August 2025

The school year has officially started! We’re on campuses, meeting students, bringing them to church, and doing this whole thing over again. It’s times like these, at the beginning again, when I reflect on the phrase “God has no grandchildren.” If you haven’t heard it before, it just means that everyone must have an individual and personal relationship with God, you can’t skirt by just because your parents were/are Christians. The cyclical nature of campus ministry can feel like a spinning in a hamster wheel at times. But keeping in step with the Lord, reminding myself that we’re called to make and mature disciples, and then getting to meet these new students and have these new relationships with people who are eager to learn more, refreshes me and reinvigorates me: not only in pushing to see our mission and vision fulfilled, but also refreshes my own walk and allows me to take a step back and reevaluate where I’m at with God.

If you’ve been hearing me talk about our kids’ ministry revamp, it finally happened! In August, we rolled out a new curriculum centered around The Beginner’s Bible, something that our families have at home. That way, our parents can partner alongside with us in teaching their kids stories from the Bible. We also brought on 8 new teachers! Here is my new team, Jared and Jasmine. I’m so excited for more people to be able to experience the joy of caring for these kids and helping guide them to be more like Jesus! Thinking back through my years, I think I’ve been helping with this age group at church since around middle school with my mom.

Enjoy this unflattering 0.5 photo of dinner the other night! Renae, a grad student at UTD, came back from studying abroad in India for the summer and brought her mom with her. I have always wanted to learn how to make Indian food well (I’ve tried a few times and it never turns out right) and so I asked if her mom could come over and teach me how to make a few traditional dishes. It was so good!

Our new apprentices have started! On their first day, we cater lunch for them and get to know them a bit better. Our apprentices come from all of our different campuses, so it’s hard to know them before they start. This bunch is very eager and (seemingly) on top of things. There’s just so many things to be excited about in the beginning—I’m excited to see them grow, in knowledge and confidence, as they learn what doing campus ministry is all about.

In an effort to recenter our pastoral team and to get to know the apprentices better, we have a staff retreat in the summer. Again, with the cyclical nature of our work, you may have read about this in the past. But it really is such a sweet time to be able to get on the same page before we are dispersed across DFW. Here is a group of guys playing cockroach poker, a simple-but-fun game where you try to trick other players into collecting animals in front of them.

The update you’ve all been waiting for! Here is me and Steph at a wedding recently. Steph has been doing so well! Some leg cramps and the baby doing gymnastics keeping her up at night sometimes. But in the grand scheme of things, such an uneventful pregnancy, which we’re thankful for. Steph is due on September 15th, so only 2 more weeks or so! Thank you for keeping us in your prayers as the final countdown begins. You’ll be sure to see a picture of her when she’s born! :-)

A couple buddies graciously came over on Sunday to work on some house projects for 8 hours. Some things for the baby and some things that just needed to get done that I hadn’t gotten around to. There’s still more to be done, but I’m so thankful for friends like Stephen and Jeremy (I’ve definitely posted about them before and they’ve helped around the house a lot!) who are willing to sacrifice a day on their weekend to help us out. Here is me and Stephen woefully unprepared to bring home a sheet of drywall in his SUV. (But don’t worry, we got it home safely in the end.)