already. They have a pretty tall order. Attend all Focus events, a leader meeting every week, plan for core every week, lead core every week, and study the bible with around 3 people. Imagine doing that as an 18 or 19 year old! Crazy, huh? But they can do it! And they are doing it so well. My dad has often said specifically about teenagers that they will not always live up to your expectations but they will almost always live down to them. We set HIGH expectations for these kids. We realize that there will be times they won't meet them, especially at the beginning when they are trying everything for the first time, but I can tell you I have not seen a finer group of student leaders anywhere as I have in Focus. I believe that's due to the high expectations that are set. We believe in these students. Young people can do powerful things for the Kingdom of God and they should be! None of this waiting till they're older business. The time is now, and they are stepping up to the task and doing great things for God!!

Please, please pray for our Corefas and staff. Pray for health, and encouragement, and perseverance. And pray for our campus, that we may reach as many as possible this year through Jesus.

I thank God for you all and your investment in the ministry he has given us. May he bless you greatly!

Brianna

I'm baaaaaaack! Well, I've been back but not back to my blogging self until now.

For those of you who read my blog but otherwise aren't my Facebook friend, I did indeed have my baby :) My sweet, sweet Reese is a few days away from being 4 months old, and is an absolute joy!






And one more...






This was her running Target errands with me today. Is that how that's supposed to work? Don't judge me. For what it's worth, she had a great time like that. Right before this she was showing great displeasure in being in her car seat so this was the only other option...

Anyways, I'm going to have to try to discipline myself to not only post pictures of her on this. She's the best. With that said, she's been a great little ministry buddy as I've slowly gotten back into the swing of things over the last couple months.

This week was our full speed ahead week though, Welcome Week!
That's the first week of school when we scramble to meet as many students as possible, and that's what we did! Our student leaders (Corefas) did an outstanding job meeting and inviting people. The week before school started we probably had 40 students, those are mostly our returning students from the previous year who haven't transferred off yet. This last week, our Kick-off week, we had probably 120-135 students, so that will tell you how much inviting they did! Please be in lots of prayer over these new students as we strive to get them plugged in and help them take their next step spiritually, whatever that may be. For some that's coming to know Jesus, for some that's deciding to actually obey the Jesus they came to know, for some that's teaching them how to make other Jesus followers. Pray God will work powerfully through us to meet their spiritual needs.

We also just got back from our Corefa retreat where we take all of our Corefas from all of our campuses (UTD, UNT, TWU, Collin Spring Creek, Collin Preston Ridge, and Richland) out together to prepare and encourage them for the year ahead. Here's a picture from one of our sessions:




We had about 150 people there. I looked around during worship and tears came to my eyes as I remembered when our winter camp of all the campuses with all the students was smaller than that! God is surely with us and behind us, and for that I am so thankful. Please be in prayer for these leaders as they set out to accomplish big tasks this year. Most have mixed emotions of fear and excitement. Pray for boldness, pray for perseverance, pray for growth, and pray God will do a great work in and through them this year.

Thank you for all your love and support. Much love to you! God is so good!

Bri

The Start of Spring Semester

Well I have great things to update you on! We are off to a great semester!

First of all, Winter camp was incredible! Over 400 students came together to worship God and learn about the Spirit. I have seen so much fruit camp since we've gotten back. I see students actively pursuing the Spirit in their lives, trying to be more aware of Him, and trying to keep in step with Him. I have seen our students become much more spiritually mature; we've had a few open mic activities at our Thursday Night Fellowship since we've gotten back and it has been so encouraging to hear the insights coming of out of these students mouths. Another effect from camp I've seen is stronger and closer friendships among our students. This is so important and one of our biggest goals for camp. We want each student to be plugged into the community and have deep, lasting SPIRITUAL friendships, friends that encourage them, challenge them, and build them up in their faith. I have been so pleased and excited to see that happen this year, and as those progress we will continue to see more and more fruit! Please join me in praising God for showing up and blessing us with another great Winter Camp! It is not our great planning, or speaking, or musical talent that produces those things, but only God! Here is a picture of one of the sessions at Winter Camp:



Another exciting update at Collin is that we just had 3 girls baptized! They all happened to make the decision to be baptized around the same time so we just decided I make a party out of it! I actually had to miss it due to being out of town, but I got to watch a couple videos on Facebook and was so encouraged! I will try to post them on here if I can ever figure out how to do that haha. All of the girls who were baptized went trough the Focus on Jesus study this year, and decided they wanted without a doubt to be radical, fired up disciples of Jesus! What could be better?? Here is a picture of all the girls and the person who studied with them:



You might recognize Ally in the middle from some previous posts. I got to study with and baptize Ally her freshman year and this year she has stepped up tremendously. She studied with Paige (to the right) this year and baptized her. That's the vision! Fruit producing more fruit!

All three of the girls who were baptized just the other night are eager to study the bible with someone else. One has already started studying with another student at Collin! How exciting! Praise God and keep praying for and joining us in going after more workers and more fruit! God is good and so faithful!!

I hope you are encouraged by what's going on at Collin, YOU are a part of it!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

Brianna

All Things are Merry and Bright!

For some reason this year I have been extra stoked about Christmas. In October I was already saying, "It's almost Christmas," and even let myself go down the Christmas Hobby Lobby aisle when it hadn't even been Halloween yet. I typically make myself wait till Thanksgiving but I gave in, and it.was.awesome. So needless to say, I am thrilled that it actually is beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and I hope your Christmas season is bright, and full of joy and thanksgiving!

My brother, Brandon, whose blog you may also read, asked me yesterday if I had told my blog-readers/supporters that I was pregnant, and I realized I hadn't. So there's the big news! I am currently 18, almost 19 weeks pregnant, and we find out if there's a little boy or little girl in there tomorrow! May 1st is my due date, which is pretty perfect when considering my ministry. Things start to taper down as the students prepare for exams, and the summer is a little less intense and more administrative than the rest of the year. My hope is that I can be back at least mostly in August, while doing what I can until then. Some of you moms may be laughing at me right now, and that's why I said "hoping" and "mostly" :). I honestly have no idea what to expect and I know a lot depends on how your baby actually is so I'm also hoping between Tyler and I's overly laid back personalities that we'll have a very laid back baby! But we shall see. Anyway, one thing is for sure, I will continue in ministry. Whatever it takes to make that happen. I believe that's what I've been called to do and I also believe that there's no better way to disciple and raise people up in the faith than to bring them along with you while you do that for others. So little baby will be my ministry partner :). I recall my parents doing that with me, taking me along to bible studies and baptisms, me watching them read the bible themselves, and minister to people on the phone or in our house. No amount of words could replace that experience for me, and that's the vision I have for my little one.

Tyler and I could not be more excited and more thankful for this blessing, and ask that you would keep us in your prayers. Pray for health, but also that God would mold us into Godly parents, that our child would be raised as God would wish, and be an awesome disciple of Jesus.

Enough about me though. Ministry has been rockin and rollin. I told our Corefas last night just how proud I was of them and that this has been one of the most successful if not the most successful first semesters I've seen at Collin College. God is working, and our Corefas have really offered themselves as a sacrifice to him to be used however he wishes. That's so neat to see. I recalled my Collin leader meetings as a student, which we actually held right down the street from my current home, and was just filled with so much joy to see that the Kingdom is advancing on that campus. Our leader team is bigger now, and much more mature and equipped than I was in my leader years. Our ministry is much bigger than then, and we have more people outside of our leader team stepping up to reach people and impact the campus than we did then. That was about 5 years ago when I was sitting there. The Kingdom is gaining ground! What's better news than that? Hundreds of Collin students have been impacted since then, and the number is only growing. Give praise to God for that! We spent the last portion of our leader meeting last night just sharing praises and thanksgiving to God for what he's done on our campus this semester. It is overwhelming!

With that said, I want to say a big thanks to you guys. Gosh, it's just so neat that we have people who want to advance the Kingdom with us. I tear up as I write this because it means so much to me. We're on a mission, and we have been given a vision from God that our hearts beat for, but we can absolutely not do it on our own. We have to have partners in the faith, partners in the mission, who take the vision on as their own. I am so thankful that you have done that. I get to look at these college students all the time. I get to see the ones that are in the absolute pit, and who are raised up out of it into living fulfilled, joyous lives in Christ. I get to look into their future and know what a difference God has made in their life through this ministry: marriages that will be successful, lifelong friendships, a stop to additional baggage, generations who will know Jesus. Their whole future is transformed. I know you guys don't get to see all that, but you join in anyway, and you do the brunt work for us. Thank you for doing that. It will not go unrewarded.

This Thursday is our last official Focus of the semester, and then we will have our Christmas party to wrap up. Pray for a safe break for our students, and a break that is purposeful and brings them closer to God!

God is so good, I hope you will be filled with awe for him this month as we celebrate him coming into our world!

Much love,
Bri

God is Good!

To be honest I had been putting off my blog. I have to confess, I have felt pretty discouraged in ministry the last couple of weeks. There are great things going on, don't get me wrong, but ministry is certainly not always easy. People will break your heart if you love them like you're called to, people will frustrate you when you see so much potential and see them living so short of it, and you will continually come face to face your own short comings and failures. I sound peppy, don't I? Haha

This is what I have been dealing with the last couple of weeks, grappling with the struggles of doing God's work. But God is good, and God is faithful and is lifting me up.

We've been reading a book called, So You Want to Be Like Christ? by Charles Swindoll with our Corefas. It talks about really knowing Christ and what that takes. One of the chapter is called Silence and Solitude. Since reading it, I've been trying to practice that and just spend time with God without having to say something to him, and on my way home tonight I felt enlightened. He reminded me of the good news once again. He reminded me that the world as it currently is, will not always be; that he will at some point in time make it perfect and good. That is such good news. Our world can be pretty depressing, certainly it is beautiful and a good creation, but evil has had it's way with it for a long time and there is serious brokenness and deep scars. One day it will be like new again, perfect and pure as God created it to be. I can't wait! That brings me so much joy.

I was also reminded of this verse:
"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." (Galatians 6:9 NIV)
I take double courage in that verse. Certainly I think it means God has good things in store for us who live for him, but it also gives me great hope that my efforts in the lives of the people I'm trying to disciple and minister to will bear fruit if I don't give up. Don't become weary in doing what's right for people or good for them, if you don't give up there will be progress. That's my hope and prayer. I'm sure all of you have someone in your life you've tried to help or that you believe in more than they even do. I encourage you to not give up. Or maybe you're discouraged with life in general, don't grow weary in doing good. God is working and he has a great harvest in store!

With all of that said, those things are more in my personal ministry. Our ministry as a whole is thriving and is in a great place! I am so thankful for what God has done and is doing, and I can already see him laying an awesome foundation for ministry next year. We are going to have some great new student leaders, I see them developing right before my eyes! So cool. And you are a part of that! I want to thank you so deeply for your financial support, your prayers, your belief in me and in what we're trying to accomplish for God,and with God ,on campus! We couldn't do it without your partnership. I am praying for you and feel so blessed by you!

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

We're in this together, let's keep at it!

Much love and thanks to you all,
Brianna

Here are some photos from Park Day this last month. This was a chance for us to get a big chunk of one together, build relationships and community, and have fun! Mission accomplished. As you can see we played lots of goofy games, just hung out, and ended the day with some worship.

September

This month has been just as successful as August. August is about getting people to come to Focus and September, in a lot of ways, is about keeping people there. That takes some work, especially from our corefas which have done an incredible job. Mostly, in order to really keep people around, they have to feel a part, they know people and are known, and make friends. We're not a ministry that is content with people walking in the doors, sitting in the back by themselves or with one friend and then leaving right after. If that happens, we failed. We work to meet every person that comes in our doors and get them included in some way, actually as many ways as we can :). That includes inviting them to dinner afterwards, getting their number, inviting them to core, or setting up another time to hang out. As I said, our corefas have done an incredible job. And don't think for a second this is an insincere process. It's the most sincere! They love and care about these people enough to put aside what's comfortable to them, to put aside the friendships they already have at the moment, and extend friendship and love to this someone they don't even know. So cool! And so much like Jesus!

With that said our cores are pretty huge. They are filled with girls that have been befriended and want to grow with their new friends in their faith. The only reports I get are about how excited they are and how much they love core and how well it's going! This has produced a problem, an awesome problem, we are scrambling to find people to study with all these kids! As I'm sure I've mentioned before we also try to study the bible through a study we call Focus on Jesus with everyone that comes to our ministry. Our student leaders are the main ones who do this and they're schedules are already full with people to study with, and there's still more need! We brought in a girl that already graduated from college and was a part of a Focus to study with a couple girls, we're taking corefas from other cores to study with people across cores, we're doing some studies 1-on-2 and 1-on-3 studies rather than our usually 1-on-1s. Like I said, a good problem to have! We have about 35 FOJ studies going on already and more are popping up every week!

I focus on that topic this week because it encompasses where were at stage-wise in the year, and also because it is such the heartbeat of our ministry. Pulling people in, giving them a community that loves then, and they can trust, and then offering them an opportunity to look at the bible probably closer than ever before. Our desire, as stated in the study, is that they would be brought face to face with Jesus and become as we are - radical, fired-up, crazy-in-love-with-Jesus disciples.

Pray that happens! Pray for these 35 students studying the bible, some for the very first time. Pray also for the students leading them.

God is good!

Much love,
Bri



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