Puzzles. Squirrels. Coffee. Devos. Finals.

Where else but the McCarty Student Center would you get a combo like that? We started off the semester with Welcome Week which included multiple outreach events every day. We had everything from free breakfast tacos, to movie nights, and even Kona Ice stopped by and handed out snowcones to students as they walked to class. We made lots of contacts; one thing for certain is people on campus know about the McCarty Student Center. Included in Welcome Week was our annual Hello Party where we introduced ourselves to the incoming Freshman and transfers. This is a longtime favorite of the members of the University Church of Christ. Lots of food helps to ease those nervous freshman glances into full smiles by the end of the day.

It was exciting to see how our group bonded over the course of the semester. Each day more and more students would trickle into McCarty, starting with one or two and by the end of it, our walls were filled with constant conversation and laughter.

We chose to study three books this semester, Ezra, Nehemiah, and James. We even had the opportunity to survey the books of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, since they fit chronologically with the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. A special thanks to David Olmos (TXST alumni) for being our speaker at the Fall Retreat held at the Hensel Christian Youth Camp. His lessons inspired by Isaiah’s words “Rise, Rebuild, Restore” certainly encouraged our students to rise, rebuild, and restore The Faith on their campuses. We were blessed by the presence of multiple campus ministries as far as San Angelo and Corpus Christi.

We look forward to a new semester this Spring. Please, as always, tell your church leaders about our work, send us your students, and most of all keep us in your prayers.