Before you is one good looking group of Jesus lovin' FOCUS missionaries, and I spent all week with all of them. About 90%-95% of our on-campus missionaries (there are over 250 of them) gathered for a week of training. It was the first attempt at such a feat and it was awesome.
FOCUS is 13 years old and several years ago they grew too big to gather everyone for every summer training, so the decision was made to only have the 1st and 2nd year missionaries come in for the summer. Which works great, but it also means that some staff members hadn't been to a summer training in years. To remedy this everyone gathered to hear recent improvements and bond the organization together.
We also decided to invite all of our campus chaplains and over 25 of them joined us.
There were gatherings of schools, regions and friends around the clock.
These lovely people either served at, or graduated from our Alma Mater, Benedictine College. In fact 10% of the FOCUS staff graduated from Benedictine. FOCUS was started there, so the program is flourishing and huge. We hired 13 new FOCUS missionaries from Benedictine this year.
I also was able to meet with many of our FOCUS wives! I love these women. There is something about sharing in a similar mission that makes you instantly bonded.
Of course there were several classes as well. Here is Kevin addressing the staff on his latest project, a website for our students. The site is still being created, but the response to his presentation ranged from, "I was tearing up" to "I wanted to jump out of my seat I was so excited." No joke. He rocked it and I'm proud of him. We'll be sure to let you know when it is officially launched.
Here's Paul chasing a kid at the local petting zoo.
To top it off we spent the weekend hosting a married couples retreat with some great friends of ours. No pics, I decided to stop being the creepy woman who is always trying to take a group picture. But, it happened and even although we gave some of the talks, Kevin and I have some great things to talk over these next few weeks!
Well, that pretty much sums it up!
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