February Ministry Update

 

Hello! 

    I want to thank you for your continuous support these past 7 months. I am tremendously blessed with your prayers and giving. I can't express enough how thankful I am! This month I will be sharing about Winter Camp, the start of the Spring semester, and the New Testament Foundations Class. As always, feel free to send me your prayer requests or any questions you might have. Let's jump in!

Winter Camp

    Winter Camp happens at the start of every Spring semester. It is held at Sky Ranch Camp in Van, Texas from Friday night to Monday morning on a 3-day weekend due to MLK Day. If you remember me talking about Fall Camp back in the fall, which consisted of only Richland students, Winter Camp consists of all the FOCUS campuses across DFW! I have always loved Winter Camp when I was a student because I got to make friends from other campuses and see the incredible impact FOCUS has across DFW!

    This year we had students from about 15 campuses come to Winter Camp, which came out to about 400 students in attendance!! Most years, we ask a speaker to come to talk and share their expertise. This year, Rikk Watts from Regent College in Vancouver, Canada. For over 10 years, he has been teaching on New Testament. Rikk's talks were helpful and got a lot of students talking and thinking deeply about their faith and the role Christianity has played in our world and culture. 

    If you are interested in listening to the sessions, you can find all the sessions here: Rikk Winter Camp - FOCUS (anyfocus.org)

    This year, unfortunately, I was unable to go to Winter Camp in person because I was sick. I never tested positive for Covid but after talking with my supervisor we decided it best that I stay home. I was sad but it gave me the opportunity to serve other students that weren't able to go due to having Covid or being sick in some way. Two other sick staff and I came up with a plan to play games together over Zoom at different times during the day. We also were able to watch a live stream of all the sessions, which helped me feel like I didn't miss out completely.

    After Winter Camp, I got to talk to some of our Richland students that went and got to hear what they thought about the sessions and experience of Winter Camp since for many of them it was their first time. Many of them mentioned how they weren't expecting Rikk to be more of a lecturer than a preacher. After getting used to the style, they expressed how helpful and thought-provoking Rikk's sessions were. If you have the chance, I highly recommend giving the sessions a listen!

New Testament Class

    The start of a new year means new classes! I am excited to start up New Testament Class, especially with having all of the context and background of the Old Testament in my back pocket. We started NT Class in mid-January and already I can say that having the knowledge of the Old Testament has made the story of Jesus and the early church richer. 

    It was been fascinating to learn more about the 1st-century Greco-Roman world because it has helped to understand what exactly Jesus was speaking to in his day. I feel like the New Testament has become alive to me the more I understand and learn about what it was like back in the 1st-century. 

    Part of our homework is to listen to audios from a Regent college class called 'New Testament Foundations' which is taught by Rikk Watts himself! After he came and spoke at Winter Camp, he offered to Zoom call in every week for an hour during our NT Class time and answer any questions we might have! It really is such a treat to be able to hear from him directly. 

    If you have any questions about my classes and what I am learning, please reach out because I would love to talk about it more with you!!

Thank you so much for your continued support and prayers.

    In Christ, 

    Claire Umstead