PHOS Ministry Recap

It’s been just shy of two years since my husband, Jeremy, and I moved into student housing in Bayou Oaks, a complex specifically designed for sororities and fraternities, with 20 BSM college students. It’s been a rollercoaster, but as we come full circle we realize just how much fun we have had and the growth we have seen in the students who have been in this thing with us. 

This year we asked the Lord to pull together a student leadership group. Six students courageously stepped up and faithfully met at least once a month with us to discuss the direction of the house and the highs and lows of the culture of the house. These students then went above and beyond to spark outreach opportunities such as our Thursday night Party Pancakes – every Thursday around the complex fraternities host loud parties; our students spent about 3-4 hours every week cooking pancakes and serving them to their neighbors. They invited friends to join in and while handing out the flapjacks, would engage people in spiritual conversations. This made such an impact on the Bayou Oaks community that many said they would sign a petition to keep us if we were ever asked to leave because we are not a Greek organization. We also had several joint-mixers and participated in many philanthropy events including pulling together dishes for our Thanksgiving potluck mixer with Triangle, and competing in Phi Mu’s Field Day.

Several weekly rhythms held our community together so we could see each other’s faces and care for one another: Our council would meet once a month on a Sunday evening to diagnose the heartbeat of the house. Every Monday night we designated as Family Dinner, which of course included a home-cooked meal, which one of our “family” members would volunteer to cook, and then we would have an encouragement or someone of the community would share their life story and we would pray together. The students saw so much value in simply sharing a meal together that they established Café Wednesday or “having breakfast together” on Wednesday mornings. And of course Party Pancakes brought us together again later in the week. 

This weekend we will spend the weekend as a group in Livingston at one of the student’s lake house. We are looking forward to worshipping, eating really good food, and our second annual “encouragement circle”. It will be a great time to see exactly how much we’ve grown and learned about each other and my hope is that everyone comes back feeling like it was all worthwhile and that they were part of something that only God dreamed up.