Siena's Ministry Blog

Hey Y’all! This month has been such a sweet time for my personal friendships and ministry. I’m so excited to share about what’s been happening; get ready for lots of photos!! Some Big News.. I'm excited to share that I'll be serving at SMU for the next 3 years! It's been such a blessing being on staff this year and pouring into the amazing students that we have. I can’t wait to continue the work that God has started at SMU and to be the main women’s minister there with FOCUS. Thank you so much for your support. I look forward to reaching out over the next few months to see whether you would be interested in continuing to support my work as a missionary to SMU moving forward. Now onto how February went! Staff Retreat One of the most fun things that happened this month was staff retreat! We were supposed to go before school started in January, but because many of our staff came down with COVID, we pushed it to mid-February.  All 56 of us went down to Log Country Cove in Bur...

I can't believe we're already in February of 2022! It's been a sweet month getting back on campus and working with my team again. Thank you so much for your support; I hope you enjoy my first update of the year! A Chill(y) Start to the Year Since school at SMU didn't start until the 18th of January, I was blessed with a couple weeks of a more flexible schedule while prepping for Winter Camp (more details below) and the start of the semester. During this time, I was able to meet with a lot of my old friends from UT Dallas as well as spend intentional time bonding with my fellow pastoral Apprentices.  Two really fun hangouts we had before school were a girl's Apprentice night in Arlington and whirly ball (a game that combines bumper cars, lacrosse, and basketball) with the whole Apprentice crew. I loved getting to know all of them better and bonding over these fun experiences. All the Apprentices had such a fun time playing whirly ball!  A really sweet movie night wit...

  Welcome, 2022! Can you believe that it's already the new year??! It's crazy to think that I'm already halfway done with the Apprenticeship program... Thank you so much for your support in my development as a minister and in what God has been doing at SMU this year!!  I hope you had an amazing Christmas with your friends and family, even in the midst of rising COVID cases. This is a great time to reflect on all that God has done this past year and start praying about what He has planned for us this upcoming season.  Apprentice Testimonial Sermon One major thing that happened in December was that I gave my first sermon to the other FOCUS staff. The topic of the sermon was "This is my Gospel," which stems from 2 Timothy 2:8-9, where Paul talks about the truth about who Jesus is and what he has done. All of the Apprentices were able to share the aspects and truths of God and the gospel that have most profoundly impacted them in their walk with Christ. For mine, I ta...

Another Month Gone! I can't believe that it's already December!! This month has been so sweet as we've been wrapping up the semester with our students, so I'm excited to share what has happened. Thank you again for your support in God's mission on the SMU campus and your investment in my development as a minister. Discipleship Class and Pizza Theology This month we finished up our Discipleship Class (D-Class) for the semester that we offered our students once a week before our large group gathering. Laurence, the head staff person at SMU FOCUS, and I took turns leading the group through the book of John, going over one chapter a week. I got to teach on John 3 and dive deep into the theological and pastoral implications of Jesus' interactions with Nicodemus as well as John the Baptist's testimony about him. This was such a cool opportunity for our students to interact with God's word on a more academic level; they learned how the context and culture of Jo...

Hey Everyone! Thanks for being patient with me getting my blog up for October; it’s been a busy month! I’m so excited to share what we’ve been up to this month and how the Lord has been guiding us and working through us in the ministry. Thank you for your support in letting me be a part of something so life-changing for myself and others at SMU; may God bless you for your faithfulness to Him! FALL CAMP We were blessed to bring almost 40 people to Fall Camp this year! The biggest event we had this month was Fall Camp! Fall Camp is our retreat where we take our students to an overnight camp to spend time being in community with each other and to connect with God. While we were there, we had a lot of fun playing games and doing different activities with each other, which gave the opportunity for our students to intentionally get to know each other better and build friendships with people outside of their small groups. We also had sessions where we all gathered together to worship and hear...

Hey Everyone! It’s been such a busy but amazing month of ministry at SMU. We’ve really gotten into the swing of things here and have been enjoying a really sweet time of forming deeper friendships in the community and growing our leaders. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and for your support of our mission of making and maturing disciples here!! Explore Dallas Day We started off this month with a super fun outreach event called Explore Dallas Day! On Labor Day, we invited students to join us to go and explore downtown Dallas to get to know the city and connect with each other. It was such a fun time!! A group of about 20 students carpooled from SMU campus and went to Klyde Warren Park to eat at the food trucks and toss a frisbee around. We also walked to see different sculptures in the middle of Dallas, which was a bonding experience as we explored the areas along the way. I got to connect with two girls, Anna and Reese, who had started coming to my core the week bef...

Hey Y'all! It's been such a crazy month! God has been doing so much on campus at SMU through FOCUS and I am so excited to share that with you. I hope you'll take some time to read through and pray for the people we're interacting with! SICM Thank you so much for everyone who prayed about our SICM experience. This student leadership conference was an amazing time of empowering our students to not only be leaders but also disciple-makers on campus; it also gave all of us space to grow closer to God in His beautiful creation. During that week, we had around six hours of teaching each day over spiritual life, discipleship, evangelism, and campus ministry practicals.  Out of all of these talks, one that was most impactful to me was a session about our inner life and remaining connected to God and the Holy Spirit. It reminded me that the best people that God can use are surrendered people , which doesn't come naturally for me (does it for anyone?). I was reminded that I m...