Leadership Summit 2009 and Update on the Mission

Projects!

Every other year FOCUS hosts a National Conference, last year it took place in Grapevine Texas. But what happens in the off years?

They are called Local Leadership Summits and involve coordination of FOCUS teams in close proximity to each other putting together a mini conference for their student leaders. The theme for the January 2009 Summit is "Leave the 99". UMD will be putting ours on with the Naval Academy and George Mason University. We all have committees that we're working on, mine being the program committee. So I've been making calls and sending emails trying to book speakers and music for the weekend. We've also been working on a schedule and invitations to priests and chaplains. So far for our Summit we have booked Sister Mary Gabriel from the Sisters of Life in New York, Jeremy Rivera from FOCUS National (to speak on evangelization), and Jeff Ossinger for music (a former FOCUS missionary who now works at Catholic University).

Update

John Junghans, my disciple, will be asking Vince Bury into discipleship this Friday. Please pray for both of them, that Vince responds in the way that God prompts his heart, and that John has the courage to challenge Vince in a loving and brotherly way. Here's a bad picture of Vince and I at a UMD soccer game earlier in the year.

In Other News

FOCUS UMD will be hosting its annual recruitment event next Tuesday. We're calling it "Go therefore...A Closer Look at FOCUS as a Post-Collegiate Opportunity". Please keep this event in your prayers also, it is important for the development of FOCUS Nationally for us to invite faithful young people from our community to give of themselves alongside us. I've also been invited to speak at a similar event at Mount St. Mary's this Saturday night. You can pray that God is with me and uses my words.

Raul and I have begun watching the HBO series Band of Brothers with the men at the Catholic Student Center. The series provides excellent teaching points on how to build virtue and fraternity. We're watching the second episode this Sunday night.