Austin's FOCUS Ministry Blog

 Hello friends and loved ones, I'm thankful to all of you for your partnership in ministry. Last night we got to have our End of Year Formal. It was a time of reflecting on all that God had done in our community in the last year and sharing in a genuine love for one another. Here are some pics with the guys that I've spent the most time with this year. Jacob and Caleb are the two guys at the top. I got to study the bible with both of them one on one. But they're roommates and I got to watch how God impacted their whole house as they both grew in their relationship with God. Jacob and Nick are below them. They're our two leaders at TCC SE. I'm so thankful for their faithfulness at the community college. I know God will continue to use them to help build that campus up. Ben and Ben below are two of the most incredible young men you'll ever meet. It's unquestionable to me that they're both headed for key leadership positions wherever they land post college,

 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