Something New!

 Heyo everyone! I am so glad you are here! Thank you so much for reading! 

I want to start off this first blog by saying thank you so much for all of the support all of you have sent my way, whether financial or prayerfully! I truly would not be able to spread God's heart for people and join Him on mission at Collin without all of you! 

The Collin Staff team had a half day retreat so we could spend time with God and prepare ourselves to serve our students well. What a view to look at as I spent time reflecting with our creator and king! 

Wow, I can not believe it has been three weeks of the apprenticeship already! 

These past three weeks have been a whirlwind of truly seeing God's provision and how much He cares for me! With moving from Denton to Plano, moving in with my new roomies, starting our Old Testament class with Brandon (one of the Directors of FOCUS), and gearing up for the start of school God has shown me His love and care. 

The apprentices (10 of us in total) got to join the rest of the staff at our Fall Staff Retreat where we spent 4 days building friendship, talking about our vision and mission as campus missionaries, and getting ready for the start of school. This was such a neat opportunity to see the behind the scenes and the intentionality that goes into our staff preparing for the year. The senior staff did such an incredible job at including us apprentices and truly expressing how excited they were to have us join them. This time with these incredible people made me grateful for this opportunity to serve alongside them! They really are the best! 

All of the staff at retreat

As I mentioned above, the apprentices have been taking an Old Testament class with Brandon, who is one of the Directors of FOCUS and a pastor at UTD. My one word takeaway from this class so far is the word Wonderment. I had never experienced scripture in this way and I am so thankful to be able to study God's word alongside my fellow apprentices! Scripture is so intentional about showing God's character and His desire to be with us and what a blessing that is. Many days I am just left in wonderment and shock over how great our God is and the fact that He seeks us, time and time again. Wow, our God is incredible! 

The apprentices have decided that we want to be intentional with getting to know each other and have planned a once a month sabbath dinner at each person's house. We had our first one the Saturday after staff retreat and it brought me so much joy! With moving comes with this anxiety of being the "new girl" in the area and being fearful that I won't make friends but God has just reminded me of how much better His plan for my life is. He has given me these 9 other apprentices to share in this journey with and celebrate one another. Back at the church I went to in Denton (Denton North Church, REPRESENT) we did this fill in the blank activity which went like this "It would have been enough that God  __________, but He also  ________.". My time on staff and with this group of people has made me continue to think and reflect on this, "it would have been enough that God gave us life, but He also gave us people to share it with.". 

The apprentices (+1, Veronica's husband joined us!) at our 1st sabbath dinner! 

All the apprentices at our Licensing Ceremony, a ceremony were staff makes commitments or recommitments to serve our community and students! 

Definitions

In FOCUS we have a lot of acronyms we use so I thought I would give y'all a little cheat sheet for my blogs! 

FOCUS : Fellowship of Christian University Students 

Core : They are our gender specific small groups, they are called cores because we believe they are the core of our ministry. I am leading a small group with 2 of our Collin student leaders, Erica and Victoria, and I am PUMPED. 

Corefa : this term is a shortened version of “core facilitator.” These are students who volunteer to lead core and facilitate the group conversation. Our cores are led by a pair of corefas who dedicate 8-10 hours per week to planning core and spending time with their core members. 

TNF: This stands for "Thursday Night Fellowship" which is our weekly big group meetings where there is worship, a message, ways to get plugged in and fun after events. We have TNF at the Collin College Plano campus in the back of the Cafeteria on Thursdays at 7:30pm. Our first one is next week and let me tell you, it's going to be the best time!

FOJ: This stands for "Focus on Jesus", which is our one on one bible study that our staff and students use.

Peer Team : This is a group of corefas that can be described as a core for corefas. Every Monday, we alternate between meeting with all the corefas on campus or meeting with the girls or guys specific to your peer team group.

Peer Team Leader: Experienced Senior staff members who lead Peer Teams and meet up weekly with their assigned corefas to be a support system in any they can. 

A chalk Shrek I drew at UTD when we were helping their staff team with welcome week! Thought it would be a nice touch to the first blog ;)

Praise Reports: 

I want this to be a section where I can share about answered prayers and things God is doing in my life that I don't get to mention in my blog! Saying this, I also want this to be a place where you share the great things God is doing in your life so if you have a story or answered prayer that you want me to share in the next blog to encourage others you can email me at mackenzie.kinder@anyfocus.org! I can not wait to hear about the ways God is showing up for all of you! 

Prayer Request: 

I want this section to be a time to share with all of you prayer request for our students, our campus, my personal life, etc. but I also want to open it up to all of you! I truly believe that there is so much power in prayer and our God created us to share our burdens with one another. So if you have a prayer request you would like me to send to all of my supporters just let me know and I will add it to this section next time! 

Prayers for this week:

- Pray for our staff as we kick off with Welcome Week this next week at Collin! Pray that we are just filled with God's unending strength and that we allow Jesus to guide all of our steps this week (and year)! Pray that we rely on God to be filled with energy and boldness to invite students into His kingdom! 

- Pray for our students as they start classes tomorrow, that they would just be vibrant disciples to all of the people around them! Also pray that they get all of their homework done ;)

- Pray for all of the staff at Collin; professors, administrators, librarians, janitors, cooks, etc.. Pray that they would have a great year loving on these students and being a support system for them. 

Thank you so much for your prayers and I want to thank you again for all of your support! I can not put into words how blessed and grateful I am! Praying for y'all always! Have a great week! 

With Love, MacKenzie