Fresh Start Mission

"I will extol the LORD at all times;
his praise will always be on my lips.
My soul will boast in the LORD;
let the afflicted hear and rejoice.
Glorify the LORD with me;
let us exalt his name together."

-Psalm 34:1-3

If you hadn't noticed... I have been away all week. Last Sunday night I 'moved' to Kensington into the Hodgkinson household. It was such a lovely house and I was given a very nice room (I've been inspired to clean my room up). I went to St Matthias church in Padington and met Jess who is one of the Hodgkinsons... as well as many other people. After church we went to a tasty tasty thai restaurant called Chao Praya... only cost us $10 each!

Monday was my first day of "fresh start" mission. This was where people from Campus Bible Study (CBS) came to uni everyday to meet new students and invite them to study the Bible on campus this year... it was O-week so there were stacks of people there and a lot of people signed up to join CBS and find out more about God and the Bible. At first I was quite anxious about walking up to strangers and talking to them about Christianity... but praise God... he helped me out so much.

What I found from 0-week mission was that God is fully in control of everything. At times when I was tired and unmotivated to go talk to people... people would just walk up to me and start asking me about what CBS was. It was so encouraging. And even after approaching heaps of people and being rejected, God would bring along a person who I could have a really good conversation with and that would get me excited again about ministering to the people on campus.

Not only were we working hard to meet people and organise BBQs and the like... we were being trained by John Chapman and Paul Grimmond. We learned about God's will for evangelism and how to do it better. We learned about God's love for people and his desire for people to be saved. And I was encouraged to keep on trusting in God... not relying on my own works... but on God because he is Almighty and Sovereign. Chappo also gave us a good talk on 1 Cor 8 & 9 which was very helpful in thinking about how to encourage other Christians in our deeds.

One thing I really loved about o-week mission was that all the 50 CBS people who came and stayed locally grew as a team and as a family. During the evenings we ate dinner together or went out to get coffee and we were able to reflect on our experiences and pray a lot together. I love all my brothers and sisters in Christ who I served with during o-week. They were so supportive and encouraged us to take breaks when we were doing too much and told jokes and made funny faces to cheer us up. How will I ever forget:

-our night at Tea Scapes where Doris showed us how she could plug her nose and where Becky found it difficult to lift her pinky
-the large amounts of slab cake and plums consumed (thank you Steph!)
-those sickingly sweet cadbury creme eggs which we often ate for breakfast
-evil Dan (Wilt) painting us with cornflour glue
-water guns and water fights, seeing Grimmo going crazy with his water bottle
-Morris (leader-Dan) doing some amazing impersonations of Napoleon Dynamite
-pegging grapes at everyone
-bountiful amounts of free stuff with Doris picking up double so that she could give it to Elsie

I'm sad it's over but I'm excited about seeing new people at CBS and hopefully growing together in Christ.

From Car-O-Line