The Sweetness of Summertime

This is from our Summer FOCUS kick off at the end of May!

Happy Summer my friends!! I can't believe the school year is officially over and summer is in full swing. Our students ended very early in May, so we finished out the month with some staff development and summer prep. For two full days, Paul Austin who is the pioneering director for Chi Alpha Campus Ministries came to lead our entire FOCUS staff team in a pioneer camp because we are hoping to pioneer some new campuses next year. Not only will we be starting new campuses, but our Collin campuses will practically be starting from scratch due to the slow year we just had. We do have a few students who will help us out, but we've got some bricks to lay!

Because the majority, if not all, of our entire team is fully vaccinated now, we were able to have a full team lunch together to reflect on the year! It was so special and sweet to look back on how we ended the last school year on Zoom, but now we can literally feel a new season coming as people are getting more comfortable doing things we like to call "normal". One of my favorite traditions we have as a team is sharing stories together - funny, sweet, encouraging, sad, crazy, you name it. Despite having such a weird year, the stories we heard at our lunch were even more powerful, sweet, and encouraging than they usually are. It was simply great to be back together again!

These are our campus pastors whose commitments ended this spring. We prayed for them as we sent them out into the next seasons of their lives a couple weeks ago. There will certainly be holes without them, but I'm looking forward to their next steps.

At the very end of May, we had our Summer FOCUS kick off! Last summer this was fully online, but this summer we are able to be back all together again. Every Thursday night, students from all of our campuses gather together at CARE Church (a very generous church we have partnered with in Richardson) for worship, a sermon, and fellowship. We had about 170 people show up to the first one! Hearing so many people from the body of believers all together after over a year without it was incredibly powerful. I'm so thankful we are able to be back together again in this way!

CARE Church had this sign ready for us on our first night back for Summer FOCUS! They have been so generous to us for years by sharing their space with us on Thursday nights.

Now we're in June and our pacing is drastically different - which I don't mind at all! I love having the summer to rest, have fun with students and our staff team, spend more time with friends, travel, and fundraise. I look forward to sharing about all of these with you as the summer goes on.

Fundraising has been great so far! I'm praying that I will be fully fundraised by the end of June! I still need about $400 more per month, so please continue praying for that along with my entire staff team. 

Thank you for already partnering with me and being part of this with me!

I hope you all are having a lovely summer! I'd love to hear about any travel plans, projects, rest ideas, goals, or anything else you have this summer.

Love y'all,

Jacy