Keeping Up With the Andersons

A lot of people have been recently asking us what we are doing next year...and as I think about that I'm sad, sad because I really believe in the ministry I'm doing and love it. I love all the people I spend my days with. This is the best 'job' I've ever had. It has it's moments, but what better time spent than encouraging and building up God's people and sharing him with those who seek for him.

Anyway, back to the question...Toby's really keen to do some more computer work - he does this so much in his spare time and he knows God has given him a passion in systems thinking for a reason. And I am behind him 100%! We also have a heart for international students, for evangelism and just want to spend more time sharing our lives and the good news about Jesus with people. As we reflect on the things that excite us about our ministry, evangelism is always at the top of our list. We are still chatting to lots of different people about us and missionary work. So we are considering some sort of Bible college training next year.

But that is more of a 'sharing our thoughts' rather than a clear plan. Keep asking us
Also, reflecting on the last 18 months I have learnt so much about God, people, me. I have learnt that God is good, that I need to keep learning, that God has gifted me in connecting with people, that when I am bold God uses that, that God's power is displayed in my weakness, that God saves, that I really enjoy communicating clear truths to people (and I can be succinct at times!), that God cares more about my trust in him than my accomplishments. I've learnt the power of teamwork, the importance of honesty, the effectiveness of prayer.

So keep persisting in prayer, for all the saints, for us to be "opening our mouths boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel" (Paul's request whilst he was locked up for this very behaviour).

Love youse all.

The faculty weekend away for science was more than 2 weeks ago now, but I haven't told you about how it went yet. It was fantastic. The procedings opened with two chocolate fountains and it only got more fun and exciting from there.

The talks on love were great and quite challenging. One of the things we learned was that we need to be not like the church in Laodicea, who's proud and loveless lives were worthless, but to be living out love in our lives. I missed one of the talks because I was taking one of the students to hospital to get stitches. He's fine now.

We played heaps of fun games. Here's a picture of the blind date game. You can see me in the background.

And on the saturday night. we had a costume theme of "The Great Romance." Here Joel is dressed as a knight, and that is real chain mail. Next to him is Jeremy who headed up the team that organised the weekend.

Thank God for a fantastic weekend.

This is a ic of all of us who came to weekend away  -  we looked at Ezekiel together!


We had a ball on weekend away at Loftus! Here's my co-worker Roger!

Hello readers!

I'm reflecting on our evangelism on campus...because it's easy to get stuck in maintenance mode, where all we do is maintain current ministries. This last week has been Jesus week (as Toby said) and it's been an opportunity for people to invite their not yet Christian friends along to hear about why you'd be mad to avoid or ignore Jesus...quite controversial, but particularly challenging, as Ian Powell spoke from the story of the paralysed man coming through a hole in the roof in front of Jesus and him identifying that his sins needed forgiving as more significant than him being able to walk again! The ACES crew are planning on starting up a God's World course for people's friends who want to find out more and discuss Christianity further. Please pray that this'll happen, and God will use our efforts for his glory.

Also, at the moment, I have been meeting up with a girl I met in o-week. She was a spoc girl (working for the union in welcoming people to the uni) an I was asking people if they wanted to study the bible whilst they were at uni...we were both probably wondering what we were doing on such a quiet (and I mean QUIET) gate - for those of you who know the uni - we were on the Holme footbridge. It's dead during o-week because the first years don't know about it yet. Anyway, God always puts you somewhere for a reason, and we ended up chatting for a while, then we swapped details, then I invited her to a God's World course (6 weeks that takes you through the Bible: 1) this is God's World - the First (and Good) Days of our World 2) Dark Days - Sin and Evil and Satan and Suffering 3) Jesus,Saviour of the World 4) Last Days - Jesus, the Lord will return to Judge - destroy evil (incl evil ppl) and make this world right! 5) Today - will you turn to Jesus?). Anyway, her and her friend have really been the only regulars...they have come every week, rain, hail or shine, even when they've stayed up all night doing assignments, they haven't bailed! It's been such a pleasure to discuss God with them, and they are both really thinking about Jesus in a way they haven't before. Please pray for them, that they will come to faith in Christ.

I've also been trying to train some people in evangelism (now EU runs a course to help people do this but I have realised that seniors who have done this course are still freaked out by evangelism) and especially challenging them in their relationships and also doing some walk-upevangelism with me. Now, I'm sure Satan is hard at work making sure this falls off my radar or it falls off the radar of those I am encouraging, so please pray! People seem to forget or are sick every time so far we plan to do walk up evangelism. Please pray for us! And please pray for the people that God will lead us to.

Another part of evangelism for us is ISM...the international students group...now I know you all enjoyed the FLOOD article about International students, and boy, this is an exciting opportunity! It grew heaps and now is shrinking as people are stressed about exams (imagine doing exams in a country where you've only just started to get a grasp on the language! Exams in English are scary enough!) SO, three things to pray for...that people will continue to come (thank God that the people coming regularly are almost Christian or new Christians!) and pray for the committee as we seek to encourage and plan for relationship based ministry and recruiting a solid core of 'ministers' (students who commit to these international students, and do so as their PRIMARY way of serving in the EU). It's been a real blessing to meet with the Christian international students and encourage them in a weekly bible study group. Two things to pray for here: 1) Thanking God that many are learning how to read and understand the Bible for themselves for the very first time! They find this very exciting 2) Please pray for some key Christian international students who don't yet see the value in Bible study (in most Asian cultures, the emphasis is on rote learning from the teacher, who knows everything, so a lecture is more appealing than a small group bible study - and most of them don't have tutorials in their subjects either! But I think they need to not just learn facts, but understand and own their learning...you need to do both!), that they would come along.
On a completely different note, at the moment, Toby and I are reading through numbers...you really need a good bible map otherwise you get completely lost So I'v just printed one out to use in my exodus journeys! Keep praying that we would continue to delight in learning from God's Word so we would love our lord and saviour more and more!

Sorry I haven't writeen much in a long time. The Pharmacy talks went well over the weekend, and I got lots of positive feedback. People especially liked the illustrations I used. They got recorded, so when I get hold of them I'll put them up on this blog for you. The students were really challenged about being a servant. Pray that they will live it out.

This week was Jesus week. The public meeting were designed specially for people who are interested in investigating more about Jesus. Ian Powel spoke on Mark 2. and lots of people brought their friends. Pray for the followup of those people.

The God's World course that I'm running is going well, though only one international student has been coming each week. He is really interested and seems to really get lots from the meetings. He is alwyas asking questions and some weeks we just address his questions instead of working through the material. This week MG brought a second student and so far we are half way through the second section (sin and evil) of five. Thank God that these students are keen to find out about His world from His point of view.

I'm looking forward to this weekend. I haven't had a weekend to relax for a while.