Austin's FOCUS Ministry Blog

 Wow, I get to tell you about two of my favorite events that we get to do with our students! After 3 years off due to COVID, 72 hours of prayer is back! Every year at UT Arlington all of the college ministries, FOCUS, BSM, Wesley, Cornerstone, Etc, Etc, all work together to set up a tent in the middle of campus and then we ask our students to come and pray for an hour each, for 72 hours straight, with an evening of worship every night for 3 days straight. Students pray for the persecuted, for their classmates, for their professors, for the nations, as well as any prayer requests that are given from people walking by. I'm so thankful that after 3 years off, we get to bring this event back. It's always a life changing experience for our students. It's a powerful testimony to christian untiy as it is a cooperative event, and I really believe that it is a world changing event as God answers our prayers. The above picture is our students getting together to read the book of Job,

  Pictured above are two of our core groups at UTA. The first one is led by Ben and Ben and I'm told that their guys love going to arby's together after core most weeks. And the bottom is led by Ian and Taylor. I have recently been so encouraged by our mens ministry. Our guys genuinely seem to be growing in their maturity, their love for God, their willingness to participate in evangelism, and their care for one another. Sometimes it can be hard in the fall to identify all the good that God is doing through this ministry, but he always makes it clear in the spring. These are friendships, centered around Jesus, that are likely to last a lifetime. Thank you for providing a place for young men like this to know God more and to experience transformative community. If you didn't read last months blog please do so! It's all about my friend Ram who came from India as a hindu but after experiencing visons of Jesus in his dreams he came to believe in Christ and was baptized in o

 A few years ago we had a student named Saket. Saket was from India, a hindu, but because of the friendship he had experienced from Christians he was loosely involved in FOCUS, coming to Thursday Night Fellowship every once and a while and sometimes attending core. A few years later, after Saket has graduated, his brother Ram comes to visit him from India. But Saket has to work and Ram has nothing to do so Saket encourages Ram to go check out FOCUS because there would be nice people there. When Ram comes he is greeted warmly just as Saket said he would be, but then something amazing happens. Ram says, during worship, he felt God hug him. And from that night on, he began to have dreams of Jesus. This picture is perhaps too wide to see him clearly but that's Ram right there in the middle spending time with some of our students. In Ram's dreams, Jesus would appear to him and tell him that Ram was his, and that this is the place that he has him, and that this would be the place whe

  This last weekend 400 college students from all across DFW gathered together to worship Jesus, and experience Christ centered community. It was an amazing weekend. Our students heard teaching each morning and evening over the book of 1st John. We talked in detail about living in truth, turning from sin, and loving one another with the love that God had shown us. And boy did God work. Over the course of the weekend I saw so many students loving one another with the love that Jesus had for them. Featured above is just some of the guys from UT Arlington and TCC this year. All of these men were a source of fun and encouragement for those around them. I saw them including others and cheering on one another all weekend. After one of the talks from 1 John on the topic of sin one of the students asked if he and I could go for a walk together and during that time he shared with me a sin in his life that he said he had never told anyone else. Now he and I are going to start meeting together we

 I want to start by saying thank you! Thank you to everyone who regularly partners with me in college ministry. And a double thank you to everyone who chose out of their generous hearts to give even further to our annual Keep Focus Growing Campaign. Because of you, we were able to raise $100,000. Because of your generosity this ministry will continue to be able to operate on college campuses with equipped campus pastors for years to come. God's ability and continued willingness to provide for this work never ceases to amaze me. I'm humbled and thrilled to have such supportive ministry partners who see the need and continue to meet it. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You may be wondering why I wrote Mele Kalikimaka in the title above. Well, if you don't know, that means Merry Christmas in Hawaii. And Christmas in Hawaii was this years theme for our UTA Focus Christmas Party.  Pictured above is just a few of the guys in this ministry that I get to spend time with regularly.

  If you would like to make a special gift today, that would be incredible! All collective gifts up to $54,000 will be matched today so this is an incredible opportunity for your gift to have an increased impact. Feel free to read the student/alumni testimonies below to get a sense of what kind of impact your gift can have. Thankful for you all! anyfocus.org/kfg