Keeping Up With the Andersons

This week the students have been on holidays in the "mid"-semester break. In reality there's only 4 weeks left of classes, which will bring us to the end of our last semester with the students! After that we'll be mainly woking on summer projects (whatever they will be) and preparing for the summer conferences (Club Veg and NTE)

On Monday and Tuesday we had changeover conference, because recently the EU has elected or selected a whole new bunch of student leaders to be in faculty committees and specialist teams (such as the evangelism team, the Public Meetings team, the IT team, etc) and changeover conference helps these students work out what it means for them to be a leader in their role.

We spent time thinking about what it means to be a leader and team member, about how the staff and student leaders relate together. We thought a lot about the three objects of the EU:

1. To present students with the Christian Gospel and to lead them to a personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.


2. To strengthen Christians in their faith and witness and to encourage them to continually submit every aspect of their life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.


3. To ensure that Christians in the University are made aware of the nature, needs and challenge of Christian service at home and abroad.

and how one or more of these drives what each committee or team is doing. Each team spent time together thinking about their vision of what they could achieve in the future and their current goals that would help them achieve that vision. Next year the EU will put on a big mission, and the team in charge of that got us all to brainstorm ideas for it.

On Tuesday night one of the students put on a mid-autumn festival celebration for the international students. This is a big day in the asian calander, where all the families get together and eat moon cakes, so it is a time when international students away from home will start missing their families. This student wanted to show them that even though they wern't with their natural families thay can be part of Gods family and have fellowship with Christians. Many international students came to this party and had lots of fun and could watch the Jesus video in Chinese or Korean.

From Wednesday to Saturday the International Student Ministry is on a road trip to Canberra. MG is with them, and I'll let her tell you all about it when she gets back. Meanwhile I have been stying at my parents. I took two days annual leave for Wednesday and Thursday, and spent much of that just relaxing. I visited the offices of Global Recordings Network as one of many possibilities of what I may do in the long term. I would like to use my IT skills on the mission field.

Yesterday I went abseiling with the Science committee. One of the students is into rock-climbing, so he had access to all the required equipment and training.

Tonight MG will get back from her Canberra trip just in time to sing in a concert her choir is putting on. I'll be an usher. I expect she'll be absolutely exhusted. Thank God that Monday is a public holiday.

Thank God also for the zeal and abilities and Godly character of the new student leaders. Pray that they will lead the rest of the EU well. Pray also for the big mission next year.

You can now listen to the servanthood talks I gave to the pharmacy faculty earlier in the year. See the tab above.

Earlier this year (2007) I did a series of three talks on servanthood at the pharmacy faculty weekend away.

Talk 1: Mark 10:35-45
Accept the Unexpected (The Surprising Attitude of Servanthood)
[Transcript]

Talk 2: John 13:1-17
Actions Speak Louder than Words (The Demonstrated Action of Servanthood)
[Transcript]

Talk 3: Philippians 2:1-18
Taking the Plunge (The Obedient Humilty of Servanthood)
[Transcript]

Hello everyone!
Thanks for all your prayers.

I wanted to attach a photo of the new Economics student leaders. They were voted into their positions this afternoon. Please pray that they will grow Ecos EU for God's glory

The mission went really well. The highlight was the debate on Tuesday. It was well advertised and there were over 300 people attending (in a lecture theatre that only holds 200). It was a shame that there were people who came and had to leave because they couldn't squeeze in. The debaters engaegd well, and it was a great time for all, but the best thing was that one person indicated on her communication card that she wanted to become a Christian! Please pray for the follow-up of this girl and for everyone else who came to the debate. You can listen to the debate yourself.

Also we had other events including a talk by Warwick de Jersey that you can listen to too. Less people came to this, but it was a good talk anyway. There is also a talk on today in the largest lecture theatre on campus by Greg Clarke about "The New Atheism" (I can't remember the full title), but it fits well as an extension to our mission that we didn't plan at all.

Pray that students who invited their friends to events will continue to get opportunities to raise this topic of conversation with them.