November Update

This past weekend, Cynthia and I went to Tallahassee to attend a Christian concert (we got free tickets!) with some of our student leaders and students. We stayed with one of the student's family and visited another. The weekend was an awesome time to invest in our students and gave us opportunities to challenge them ("Ladies, lets all work on cutting out the negative humor, pk?"), to hang out ("So, this is the ultimate climbing tree in the whole world..."), to have great discussions (while talking about the faith and strength of the martyrs..."Hey, has anyone ever read 1 Macc 7 with the story of the woman and her 7 sons?" and then we read through it and talked about it and about being a witness for our Faith), for prayer (the girls joined Cynthia and I for daily Mass, a holy hour, and the rosary), and for utter goofiness (the car trip there was pretty much a dance party).

One of the most rewarding moments for me was when one of their parents approached me to thank me for all the work FOCUS has done at UNF. She said she had really hoped that her daughter would find a community of Catholics at UNF who would at least support her in the faith she had. Instead, she found a group of friends and mentors who have helped her GROW in her faith!