Hi everyone! May has marked the end of the apprenticeship and has been the close of the 2024-2025 school year. Here is what has been going on at Collin FOCUS this month!
SICM!
Every year FOCUS invites a number of students from across all of our campuses who are interested in being a student leader to SICM - or the Student Institute of Campus Ministry - in Bellingham, Washington about an hour and a half Northwest of Seattle. It is a week-long event packed with worship, sermons, Spiritual activities, teaching, hands-on evangelism, and a lot of fun! It was a great opportunity to meet students from other FOCUS ministries across the metroplex and to grow a whole lot closer with the guys from Collin. We learned a bunch of practical skills on how to lead a Bible study, how to strike up evangelistic conversations on campus, and how to build community among peers. It was a blessing to get to go and I am so excited for the fruit it will bear in the future! Here are some pictures from the trip - one collage of the large group time we spent together in classes and worship, a collage of photos of the students from Collin, and a group picture of all of us who went to SICM!
Core and FOJs
Leading core this year and getting to meet one-on-one with so many guys has been such a pleasure! I have seen God move in so many of these guys' lives and I am excited to see what He does through the year we have gotten to spend together. Please be praying for them as some transfer schools, some head into the workforce, and some come back to Collin for another year - that their faith would continue to grow as the seasons change. I am not quite sure yet what next year will look like in terms of where and when my core will be, who I will lead with, or who will return to join us, but I will be sure to let you know when I do. Thank you so much for those of you who consistently prayed for us each week Mondays at 6:00 - God has used your faithfulness to do some really cool things.
One of the pillars of our ministry is that one-on-one relationships and spiritual friendships are instrumental in coming to know and serve Christ, so it has been a blessing getting to study the Bible with and spend time with so many guys in core and beyond this year. It has become a favorite part of my job and it is where I have seen God do some really neat work in the hearts of these dudes! Here is a picture of Jose and I - we finished FOJ at the beginning of the month - as well as Colton and Ian, two other guys I got to study the Bible with - getting baptized, as well as our last core picture of the year!
As always, it is such a blessing having you all as partners in what God is doing at these college campuses and I can't thank you enough for the prayers, the encouragement, and the generous support you have given this year. God is so good, and you are a big reason why these students are actively following Jesus and have a dedicated relationship with Him!
I am also so grateful for the people I get to work with and wanted to honor some of them. The first picture is of us apprentices - we gave an end-of-year sermon to the FOCUS staff and officially graduated from our 10-month apprenticeship to full staff members! It has been a joy getting to know each of them in classes and out on campuses not just as coworkers but as friends. I can't imagine going through this year with anyone else and I am excited to see how God is going to use each of them! Pictured from left to right: me, Alex, Madison, CK, and Paul.
It has also been amazing working with my supervisor Pedro. He has been a mentor, a co-laborer, and a close friend to me this year. He will be transitioning off of FOCUS staff this summer, but it has been a blessing getting to meet with him each week and I know will do mighty things for God in his next stage of life!
We ended our New Testament class in the book of John, so I wanted to leave you with John 10:10, a verse that has inspired so much of my ministry this year: "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."
My prayer is that in their time with FOCUS this year these students got to experience life, and life to the full! I am confident God is going to finish the work he has begun in these guys this year and will be faithful as we gear up for the coming school year!
I am excited to share more of what we will be up to as the summer progresses and I love getting to hear from you all! Please feel free to reach out for more pictures, more stories, more information, or just to say hey. Thank you again for your support, and if any friends or family come to mind that you think would be interested in partnering with me or hearing more about what God is doing at Collin, please let me know! I would love to reach out to them with more information on how they can be a part of this!
As always, a browser version of this blog email and the rest of the blog posts I have made this year are available at http://mick.mcafoose.anyfocus.org/ and attached is Freddie's testimony, one of our very own Collin students!
Blessings,
Mick
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