Lots of Good News!

Even though it's a strange year, we are off to a great start! I thought I'd share a handful of stories from our different campuses to give you a sense of what God is doing.

From Amber at TWU Dallas (the nursing campus) 

• I have some good news! I’ve already had two girls from Twu Dallas find me by email and reach out to me about getting involved!! It was encouraging because, so far, I’m not allowed on campus at all and they are not allowing orgs to meet in person. So those two girls were a total God deal!

From Rhett at UT Dallas

• I overheard a freshman talking to one of our corefas . Here's what they said:
• New Guy- So what is this group?
• Corefa- tells him who we are
• New Guy- Ohhhh man. I've done some messed up s***. I think Jesus probably hates me (he's laughing at this point, and sounds pretty dismissive)
• Corefa- I don't think he does at all.
• New Guy- ...........Dang man. I wasn't going to tell anyone this, but I feel like God told me that I need to seek him out when I came on campus, and I don't really know what to do with that, but it's crazy that I met y'all. 
• He and a friend have been showing up to everything they've been invited to.

From Sarah at UT Arlington 

• I had a really neat convo with a girl last night who sort of happened upon one of our “informal hangs.” She was very candid with me about wanting girlfriends and struggling with mental health. She said she planned on joining a sorority because that’s the only way she knew she could make girlfriends. But then she asked what I was a part of and said it never occurred to her to join anything religious to make friends. She said that she didn’t grow up in church but in light of depression and anxiety she experienced for the first time a few months ago, she has been contemplating spirituality and her purpose.

From Elaine, one of our corefas at UTD 

• I was in my first day of my Life Science class and I had just hopped onto the MicrosoftStream call and everybody except the professor had their mic and camera off. And as I was sitting there I remembered something one of the staff had said: “Set the tone for the year”, so I turned on my camera and mic and started talking with the professor. One by one people started turning their cameras and mics on and by the end of the class everyone had their cameras on and mics on and we ended up making our own group chat and we’re now getting to know each other.

From Laurence at SMU 

• We had like 30 people show up to our first TNF of the year; that's about double our normal numbers! We DID get rained on a bit and have to cut the sermon early, but it went about as well as it could have.

There are many more! It sounds like all of our cores at UTD have a full group (many are meeting outside and we are trying to cap them at 10, but they are ready to split up if more than 10 come). Some of the Zoom cores are even bigger. With very few other options on campus this year, a lot of people who don't know Jesus are in cores and exploring faith for the first time. Pray that they fall in love with Jesus this year!

Friday Night Deep Dive

Since we can't have our normal Friday Night Fellowship meetings on campus, we decided to forgo the musical worship portion and do an extended teaching time online. Students are watching together in small groups either on Zoom or in backyards and such. Rhett is leading us through a deep dive into the Gospel of Mark all semester long. They are excellent! He started with chapter 1 back on August 21, and you can find his lectures here if you're interested! (eventually, these will drop off and you should be able to find just the audio on our website)

Student Testimony

Please Pray!

Please pray for the administrators and the policies that they are setting for each of our schools, and especially UTD. Pray for wisdom for them, and that we would as a result be able to safely pursue God's mission on campus.

Thank you for all your support!