By Toby

Sorry about the lack of posts recently. It doesn't mean that nothing is happening on campus, on the contrary, it means there's so much going on, that we haven't had time to keep our blog updated. God is surging forward in His work, and we're all running along behind Him trying to keep up

For example, in one staff meeting two weeks ago the following things came up:

• 180 people who, at AnCon, expressed interest in full time ministry need to be followed up. Each of the trainee staff has been given 10 to 15 people to meet up with on top of what they already do.


• 4 new small groups for international students has turned into 6, and so there was a hunt for more people to lead these groups, which God has now graciously provided.


• AnCon also generated an influx of students keen to do more walk-up evangelism. I now lead one of many teams of students that meet weekly to go out and do walk-up evangelism in pairs for two hours.


• Promotion for Refresh Conference needs all hands on deck. By the way, this is a conference that you are invited to. Its on the 7th to 9th of September at Deer Park Conference Centre, Port Hacking. At the conference you can hear in more detail all the great things that God is doing at Sydney University.

Thank God for the way He has used AnCon and is working in the students this semester for His glory. I am really excited this semester, because I feel I am really at the coal face and achieving for God's Kingdom every single day. Talking about full-time ministry to students who are already keen about it, and doing two hours of pure evangelism each week makes me feel like I'm cutting to the chase.

Sorry you havn't heard from me in some time. As soon as I was back from taking a break I was very busy finishing preparations for Ancon: mainly preparing my seminar on the historical reliability of the New Testament.

This morning we leave for AnCon (going via Officeworks to photocopy and also picking up some students on the way) Pray for our health over this next week, as we are not feeling top of the world right now. Pray gor general safety at AnCon and that God's Word is faithfully taught and received.

There are 375 students registered for AnCon, which is more than last year.

Every two or three years the EU holds a big mission, but in other years it's common for some of the individual faculties to put on their own "mini-missions." Last year the Science faculty put on a mini-mission called "Know the Future" and this year the Science and Engineering faculties are combining to do another mission in week 6 of semester 2.

At the moment the topic for this mission will be something that engages with Dawkins' book God Delusion. Andrew Katay is willing to debate, but we need to find an atheist to go up against him. Please pray that we will find someone to do that.

Some of you may have noticed that this website has been sporadically going down. This is because we've been having problems with our internet connection and this blog is hosted on a computer at home.

We think we've fixed the problem now. Our phone jack was going rusty, so we rewired it.

AnCon (Annual Conference) is Sydney University's version of Mid Year Conference that other university Christian groups have. This year the topic is resurrection, and it will run on the 16th to 20th of July (in the last week of student holidays). I'm preparing a seminar on the reliability of the New Testament and MG is doing one on living out your faith, we're also both preparing review group material for the students to go over stuff covered in the talks. Pray that we'll be able to put in a lot of preparation for these so that they're really helpful to the students.

Part of AnCon is especially for you. Please come on the evening of the 18th to the supporters evening, where you get to experience AnCon, hear an AnCon talk and join the staff team for supper. Sound good?!

There's just one week left of student-time before they dissappear into stuvac, exams and hols, so we need to make the most of this, finishing things like small groups well, and thanking people for the hard work they put into the EU.

After that we still have lots to do, but it's a change of mode. More working from home. One week is set aside for fund development for the graduates fund. I also need to put a lot of work in to one of the student training courses called Growing People in Christ. Pray that we'll be productive in that time.

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.

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.

I have only one week left to finish my talks. I hope I have a bit of time to practice them before I give them. I'm going away this weekend on the EU Science weekend away. Pray that I will be able to get everything done in the next week.

Last week was the easter break, for us a break from students (except for some social events) but not a break from work (although MG took a couple of days off). I spent most of the time working on my talks on servanthood, but I still have a way to go on those.

Now we're back at uni and ploughing on with the regular activities. I feel partly refreshed by the break, but not wholly. Both of us have been sick recently with completely different things.

The first part of semester was taken up with getting things going. The rest of semester is a long stretch in which we try to maintain what we're doing without becoming worn out. The adrenelin of the start of the year has worn off, but we need to have stickability. Please pray that God gives us the energy to keep persevering, and His perspective in our jobs so that we recognise the importance of what we are doning and are motivated to put all our effort into it.

I will especially need lots of God's energy because I'm going into a period of three weekend aways in a row: church w/e away, EU Science w/e away and EU Pharmacy w/e away where I'm giving the talks.

The  Science  weekend away  is coming up in a week and a half and I'm pretty excited about it. Last year we had only one first year come, but that was mostly because it was held too early in the year. This year I'm quite hopeful about the first years. They seem to be a fairly closeknit group. I'm hoping that many of them will be able to come to the w/e away and become tied into EU Science by the bonds of relationship. The topic for the weekend is love. Please pray that loads of first years will come, and pray for Malcome Gill who is giving the talks.

We both just got back from the Katoomba Easter Convention. We were there Friday to Monday, staying in MG's grandmother's house in Wentworth falls. It was really encouraging to hear three sets of talks from three different speakers all centered around the theme of suffering as a Christian. Each speaker had his own unique style. Many people loved the heart-felt ramblings of the british Robert Ames, but I much prefered the precise and structured talks from Steve Young.

I learnt lots of things including how helpful psalms 42 and 43 can be to people with depression and was reminded of the significance of confessing sins and the total forgiveness we can recieve through Jesus.

Pray that MG and I will continue to reflect on what we have learnt over the weekend and to apply it in our everyday lives.

I've accepted the offer to give the talks at the weekend away for EU Pharmacy Faculty. The topic is servanthood and I have to write three talks. The weekend away will be the first weekend in May.

I'm a bit nervous about this as it will require a large amount of preperation time, so I need to make sure I set aside the time each week and actually work on it. I'm pretty good at procrastinating on a good day, and right now I feel like I'm very busy with heaps of other things.

I've set up a timeline for myself and asked my trainer to keep me accountable to it. Hopefully he will be able to read over my finished talks and give me feedback before I deliver them. I'm sure the talks will be recorded so after I've given them you'll be able to download them from this website.

The passages I've chosen are Jesus washing His disciples feet from John 13, Jesus telling His disciple the greatest must be servant of all in Mark 10 and the description of Jesus being humbled and exulted in Philippians 2. Please pray that I'll be able to give enough time to preparation of these talks and that I will be faithful to God's word when I give tham. Pray that the talks will be challenging to the Pharmacy students.

Last week on wednesday I made sure I wore my EU t-shirt so that the people coming to the first week of the God's World course would be able to spot me. However God put my t-shirt to more valuable uses than that...

Earlier that dayI was just about to walk from one end of the campus to the other, and lamenting the fact that I had to make that walk so often, when an international studnet rushed up to me to ask me how to get to the library. I offered to walk her there. She told me that the reason she picked me to ask directions of was that she found that people wearing the EU t-shirt tended to be very kind and friendly.  On the way there we got to talking about the EU and what it has to offer, and to cut a long story short she's now doing a God's World course. Pray that she will continue in the course and find out about God.

Later that same day I was again walking through campus when I was stopped by another person, an Australian student this time. He wanted to know how they could have made such a terrible spelling mistake on the front of one the buildings. It says "FACVLTY OF MEDICINE" Anyway, I ended up walking and talking with him, and he also asked me lots of questions about the EU. I invited him to our public meetings. Pray that he will come.

It's very refreshing to go along to the Internationl Students Meeting each week and to chat to the students afterward. Religion is not a taboo topic for them and they discuss Christianity almost like it's a fantastic free product and one of the many benefits of coming to Australia. A typical conversation might look like this:

Toby: Hello Frankie, how long have you been in Australia for?

Frankie: Hello Toby. Three weeks.

Toby: Are you a Christian?

Frankie: No, I do not think I understand it enough yet. But now I have a Bible I am reading it each night to understand more.

Toby: Would you like to come along to a course that we are running that will help you understand the Bible and Christianity, so then you can make a decision if you want to be a Christian.

Frankie: Yes! Thank you so much. Is it okay if I bring some friends too?

The course we are running on Tuesdays and Wednesday for these students is called God's World. It covers a Gospel outline similar to Two Ways to Live but not the same.

I ran the first week of the Wednesday group last week. I had six ISM girls on my list of who to expect, and although two girls couldn't make it, seven girls showed up because some of the girls had brought their friends. They seemed to have a really great time.

One of them loved Christian songs and requested that we learn them, so as well as introducing the course I taught them the first and last verses of Amazing Grace and the meaning of grace as it is found in the Bible. They made me sing it for them.

Pray that over this semester as we meet each week I will be able to effectively communicate the concepts described in the God's World course in a way that international students can understand.

We've finaly got ourselves a domain name, so you don't have to type strange numbers into your browser. Just go to www.tobyandmg.com and you'll reach this page.

First-year small group Bible studies are starting up this week. There are 4 main aims for these.

1. To help people get a good understanding of the Bible and to be living it out in their lives.


2. To help people become more evangelistic


3. To help people see how they can serve God and each other while at university.


4. To introduce people to new friends and help them become integrated better into the EU.

Thank God for such a great opportunity to encourage other Christians and help them grow in maturity. Pray that the students will be brave enough to show up for the first one. Pray that people will become comfortable in thier groups and get to know each other well. Pray that we are able to care for all the group members and train the student leaders well. Pray that God teaches us by His Word.