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We Got Through February

We were supposed to have a staff retreat at the beginning of January, but it was postponed to February due to COVID. It was a refreshing time to get to fellowship as a whole staff team and listen to messages about humility, self control, surrender, intimacy (with God), and sacrifice. During free time, you could always find a group of people in a circle playing Hacky Sack.

The city of Richardson put on a Chinese New Year event in their small Chinatown plaza. It was cool to see some people dressed in traditional attire, but it was freezing cold that day (not pictured are the many hand warmers used to keep warm) and the event was poorly planned and executed (sorry to say). Many of the performances could only be seen by the handful of people in the front row and 90% of the pop-up booths were not even for Asian food. Disappointing to say the least... but I got a nice photo out of it.

Also for Chinese New Year, I got a meal with my family in Dallas. Thankful to have these people nearby!

How can I have a blog post without the ice storm?! Crazy times! Even now, as I send out this blog, the weather has been so unpredictable — summer weather one day and the dead of winter the next. I can't tell if I need to set my thermostat on heat or cool until the morning-of!

These are my friends, Carla and Mike. They just got married recently and I got to see them at Showcase this year! If you don't know what Showcase is (and maybe missed my previous update), it's a fundraiser to help send our prospective student leaders to SICM, a campus ministry training conference in Bellingham, Washington. If you missed it and/or want to give, you can view a recording of the evening show and find a donation page here: anyfocus.org/showcase.

If you've ever played Pass The Pigs, you may not have given it another moments thought. But a group of us have loved playing it at SICM and Winter Camp (after late-night delirium has set in) and so we decided to play it one night.

If you've been supporting me since last year, you'll recognize this same group of kiddos (okay.. maybe they're not kids). But what you might NOT have noticed is that William (on the far left) is actually Photoshopped into the photo. This precious group of people are my apprentice group from last year and I'm so proud of all that they've accomplished. William is still working with the teen ministry at the Wylie Northeast Church, Lindsey is going to be going to seminary in preparation of planting FOCUS at TCU, Taylor is working on her teaching certification to teach the next generation of students, Andrea is proving herself to be an invaluable asset to the UTD team, and Joey is going to be faithfully staying at Dallas College.



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