Brianna Worsham and Matt Clark stepped into our full-time internship this year. Brianna graduated this past spring from the University of North Texas, where she helped pioneer a campus ministry last year. She shared her vision for herself and for our ministry this last Thursday night, and I seriously had to keep myself from crying; it was so powerful. She will be mentoring all of our women leaders this year, and so she has spent the last few weeks beginning to build those relationships.
Matt was actually one of the guys I got to disciple when I was a student at UT Dallas. He graduated several years ago and has been volunteering his time to help out at Collin College for 2 years. Already having built many relationships and mentored some of the young men in our ministry, he has been able to make a pretty seamless transition into a more full-time role. I can tell he puts a lot of thought and heart into each relationship, and it shows in his impact on people's lives. Matt is a talented guy, and he has designed all of our new artwork for this coming school year for all 4 campuses.
So God is good; He always provides. And we're off to the races. We've got a great crew of 9 corefas (our small group facilitators). We also have another 8 or so students that have stepped up to lead in various ways. This team of people has already been such an encouragement to me--they sincerely love God and love people, and they want to see Jesus impact their campus in a powerful way. I'm sure I'll have some neat stories to tell about them as the year progresses.
As of now, each of them are hard at work meeting and befriending students. One of our second year students, Gabe, came up to me on the first day of school; he had already met 5 new people and gotten phone numbers from 2 of them so he could follow up. And that was before lunch!
Their work is paying of thus far. We probably had over 80 students hanging out at our volleyball night in the on-campus apartments, and 90-100 at our first Thursday Night Fellowship.
We know the real work is yet to come, and it happens one-on-one. We'll be starting our small groups this next week, as well as looking to set up one-on-one studies. Only God brings growth and change, so be in prayer with us that He does mighty things in the hearts of young people at Collin. Big numbers are exciting, but they mean nothing if we're not building deep foundations of faith.
Thanks for your faithful support. Much love and gratitude to you all,
Casey
P.S. Here's a pic from our intern and staff retreat. All four campuses are represented. Bri is above me in the white, and Matt is next to me in brown.
