I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Years! This was probably one of the best Christmas breaks; not for any particular reason or because anything big happened. It was just the right amount of busy and restful. Laurence and I were able to work on a few projects, got to hang out with both of our families, and also have down time. It's left me feeling very recharged, and I am so ready to be back!
Big Howdy
So I'll go ahead and jump right in! This past Friday, we had an event at UTD called the Big Howdy. This is a welcome party some organizations come together to throw for the international students on campus. We do it in the Fall as well! We had around 400 new international students come to UTD this Spring!! 
This was such a fun event, and we had a pretty awesome turn out! There are so many things that go on throughout the event. For starters, there is free food which definitely draws students. There is dancing, and actually Abbie Malone, one of our FOCUS apprentices, taught some line dances to the students throughout the event. I walked into the room as she was teaching Thriller, and EVERYONE was on the dance floor. It was really neat to see so many smiling faces. Another neat thing about this party is that organizations have tables set up, so the international students can hear about what that particular group is doing on campus or how they can get involved more. We give the students these bingo cards as they register that have all the organization tables on it as well as some goals that will help them meet new people. They then turn those cards in to get added into this drawing for prizes, so needless to say, students definitely go to the organization tables. So we met lots of new people, and we actually got several students sign up to get more information! Be praying that those students actually show up and that we can really bless the international students on our campus!Spring Welcome Week
This week we are going to do a Spring Welcome Week at UTD. We have three events that we are putting on to help meet new people on campus. We haven't done this in a few years, so we aren't super sure how it will go. Our hope is that the students in our ministry can use these events to help meet people in their classes, and it gives them something to invite people they're meeting to.
We would really appreciate it if you could be in prayer for these events!
Student Testimony
