You're Invited!!

With weather determining so much of what we're able to do, February was kind of a crazy month! Thankfully, our next big event is 100% virtual so weather shouldn't being a problem - and you're invited to join us!! Every year we have a big fundraiser in the spring called Spring Showcase to raise money to send students to a conference in Washington called the Student Institute of Campus Ministry. Typically, the event is a talent show (but even better because our performers are incredibly talented) along with an art show. Since we can't do that in person this year, we're having a virtual show along with a one night only online shop with exclusive limited edition FOCUS merchandise! All of this will help us raise funds to invest in student leaders! We don't have all of the details ironed out yet due to COVID, but we are planning something in place of the Washington conference because this is something we really care about. Since this event is virtual, I get to invite my entire team (all of you) and it won't require driving to Dallas! We would love to have you join us on April 3rd at 6:30. There is no ticket price to attend the livestream - it's give what you can. Once you make a donation of any size (yes it can be as little as $1 or as much the highest number you can think of) at anyfocus.org/showcase, you'll get access to a link on April 3rd to watch the live stream and shop the merchandise. Please consider joining us from the comfort of your own home for a fun night of music and more! And all proceeds will go to expenses for our student leadership conference! Here's a poster with summarized details:

Back to weather determining what we're able to do, we experienced what I'm hoping will have been the worst of that this year in the middle of the month. You might've heard that Texas had quite the snowstorm and power outage right after Valentine's Day. We were very fortunate to get to stay with Alex's parents and have intermittent power as well as have no pipes burst at all. It was hard not to see students all week or understand what my job should look like when we couldn't even zoom without wifi or charged technology. It was a challenging week for sure, but good to surrender the control I wanted to have to the Lord. Since we live so close to Alex's family, we never really stay with them longer than a Saturday afternoon so it was great to spend half of a week with them. They were so hospitable and generous to us in such a chaotic week.

Here's our apartment when we left it for a few days. I just thought the snow was pretty!

At the end of this month, the sun came out and warmed us back up and we were able to have outdoor events again. Every semester we have a 4 hour theology class for all of our students where we take a break for pizza in the middle and we call it Pizza Theology. We do these to help teach people how to think more deeply about hot topics in our culture. We've been doing them as shorter livestreams the last couple semesters, but they're harder to pay attention to alone - and without pizza! So this semester we had a watch party with Collin students in our team director's backyard. Garrett, our team director, led the whole thing over the topic of entertainment which was really challenging and helpful amidst the world that feeds us with entertainment constantly. We had a great turnout and a fun time hanging out with students!

Here is our dysfunctional team trying to put a projector screen together for Pizza Theology. We always have fun setting up together.

Here's a picture of a break we took at Pizza Theology. The students were great at wearing masks and social distancing! They work hard to get to be together in community.

Thank you for tuning into this month's updates. I really hope you can join us April 3rd for showcase!

Please be praying for us as we head into the last quarter of the school year - there's still work to be done and we want to finish well!

With love,

Jacy