October Ministry Update: Digging Deeper

 Hi everyone! I hope October has brought a break from the heat. We are in the full swing of things at Collin college and I am excited to tell you all about it.

Core

    Our core (which is what we call our group Bible studies, for reference) is still going strong! By God's grace we have had eleven guys show up the last two weeks. It has been a blast to get to lead with my friend Gio and to be a part of the students' lives this semester. We spent the last few weeks going through the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and will likely spend the rest of the semester diving deeper into some stories of Jesus in the Gospels! We meet on Monday nights at 6:00, so if you could pray for us during that time as you are able - that the Holy Spirit would be with us as we gather to guide our conversation and that we would get to experience Jesus in a really powerful way.

    Getting to meet together has been awesome and I have been encouraged by how the guys in core have been so supportive and encouraging. Here is a selfie from after a Monday Night core (from left to right: James, Gio, Jose, Eric, Connor, Aiden, Ian, Mario, Tony, Ethan, and Daniel, with my big head at the bottom) followed by some captioned pictures of doing life together!

Kevin (another minister at Collin FOCUS, pictured in the middle in the white bigfoot shirt) had an ultimate frisbee game on his birthday this month and my core guys and I got to cheer him on!

Some of the guys in our core are a part of an intramural indoor soccer league at Collin. It has been a blast getting to cheer them on!

Fall Retreat

    

    The weekend of October 19th and 20th we took students to a camp just outside the Dallas area called Mt. Lebanon for a retreat away from the hustle and bustle of the semester. Throughout Saturday and Sunday we studied God's word, worshiped the Lord (pictured in the top left corner below), and competed in some team-building games for the sacred camp cup. My core guys (in the bottom right below) were paired with another core to make up the pink team (combined in the bottom left below). It was such a powerful weekend and it set the pace in some cool ways for the rest of the year in our dedication to Jesus and community. 

Focus on Jesus

    One of my favorite parts of the year has been getting to do one-on-one Bible studies with guys both in core and beyond. FOCUS put together a study plan called Focus on Jesus (aka FOJ) that tackles a lot of different topics such as the Word of God, who Jesus is, discipleship, sin, grace, and more in a 10-week span. Talking about Jesus in a little more personal setting has also been a great way to get to know guys on a deeper spiritual level. Getting to study FOJ my freshman year at UTD was an amazing experience, so I think it is a testament to the goodness of God that I get to pay it forward by studying with the next generation of college students! Here are some FOJ selfies with Addison, Cole, and Ian (from left to right, respectively). I am also leading FOJ with three other guys: Angel, Daniel, and Tony.

Thank You!

    Thank you so much for making this year possible - getting to see firsthand how your faithfulness, prayers, and generosity has impacted the lives of these young men has been such an honor. God is continuing to do powerful, transformative things here at Collin and I am really excited to see how the rest of the semester wraps up - it is crazy how fast the time has flown by since August!

    I have been reading through the Psalms as part of my apprentice classwork and have been marinating over Psalm 117 (it is short but sweet): 

Praise the Lord, all nations!

Extol him, all peoples!

For great is his steadfast love toward us,

and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.

Praise the Lord!

    God's love and faithfulness these last couple of months has been incredible to experience and honestly overwhelming at times. Witnessing these guys and others across the Collin FOCUS ministry grow in their faith and turn to Jesus has been living proof that He really is so, so good and worthy of praise. Please keep us in your prayers as the semester slowly comes to a close and as the staff prepares for the coming spring - that His Spirit would guide our decisions and would continue to be active amidst the ministry. Please also pray for me as I get to be a part of a mission trip with Cypress Bible Church to Japan this November! I am so excited to see and be a part of how God is working overseas - I can't wait to tell you all about it!

    Thank you again for the prayers and support! As always, a browser version of this blog email is available at http://mick.mcafoose.anyfocus.org/. Attached below are a couple of graphics - one is a student testimonial from SMU and the other contains information about Keep FOCUS Growing (KFG), an annual fundraiser our ministry puts forward every year to raise money specifically for planting new FOCUS ministries in DFW universities and helping new FOCUS plants get off the ground. This is FOCUS's first year as an organization at TCU and God has been doing some mighty things!

Blessings,

Mick