This week was great! We had many great conversations and encouraging moments through out the week. But, like always there were some hard things to sort out. This week God decided to impress on me my already breaking heart for the lost. This is a common recurrence in my life, I have days where I will be so burdened for the lost that it becomes severely emotional. This week it lasted from Wed until Fri. It started with my weekly brekky with Lauren Wednesday morning. She shared with me a conversation she had with her unbelieving dad. I started tearing up, which confused her a bit, but I just told her that it was really sad. On one hand, I don't really know Lauren's dad, yet I know and love Lauren and she loves her dad. Then I went to Mt. Gravatt for evangelism time. We had an odd number so I sat and prayed for a bit, where again I began to tear up over people who don't know Jesus and what's more, don't even care! Then I traded with Emily and took one of our newer involved students, Jeremy sharing. We walked up to a blonde hair, blue eye guy expecting him to be Aussie. He greeted us with a Scandinavian accent and I asked him where he was from. To my delight he said he was from Norway (I'm part Norwegian) just visiting some friends who were studying abroad at Griffith. Jeremy and I ended up sharing the gospel with him and I persistently encouraged him not to give up trying to find truth. Being born in a very postmodern nominally protestant nation, Even admitted that he once believed in God but due to a friend's younger brother's fatal disease, felt that he'd rather believe no god existed than be angry with him. After sharing the gospel I looked Even in the eye and with full conviction told him that God has a great desire for Even to know Him. After seeing some wheels turning in his mind, a few lip quivers and wondering eyes, I knew God was working on Even. Please pray for him as he is only in Australia for a month, may he run into other Christians who can answer any new questions he may have.
On Friday I went to uni to meet up with Nate for evangelism time. We had to sit on a bench for awhile as I started crying and explaining to him how I've been feeling the past couple days. It didn't help that on Thursday I saw RyuSho (a Japanese friend, that I am in consistent prayer for) for the first time this semester. Please pray for RyuSho's desire to know God. Then I decided that I would not let my emotions excuse me from sharing so Nate and I went together. We decided to talk to a girl who was studying, but she had to prepare for a class so, after thanking her, we walked up to a guy on a picnic table. From behind he looked young but when we said, "excuse me..." and he turned around we realized that he was an older student, mid 30's maybe. He was more than delighted to talk to us about "religion" and anything. We discovered that he was what I would label a postmodern atheist, not excluding anyone's belief system (because that's what is good and right for that individual) but himself not believing in the existence of any divine power. Nate and I talked to Brendon for almost two hours, it was a great conversation. I discovered that his greatest barrier to accepting Jesus' salvation is not in fact his intellectual desire for evidence not being met but his selfish ambition to be his own god and accountable to no one but his own satisfaction. Its sad really, thankfully I managed to hold in the tears (seriously, what random will believe that I actually care about them and their eternity and that the thought of them being separated from God who is love forever moves me to tears? No, they will just think I am a nut job). Please pray for him as we may have future opportunities to chat with him.
On Saturday was my good friend, Lainey's wedding! It was so awesome to get to attend an Aussie wedding:-) She was so beautiful and I know her and her new husband, Huon, will be a great partner for the gospel together.
Saturday afternoon I asked Dani to chop off my hair, so I said goodbye to my hair ready for something new. It is really different and I'm still getting used to it but I like it. I think it makes me look younger, as if I needed to look any younger, haha.
Before my haircut
After..... My hair is now so much shorter than Dani'sSunday afternoon Dani and I met up with her students Yarn and Roland in the city. Yarn brought his Japanese friend named Sho. All three of these guys are so easy to talk to and Christianity came up many times throughout our time. While we were waiting for Roland we hung out at Starbucks and Yarn asked me if I went to church that morning and what I did there. It was fun explaining why we sing to God and what our Pastor talked about. Gateway is doing a series about the questions our non Christian friends are asking. This week was talking about the common belief that "there can't be just one true religion." Later when Roland came he asked me what I learned at church. Gotta love how easy God makes it sometimes. We also found out that Sho has many Christian friends and that he met Yarn at an English help class held by a church. It was fun to spend some time with them, a change from just the people I know from uni.
Me, Sho, Yarn, and Dani at South Bank
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