Walkabout

Rain, Rain, and more Rain. It has been a dreary week, weather wise, sunny and encouraging ministry wise. I thought the weather was going to be a reflection of my week when only Wilfred showed up to English help on Tuesday. However, that was not the case at all, in fact it was a great time for Wil and I to talk about International Student Ministry (ISM) and what it will look like next year when I am gone. It also gave me a spare few minutes to text heaps of people inviting them to Fusion that same night. Then at Fusion, Jean (China), Rebecca (Vietnam), and Sean (China) came for at least part of it. I just met Rebecca at our Karaoke night and am looking forward to her getting involved. We met Jean and Sean (who I thought was named Shane this whole time!!! oops, haha) in the beginning of this semester, but this was their first time to Fusion. Please pray for both of them as Sean is a Buddhist and Jean is looking into Christianity. Johnathan, who has been doing a Christianity Explained Course (CE) with Nate has been coming along to many Student Life events. The week prior to the holiday his friend Zach came along and heard the gospel. This Fusion, Zach again had a great conversation and heard the gospel with the help of Johnathan translating parts. Johnathan even emailed my teammate, Ben explaining a good way to reach Chinese people with the gospel, even though he himself has yet to accept Christ! Ha, God is awesome!!! Please pray for Johnathan, that he will place his complete trust in Christ.

Then on Thursday, Megan and I went sharing together and ran into one of her classmates. Her name is Laura and she had some sad ideas about life. I'm still quite confused to what she really believes because she despises religion, at one point stated she was an atheist, yet said she thinks there is a higher power. We talked about truth and she felt that there was no absolutes, she even said that if there was an absolute truth that "God" would tell her and that she would know. I asked her how that would happen (loud voice from Heaven?) but she had no answer. She wasn't interested in pursuing learning about the Christian God (at this point in her life). There were many things she said that baffled me, like that justice is a human emotion and we cannot subject God to that emotion, that God would not care what we did. She was not satisfied with any of the explanations I gave her. The one encouraging thing she told us was that her sister is a "born again" Christian (her words). She said that she didn't mind talking about Christianity with her because she can sense a peace and contentment from her sister when she speaks about her faith. Please pray for Laura and her sister, perhaps her sister will lead her to Christ some day. Also pray that Megan will have opportunities to talk to her in the future.


Friday, again, raining..... Frisbee time, not really in the mood to get wet and run around in the mud, but I am sure glad I did! It was a small group of people playing, but I decided to join in because Mary (my beloved Chinese friend doing a CE with me) wanted to play. Not only did my dread turn into complete fun as I even dove for the frisbee in the mud (yeah, slip and slide), but a long-time-no-see face showed up with two friends. Benny, from Vietnam, decided to play with us, I haven't seen him all semester. One of his friends, Cathy played with us while the other girl he brought sat and talked with some of our girls under cover from the rain.

Saturday, Student Life's women ministry had planned a Op Shop Hop. An Op Shop is what Aussies call thrift stores. It was raining (no surprise) but some girls braved the weather and came down town with us. Along with Dani, Emily, Megan, Camilla and myself, Gemma came with two friends, Krista and Katelyn. We all had a great time and bought some fun clothes. Emily and I plan to encourage Gemma to pursue Krista and Katelyn with spiritual conversations. Please pray for them and for Gemma as she is starting to become more involved in Student Life.

The week ended with dinner at our house with our team, minus Kris who is gone this next week and plus Ben's dad, Rick. Rick is here with his mission's organization (the name escapes me at the moment). He will be teaching at Village Ave. Community Church for a few weeks as well as talking at a World Views Training day we have this next Saturday. It was interesting playing Balderdash.... but the homemade churros we made were amazing!