Challenges & Encouragements

It's been a mixed few weeks as we continue into the semester. I'm writing this a bit later in the month as it has been a bit difficult to know what to share with you.

This year has been even more of a challenge trying to engage Christian students to belong to our community. Students are working more with unpredictable schedules and many other responsibilities. However it seems even best times when they are available it is a struggle for them to particularly attend our Monday Muster main meeting. The student leaders are also a bit puzzled about how to encourage people more after sending out individual messages. Thankfully many are keen to attend Bible Groups but it does make it hard to train students in evangelism so they can be effective witnesses on campus.

Uber Questions Codes

The library is well-filled most days, so I was very curious to see how our first Uber Questions would turn out. Unfortunately, we ran into a bit of a problem. We were all set up to go from 11:30am and when a bit after 12pm we started to wonder why no questions were coming through. I headed over to the library to work out what was going on. When I got there I noticed that all the QR codes that were put up the night before had been removed. After talking with the library staff we worked out that the cleaners likely confiscated them as the UTAS is quite strict about notices and keeping their architecture clean. Thankfully now we have an agreement with the library that will allow us to continue in the future.

We decided to still go ahead and hand out flyers to people so they knew what was happening. We got 7 questions in the end which is similar to when we ran it last year. Surprisingly many of the questions were related to what and where heaven is.

We planned to give it another go last week. Everything was organised, we reprinted the codes and had enough students to serve. However, the Friday before we received an email stating that we had been disaffiliated with the TUSA because we hadn't applied for reaffiliation. This essentially meant we could not host anything on campus until we were reaffiliated.

In our confusion, trying to work out why, we discovered that the form had been filled out at the start of the year but didn't end up being submitted. So the assumption was we were fine and unfortunately, we didn't know otherwise until we received this notice without clear warning beforehand. In the 3 business days leading up to Uber Questions, one of the students repeatedly called and emailed TUSA to sort it out but got no response until late on the day when were were planning to run the event. While we were at fault, it was frustrating unable to clarify for so long. We're aiming for round 3 to occur on May 2.

John 11:25-26

While there have been many frustrations like this and others over the past few weeks, God has been mighty at work in other ways. Particularly in my one-to-one meetings and through the Bible Groups.

Recently it has been a joy enabling a third Bible Group to start up. Last week we were reading from John 11, which documents Jesus bringing Lazarus back to life. Jesus uses this as an opportunity to teach about his resurrection and the eternal life he offers.

As we were discussing how good this news is, one of the students asked "I've always wondered what other people think happens after they die". I then dared them to ask their classmates. I'm not sure if they did in the end but simple curiosity like this can be a great way to start sharing your faith more with others.

I continue to catch up with an international student whom I have been meeting with for the past 2.5 years. He has also been attending the afternoon service and a Growth Group at my church. Coming from an atheistic worldview, it has taken him a long time to believe that God does exist. He would even say now that he desires to know this God. In one of our recent conversations, he was asking good questions about what exactly he needs to repent of to be forgiven. I trust he is well on his way to accepting Jesus. Please pray for him.

I also have the privilege of meeting regularly with a committed Catholic and another international student.

Recent Monday Muster

Plans are getting well underway for our Meet Jesus mission. It has been exciting to hear that over Easter about 20 students nationwide have turned to Christ already and dozens of others are reading Uncover with friends.

This was our last Monday Muster meeting as we started thinking creatively about how we might invite people to our main event on August 16. This will be an evening at Inveresk with an evangelistic talk, life stories and local musicians. Churches will be invited to make use of this event and encourage their members to bring others they know along. If you're a local, it would be great to see you there too.

Next time you hear from me I'll likely have just returned from Sydney scouting out both Moore College and SMBC.