Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!
Ready, set, go!
August marks one of the most crucial and condensed part of campus missions because it’s the time when students are arriving to campus and are generally the most interested in seeking new friendships. For me and the other apprentices (aka ministers in training), our month started with a class that is focusing on the Old Testament. This has been one of my favorite things so far! Getting to spend time in scripture for my job? How unusual yet wonderful! We’ve been exploring themes that run throughout the Old Testament as we read and it has been very stretching to learn to look at the Bible with a pastoral lens. Then after two weeks of classes it was time to start on campus and finally meet students!
2025-26 F.O.C.U.S. Staff Retreat. This was a very sweet time to connect with all the other campus missionaries from the other campuses that F.O.C.U.S is on in the DFW area! We got to have fun and rest (one day we played baseball) but also a time to pray for our campuses before meeting so many students the next week during Welcome Week!
Resting in God
Immediately before starting a very packed, exciting week full of meeting students, hosting events, and sacrificing some sleep, I got sick. For several years I’ve had a chronic condition called P.O.T.S. that often forces me to rest because of fatigue, heart palpitations, and fainting episodes. Through learning my limits (What? We have those?), God has shown himself to be a much more patient and gracious father more than the efficiency obsessed, transactional, and performance driven God I had subconsciously lived like he was. I really struggled with feeling inadequate and disappointing both to God and the other pastors I work with. But they met me with the same grace God has given me time and time again, encouraging me to rest and give all my frustrations to God. Shortly after my P.O.T.S symptoms flared up, I got covid. “Really, God? All I want is to sit with students, learn about their lives and give them a joyful first week at school!”
And yet God again met me with grace. He is teaching me to work from a place of rest with Him rather than out of my own strength. How sweet is it of God that in the busiest time of the school year, when it would be the easiest to ignore rest and be performance driven (even if it’s coming from a good desire for people to know God), he forces me to rest and promises me it will be okay and he is not disappointed in the slightest. What a gift! And he urges the same for you even in your busiest season.
Starting Welcome Week off at UNT with a “campout”, a time for students to listen to live music, have conversation prompts, and snacks! I met a girl named Kaylie who also grew up as a missionary kid!
At TWU we hosted another painting night and I met these two girls named Brayden and Ella. They both wanted to talk about what it looks like to make their faith their own as they start college and transition into adult life. It was such an encouraging, sweet conversation!
We had a birthday party for one of the girls in my core (aka our small group)! She said she felt so loved and celebrated!
Casey and Hannah E (see bottom left) are the other two apprentices that were placed on the Denton campuses with me! They have already become some of my closest friends. They help me see that ministry is so fun! I just had to add the top two pictures. How many apprentices does it take to fit a giant cooler in a Camry?
On our first Thursday Night Fellowship, students both old and new (most we had just met that week) flooded in to worship Jesus! There was so much joy in the room and I can’t help but be expectant at how God is going to work this year!!
One last story…
There’s one story from this last month that I just can’t get out of my head. At TWU, we had a F.O.C.U.S table set up and a poster board that said “Need Prayer?”. I was there with a couple student leaders and we could call out to the people walking past and ask if they needed prayer or help finding classes. To my surprise, SO many students readily came over to be prayed over. I saw this one girl (Janet) walk past and I asked if she wanted prayer. As soon as the words left my mouth she ran over to me and loudly said, “Yes! Please!” She told me all about how anxious she has been recently and how she desperately wants peace. She became very emotional, on the verge of tears as she poured her heart out to me. After I prayed over her to our God who is himself peace, she immediately hugged me. Not a soft, polite hug, but a hug that just felt like relief and thankfulness. This one encounter embodies the desire God has for all the students on the Denton campuses and elsewhere, for them to recklessly seek him. Please pray that all students would follow after Janet and bring their worries and heartache to him.
Love,
Hannah