FINALS WEEK!

This week our students are busy at work, studying for finals and pulling projects together. The Catholic Student Center has turned into a study hall, with an agreed-upon silence in most of the rooms. We claimed one room, however, for snacking, unwinding, blowing off steam, etc. The students moved the ping pong table in there, brought video games, and we've held a movie series a few nights this week. It's a great time for us to support the students and encourage them as they study, but also be available for those who are in between finals, or finished, with whom we go out to eat, watch movies, and chat.

I've been trying to get together with what's called my "discipleship chain". This consists of John, my disciple, along with Nick and Vince, his disciples. It's good to get all of us together so that there is solidarity in the movement and encouragement from a greater perspective. By living life together, we grow in fraternity while at the same time witnessing to God's love to each other. I had the guys over for dinner this past Monday, I made my sister's delicious Thai Chicken Stew. It won many compliments, I recommend it. After dinner we watched Gladiator together.

Tuesday and Wednesday our FOCUS team went on our mid-year retreat. We journeyed up to Emmitsburg again, to Mt. St. Mary's College. It was a great time to reflect on the semester and recast the vision for the next. We're excited for a program we're calling "Upper Room", which will be introduced for the first time here at UMD. It is an 8 week program for new FOCUS student leaders that serves 2 purposes: 1. Unity of formation (with unity in fellowship as a side-effect) 2. An opportunity for leadership development for veteran student leaders who can help lead the workshops. The workshops cover the basics of FOCUS discipleship and evangelization models, while also providing a context for us to meet regularly and build up our fraternity. Since this is the first time we're introducing the program (many other established FOCUS schools have incorporated the program already) we're asking that all our student leaders participate. In the future it will be only for disciples who are new that year and have not started leading a bible study. Want the numbers from this year?

We started with 11 disciples at the beginning of this year. The tough news first: we lost 2 of them. The good news: we gained 7. Please pray for our continued zeal for souls as we transition into our second semester.