Admin 'Appenings

  Showcase is in 1 week! If you haven't gotten your tickets yet, you can do so at anyfocus.org/showcase. All proceeds from the show go towards sending our prospective student leaders to SICM, a conference that trains and equips them to think pastorally on their campuses. This is a video of me and my family hanging out on Zoom on New Years Eve and celebrating the New Year for the West Coast (2 am in Texas). I decided not to attend any New Year's celebrations in person (and isolated myself for almost a week beforehand) in an attempt to not contract COVID before our staff retreat... I tested positive later that day. Though I tested positive for COVID on New Years, Winter Camp was a few weeks after which gave me time to recover. We flew in Rikk Watts to speak about the historicity of the Bible. It was nice to have some semblance of normalcy, as we had canceled Winter Camp the previous year. It was a lot of work, but definitely worth it to see the students bonding and having a good ...

  There is a long back story to this picture. Maybe you remember from my April post of last year . It was Summer 2020, right after crawfish season. I was hanging out with my then roommate, Jacob Davis, and I was talking about having a crawfish boil. Unfortunately it was right after crawfish season, so we had to plan it for the year after. Well, the crawfish boil came and went (and it was so good!) We still had this huge pot and were wondering what we could do with it... the closer we came to Thanksgiving, the more gifs and stories we saw of people burning down their homes while trying to deep fry a turkey. So naturally.. we wanted to try it for ourselves. Unfortunately this is one of the only pictures I took of the night. In the end, it took about 2 hours longer than we thought, but the turkey was (no joke) the best turkey I've had so far in my life and nobody was injured. Who knows what else we'll cook in the pot?! FOCUS has an end-of-year Christmas dinner to celebrate the fir...

Since the new school year started, we have had staff lunch once a month and we've started celebrating all of the birthdays of the month. It gets a bit hectic when you have to shout a couple different names in the middle of the song (and it's not coordinated at all): "happy birthday to... LaurenceEmilyBeccaAngelaSarah." A couple of church friends invited me and Steph out to a high school football game (their son plays in the marching band). It's not personally my favorite (I prefer the NFL), but it was an awesome experience and I had a great time! Unfortunately we saw the only loss the team had this season (including the post-season), so maybe we're bad luck. What a throwback. It's been awhile since I've been back to Founders North and it's still a horribly vertical room. This picture doesn't do the slope of the room justice. I went over to Joseph and Sarah's house one weekend to watch the League of Legends World Finals and got to spend more...

It's been a while since I've been to the State Fair of Texas. I got to go with the apprentices from last year (my unofficial apprentice class). Got to eat my first Fletcher's Corny Dog and just walk around and have a good time. I really wanted to try the deep fried gumbo balls, but the line was about an hour wait and I thought it wasn't worth it. Maybe next year.  Pictured from left to right: Taylor, Lindsey, Andrea, Joey, William. My little sister, Angela, was a summer intern for FOCUS. She was contracted through the end of September and planned on flying back home to California afterwards. But, when it came time for her to go back, she decided to stay in Texas! And FOCUS generously offered her a position for the remainder of the school year. Shortly after, she decided to get baptized and claim her faith. She'll always be a little middle schooler in my eyes, but I guess she's actually a college graduate.  Pictured from left to right: Peter, Angela. After Angela...

I went to see Wicked for the first time!! I love musicals and Wicked was the first musical I listened to and I finally got to watch it when it came to Dallas. It was so ah-mazing!! I can't wait for Hadestown to come in January! It was Stephanie's birthday on the 3rd so we had a little celebration with some friends. I think I celebrated her birthday 3 separate times with different sets of people. What a blessing it has been to know her and be married to her the past few months. :-) I finally had some people over at the apartment. We've been avoiding it because it's a bit messy and we still don't have a couch (as you can see, people are sitting on lawn chairs, an office chair, and some bar stools). But you know I had to have people come over to play Guitar Hero! UTD's Friday Night Fellowship. Peter was preaching about terrorizing me as a child. Or at least that's what I remember from the sermon. What else is new? 💁 I made some pizza one night and one came out...

And just like that, August flew by... thank you for your prayers and well wishes as we started the new school year! I truly appreciate each of you for being who you are and for your support in ministry. The night we arrived at SICM (after a long 6 hour drive), we had dinner and our first session. It was a surreal moment for me as I had been planning this for the past 6 months. I remember calling the different camps about their availability for SICM during the big freeze! But here we are, getting ready to learn about how to become better friends and ministers on our campuses, about 200 of us in all! This was the view right outside the cabin. What a beautiful place to be and learn! These are two of my good friends, Zoë and Andrea! They have both been such a blessing to me in my time in Texas and FOCUS. I'm so excited to see what God can do through them as they partner with what He is doing at UTD! About midway through SICM, we took the morning off to be able to sleep in a little long...