Well that went fast. As of today I have my first month of full time campus ministry under my belt. It's been a whirlwind! It's been smooth yet very stressful; discouraging at times and highly encouraging at others; it's been tiring; it's been fun; it's had lots of ups and of downs...but it's been AAWWEESSOOMMEE. Honestly after the first week I thought, "What was I thinking committing to live a year of my life like this?!" but now I'm thinking "Praise God I committed to live a year of my life like this!" God is good and this first month has been wonderful! I have fallen more in love with Jesus, I have been more joyful in Him than probably ever before, more reliant on Him, more thankful for Him and what He's done in and for me, more excited to do His work, more focused on His will, and I have been completely humbled that He calls me His daughter in the midst of all my shortcomings, and still allows me to work alongside Him in His mission. Now, more than ever, I have no doubt this is where God has called me to be.
Personal Growth
I don't want to spend this whole post talking about myself but I do want to give God glory for what He has done in me and is doing. This month has been a STRUGGLE. Managing and organizing my time wisely, or really being organized in anything for that matter, has never been my strong suit. Well a big part of my internship is time management and being balanced in my lifestyle. I report hours spent on all kinds of things to my supervisor each week and those hours are supposed to be balanced a certain way depending on my goals and the expectations for me. I have felt SO uncomfortable living like this! I don't naturally like having to think about where my time is going and being purposeful with it and putting much thought at all into that but I am being forced to, and I absolutely hate it, but actually love it. I want to live purposefully, I want to accomplish a lot for God, but it's not going to happen on accident, so time management is a wonderful thing.
Collin College Ministry
Our ministry is off to a great start! Collin didn't start school until the 22 of August so I spent a lot of time those first few weeks just getting to know our girl student leaders I'll be working with this year, and beginning to cultivate a friendship with each of them. I can honestly tell you we have such a neat group of leaders at Collin. These girls have such a heart for God and their willingness to step up and step out of their comfort zone to try and do something big for God is inspiring! Those first few weeks were also spent getting our student leaders (Corefas,"Core Facilitators"), as well as our other ministry returners, prepped and ready for the year.This is our second week of school and we are full steam ahead. We strongly believe as a ministry that the first few weeks of school are critical. There are so many new students on campus trying to figure out what this whole college deal is like, where they fit, who their friends are gonna be, and ultimately beginning to shape who they're gonna be the next four years, and quite possibly the rest of their lives. So our goal is to be up on campus, meeting and befriending people any chance we get, and I feel like our students have done a great job of this. At our first Thursday Night Fellowship probably about a third of the people there were people who had never come before! That's a big deal. An even bigger deal is that since we don't have a ton of opportunity to advertise on campus, most of these people were met and invited personally by members of our group. I have been so impressed with the students in our ministry and their excitement to reach as many as possible for Jesus. Another cool thing, is most of these people requested to be involved in one of our small groups during the week, our CORES. This is where the CORE of our ministry happens and we're pumped to get those started this coming week!
So all in all, it was a successful first month but we're just getting started, "the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few." Collin College is huge and there's so many people there who have never met the real Jesus. What a tragedy! Thank you to all of you who are supporting me and other Focus staff members. You are doing God's work through us! How cool is that? Please continue to pray for our campus mission work. It's far from done!
