Hello Family & Friends! Just wanted to make a post here with some prayer requests for the end of our trip coming up.
Saturday the 15th--Pray for our outreach bbq that we've invited all our new Aussie friends to. This will be a great time to say goodbye to the students here and continue to get them plugged in to the Student Life (Campus Crusade) movement here on campus.
Sunday the 16th--Pray for our travels as we move from Newcastle back down to Sydney. We are all pretty tired from four great but long weeks on campus and travelling and moving the team can be stressful.
Monday and Tuesday the 17th and 18th--Two full days of debriefing. Please pray that we would be able to help our students process their experiences on Summer Project and how God has worked in and through them. We want to send them off well and help ease the transition from a close knit community to going back home. It can sometimes be lonely and isolating for them.
Wednesday the 19th--We fly back home, so prayer for travel mercies and saying goodbye to the students we've poured into all summer.
Thank you for tracking with us and praying for us this summer. We have appreciated the support and the emails/facebook messages too. Blessings to you all!
Friday, August 14, 2009
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Unity and Spiritual Warfare
Yesterday was a day of breakthrough for the women on our team. When you put together an odd number of young women for a Summer Project, it can be challenging. Frustrations had built up among some of the gals and it hit the fan yesterday (meaning it all came out on the table). Several of the girls got the opportunity to work through a Biblical model of conflict resolution and confrontation with each other. It was beautiful to see them share openly and honestly with each other about how they had hurt one another. And then seeing Christ bind their hearts together in unity was wonderful. The evening followed with each woman sharing her heart about various hurts and pain in her life and the other girls rallying around and encouraging her and asking good, safe questions. It was a lovely time, as they dropped down their walls and offered each other their hearts.
Our team has been feeling some spiritual darkness and even attack (dreams and feeling the presence of evil). We have prayed through our hostel, in each room. Last night after the women's sharing time, we decided to make posters with scriptures and words declaring that the name of Jesus is more powerful than the Enemy. For about an hour, we blasted powerful praise and worship music and put these posters up all over our living areas. It was a powerful evening! Everyone slept soundly last night and there is a new sense of peace and rest at the hostel.
We truly serve the Name that is more powerful and last night was a beautiful declaration of that. We serve the God of emotional and spiritual breakthroughs and also the One who is more powerful than our Enemy. I feel more in love with Jesus today and I believe our team does too.
Our team has been feeling some spiritual darkness and even attack (dreams and feeling the presence of evil). We have prayed through our hostel, in each room. Last night after the women's sharing time, we decided to make posters with scriptures and words declaring that the name of Jesus is more powerful than the Enemy. For about an hour, we blasted powerful praise and worship music and put these posters up all over our living areas. It was a powerful evening! Everyone slept soundly last night and there is a new sense of peace and rest at the hostel.
We truly serve the Name that is more powerful and last night was a beautiful declaration of that. We serve the God of emotional and spiritual breakthroughs and also the One who is more powerful than our Enemy. I feel more in love with Jesus today and I believe our team does too.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Third Week at the Uni (pronounced "You-Knee)
We have entered our third week of ministry on the University of Newcastle campus. Our students continue to engage in spiritual conversations with the lost and share their faith with boldness. We are in the process of recruiting students for the FIRST ever Campus Crusade weekly meeting at this university! We are the third Summer Project to come to Newcastle, but the first to be received by a local Campus Crusade staff team. A lot of what we've been doing has been providing "man-power" to meet lots of students and invite them to be involved in the spiritual movement that is beginning here. It is a pivotal time in the history of the ministry and we are excited to be a part of it!
It has been a treat to get to know our team better individually. Nathan meets with the guys individually each week and Julie meets with the gals. We've invited our students into openness and honesty about their lives, their family backgrounds, and their sin patterns. It has been refreshing to see God break through in their lives and begin the process of healing. We have been reminded that every single one of us is dysfunctional and has issues. It has been encouraging to invite our students into the process of being real with others, and modeling that for them.
Julie here. I wanted to share about a moment last week where God really met me. I had my first terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day in Australia. Everything seemed to go wrong and I kept messing things up or forgetting to do something that I had promised, and I just felt like a real loser. I can tend to take pride in looking like I “have it all together” and that day it was painfully obvious that I am not perfect and don’t have it all together. As I was feeling down and frustrated, I felt like God just spoke to me and reminded me that I am in the Room of Grace, where it’s safe to be myself in all of my dysfunctions and faults, reminding me that I am loved and accepted unconditionally. It was a sweet moment with the Lord and it brought tears to my eyes after feeling somewhat hardened emotionally the earlier part of the day. God was gracious to invite me into NOT having it all together and speaking His love to me in that moment.
Nathan here. I can tend to depend on my own strength believing that I need to prove my worth by accomplishing tasks for God. I have been known in the past as Johnny crusader i.e. share my faith with anything that breathes. As I Jumped head first into evangelism I would receive pats on the back, leadership positions, and the praise of others. Due to discipling the guys on project and administration there is less time for me to do evangelism and “prove my worth.” He continues to teach me to rest in Him and know that through Him my value is not dependent on how many gospel conversations but simply being his son.
It has been a treat to get to know our team better individually. Nathan meets with the guys individually each week and Julie meets with the gals. We've invited our students into openness and honesty about their lives, their family backgrounds, and their sin patterns. It has been refreshing to see God break through in their lives and begin the process of healing. We have been reminded that every single one of us is dysfunctional and has issues. It has been encouraging to invite our students into the process of being real with others, and modeling that for them.
Julie here. I wanted to share about a moment last week where God really met me. I had my first terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day in Australia. Everything seemed to go wrong and I kept messing things up or forgetting to do something that I had promised, and I just felt like a real loser. I can tend to take pride in looking like I “have it all together” and that day it was painfully obvious that I am not perfect and don’t have it all together. As I was feeling down and frustrated, I felt like God just spoke to me and reminded me that I am in the Room of Grace, where it’s safe to be myself in all of my dysfunctions and faults, reminding me that I am loved and accepted unconditionally. It was a sweet moment with the Lord and it brought tears to my eyes after feeling somewhat hardened emotionally the earlier part of the day. God was gracious to invite me into NOT having it all together and speaking His love to me in that moment.
Nathan here. I can tend to depend on my own strength believing that I need to prove my worth by accomplishing tasks for God. I have been known in the past as Johnny crusader i.e. share my faith with anything that breathes. As I Jumped head first into evangelism I would receive pats on the back, leadership positions, and the praise of others. Due to discipling the guys on project and administration there is less time for me to do evangelism and “prove my worth.” He continues to teach me to rest in Him and know that through Him my value is not dependent on how many gospel conversations but simply being his son.
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