Celebration of Lights

I hope you all enjoyed Thanksgiving and are looking forward to Christmas and the other approaching holidays!

Celebration of Lights

SMU has an annual tradition where the Monday after Thanksgiving Break, they'll have a ceremonial lighting of Christmas lights at Dallas Hall & the huge Dallas Hall Lawn at the northern end of campus.

You can't see them in the darkness, but a group of students from FOCUS ran into each other and watched with me. All together there were probably over 2000 SMU students who attended the event!

Before lighting

After!

Just before they turned on the lights, we concluded the ceremony with a massive candlelight service.

From China to America

Meet my friend Jerry! He was raised in Beijing then came to America for high school and now college. He found Jesus in America and has been one of our most consistent freshmen this year! It's been such a pleasure getting to know him. He's funny, WAY too competitive, and extremely passionate about our Lord.

One thing he's still figuring out is his sleep schedule...

Taught him how to play disc golf yesterday!

Also, since writing this, he told me that he just lost a family member back home that he was close to. So please be praying for him and his family as they mourn. Hopefully he'll find his friends in Focus to be safe and caring people for him to process this with.

Thank you all for your support and for praying for students like Jerry. My prayer is that through our joint efforts, hundreds more like him will experience Jesus's love and go on to proclaim the good news to whatever workplaces and nations they find themselves in over the coming decades.

Your brother,
Taylor

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Ministry in the Mountains!

To all my friends working in schools, happy summer! Erin just had her last day at the elementary school this past Friday, and I know she certainly needs a break. Even though our semester ended a few weeks ago, God's still been moving in our community! We had our annual student leadership / campus ministry conference (SICM) and our 4 SMU students Miles, Jessica, Michelle, and Ruth, had an extremely meaningful time. I've got lots of pics to share from it! Mustangs in Washington! Jessica, Miles, myself, Michelle, Ruth! Chinese food! Glamor shot SICM completion certificates! Beautiful sunset view from WWU All 120 SICM students & staff prayed over our SMU team for the coming school year. Very meaningful! Adventure! The Freemont Troll Rattlesnake Ledge Trail (5 mile hike!) Not pictured: Me almost throwing up 4x from the climb Our host, Bob! He housed Miles and me all week, fed us, and took us to the mountains between Mt. Shuksan and Mt. Baker! We had a great time getting to know

Endings and New Beginnings

We've made it to and past the final stretch! I've got some bitter-sweet pictures to share with y'all this month. End of Year Party We had our last big event of the year! The university offered to cater dinner, and the students spent time sharing how they've seen God working through individual people in our community this year. We also took some time to recognize our leaders and seniors, thanking them for all the effort they've poured into their peers. Laurence, our campus director, is officially on leave with his new baby! He's the one with the artistic touch so that means Siena and I had to do our best. I think it turned out awesome after all! Wholesome Wholesome part 2 Our graduating seniors! We made them Christmas ornaments as a gift so they can have a yearly reminder of the ways God has blessed them through this community while they were in college! We asked each of them to say a prayer each year for the new students who will be following in their footsteps.

Welcome Charli to the Family!

Hi everyone! I hope you've been enjoying your air conditioners this month. Ours went out the other day and the indoor temp got up to 90 degrees before our mechanic was able to fix it up. 🥵 Makes me praise God for the blessings we take for granted. Renting a house! Erin and I have had a couple of life changes this month! First of all, we moved into a house in Garland! We can't wait to have lots of guests. We've gotten to start that in the last couple weeks with our aunt & uncle (shoutout Brenda & Jeff, who read these updates!) and some good friends in our church (shoutout to Josh & Mandi who also read these!). We're so excited for this to become a space where friends, family, students, and all kinds of people feel welcome and experience God's goodness through friendship. Praise God for community! Got to warm the house with some SMU guys! If you're a nerd like us and want to know the boardgame, it's called Zombicide. 10/10 recommend. Meet Charli!

Taylor's Ministry Updates!

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