Last Minty Newsletter!

The last newsletter of the year! You can read it here.
I can't say this enough - it's been an amazing year of growth in God's grace!

My Minty Year

Each Mintern was asked to do a presentation reflecting on how Jesus has stretched us and grown us this year. Here's mine :)

Sorry about the quality (Youtube removed the audio) but you can watch it if you're on facebook here!

Latest News

Sorry for the non-existent updates! For my latest newsletter go here :)

Privileged

It’s about exam time for most of the students around NZ. This gave the Minterns an opportunity to travel to Papamoa (Bay of Plenty) for our second training week – Minty2. Three Minterns (Phil, Greg and Elaine) and a supervisor (Gina) drove about 8 hours from Wellington, Nathan and Mothy flew up to Tauranga from Lincoln and Sarah and I were driven by Andy and Jane from Auckland to 46 Dickson Road.

It was a great 5 days spent with fellow Minterns. I really enjoyed the sessions that we had. Val’s session challenged us to incorporate what we do in our everyday lives with the Gospel, and to think about the bigger questions that could link the Gospel with shopping, cooking, working. It made us think about intentionally living our lives within the Gospel outline – effectively living an undivided life. Ben’s session the following day was a great follow on of this with at least 40 ways that we should communicate the Gospel. We also spent some time prioritising and praying for the semester ahead, and the last half of Minty! The Minterns led Bible study in Nahum and Jonah every morning and on Wednesday we presented our evangelistic talks, which all went quite well. Our resident chef was Andy, who cooked up a feast for us at every meal time! I can’t say that we weren’t amply fed with delicious food and fresh bread rolls...MMMMM....

I really loved spending time with the 5 other Minterns. It was encouraging to hear stories of their work on the different campuses in Wellington and Lincoln, and it was helpful to talk through struggles that we shared. They really are a great bunch and I feel privileged to be journeying with them this year.

Also extremely encouraging is the support that I have been receiving. It’s encouraging to have people pray for me and it’s encouraging to know that God is listening. Psalm 117:2 - “For great is his love toward us, and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever.” The Lord’s love is amazing and my faithfulness in return is a small ask. What a privilege it is to spend this year immersed in ministry training and for me to be doing something of God’s work every day for His glory. Thank you SO MUCH to my supporters (that’s you if you’re reading this!) and a big thank you to “Anonymous” who appeared on my Minty Support Break-down this month.

Minty is based on Psalm 92:12-15:
The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon;
planted in the house of the LORD, they will flourish in the courts of our God.
They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green,
proclaiming, "The LORD is upright; he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him."

This year, for me, is the beginning of a fresh and green life. Halfway through already and I’m praying that I will still bear fruit in old age :)

Long-needed update!

So it's been about an age since I last blogged (actually about 3 weeks but there's been so much going on!). I will try to update without writing another 2000 words (Just emailed through my assignment!).

Let's see...
Last time I wrote was a day before Northern Region Camp. This was a camp which ran from 14-17 April at Willow Park Christian Camp at Eastern Beach. We had an attendance of about 75 students from MIT, AUT, AU, Massey and UNITEC. Nigel Pollock - National Director of TSCF did the key talks. The theme of the camp was "Above the Average Joe" - looking at the life of Joseph. Great talks about God's sovereignty and God using us, living in a different culture and being in the world and not of it. Sarah and I helped Jane with one of the seminars - a body image one for the girls. We've been asked to do this again for Mid-year conference and are currently talking about how we can improve on it. Also we will have 90 minutes at Mid-year as opposed to 60mins at NRC. The other seminar was taken by Jodi - who was visiting from the sister movement in Australia, AFES. Sarah and I were priveleged enough to stay in "staff quarters" which meant that we got to share a cabin with Jodi and Gillian - who had just arrived back in NZ from Scotland a couple days before.

Laura and Elena - the amazing organisers of the camp - with the arrival of the Pollocks and Jodi

Worship time

Crazy 8-person ping pong!

On the Friday night, we had a party for Sarah's 21st birthday! Sarah's mum and I prepared the food and we had the celebration at the 22MA flat. It was so awesome that we could all gather to celebrate Sarah's 21 years. Through the speeches it was so evident that God had been working within her throughout her years and I particularly loved it when she challenged someone in a joking way saying, "Do you have a problem with the Word?!?!"

The flat fridge

We had special visitors - 2 other Minterns from Wellington: Elaine and Greg, as well as Jenny McIvor and Bee Teng Lim and Mark Grace who had all driven up from Wellington to attend the Kiwi-made Preaching Forum which was organised by Langham Partnership. It was held at Carey Baptist College on 18 April from 9-6:30pm. It was almost like a little reunion for the TSCFers as there were many of us there! I found it interesting to see what issues preachers had and what they thought about when they prepared a sermon. I think that it's helped me to be more aware of what is being preached to me.

After that week, Auckland University were back to their usual classes while AUT had another week of holidays. This brought a well needed lull in my time on campus - which I used mostly to recover from Camp and the Preaching forum, as well as fitting in some much needed Grudem reading time.

That Wednesday I was privileged enough to be invited to dinner at 22MA with the Windsors. We had good food, good conversations and an awesome time getting to know the amazing family! I had a particularly great convo with Martin, who is studying at AU doing his BA, so that he can do a Postgrad in Developmental studies. We had a good chat about overseas mission work as well.

Then.. that Friday we had the AGM for EU and elected three new leaders! Hasini is President, Hamish is Treasurer and Kelly is our Secretary. It's been amazing to see EU being resurrected! It was pretty much non-existent at the beginning of the year and now we have about 10 regular members.

That night I had dinner with the family - Mum, Dad, Jon and Lyn. We went to the Langham's all seafood buffet. YUM!!! The dinner was to celebrate the graduation of my brother and I (2 months later!) But it was such good food - LOVE seafood!

On Saturday night we had a social event for AUTCF - just a get-together and relax night at the flat. we had about 18 people there.. and a few non-Christians. We shared good food, good convo and some fun games.

The following week AUT was back to uni so my week was back into full swing! Starting with Milo Monday and then prepping for the Bible study that week in Galatians in the AUT library. In my 3 years at AUT I hadn't actually used the library as a place of study. It was good to be there though.. cos it actually made me study and there weren't any distractions (except for Lee looking up IPL scores when he was meant to be studying also!). Tuesday we had the usual Committee meeting and then I had supervision with Jane. I then met Gillian for lunch and we had a good catch up about what had been happening since she left at the beginning of March. Then the usual Bible studies 4-6pm, Tues, Weds and Thurs. These are continuing to be so ecourarging with some new non-Christians being invited along by friends, as well as regulars who come to be fed by the Word. I'm still learning so much from leading these Bible studies, seeing the students discover Scripture for themselves leaves me questioning where I would be without Scripture and without being introduced to this way of studying the Word.

We had our first EU Exec meeting on Weds also. We spoke about vision, community, re-affiliation and the possibility of an outreach event.

On Friday we had EU bible study outside on the grass, this time without those lethal acorns as most of them had disappeared by this time of the year. You can see the picture here on Sarah's blog. We finished up the book of Jonah and will be starting on James this week. After EU, OCF had their meeting in the Chapel at 5:30. Sarah was speaking on the importance of the Word and she seemed nervous! She got through it really well and there were good interactive points where the students observed the txt themselves to find out why it was important for them to read Scripture.

This brings us to last weekend... Saturday I spent mostly doing my Minty assignment. Then went to the flat in the evening for dinner and met 2 of Elliot's friends from Singapore, Gabriel and April. We had the yummy and usual chicken rice and watched Back To the Future 2. They joined us for church the next morning and then we spent the afternoon up Mt Eden with Pizza and at Mission Bay with gelato.

Monday and today was spent mostly on study:with my duties as Mintern on the AUT campus this morning giving me a good break from study. Here's a pic of my manuscript that I did in prep for this month's assignment (My question involved me preparing a Bible study on the Trinity for a student who had become confused after meeting a Jehovah's Witness):
Oh and somewhere in there, on the Weds at 5:45am Singaporean time, my aunt and uncle had their baby boy - Bryan Ea. He's a cutie!!

Stalkerish much?

This is my desktop wallpaper at the moment:

What do you think...

Stalkerish much? :P

(No... of course not.. it's just my way of seeing Esther everyday!)

Continued...Bible study, OCF Chill and Good Friday cleaning

Continuing on from my last post...

So the bible studies this week at AUTCF were amazing I think. We're up to Galatians 2:1-11. Quite confusing at first and a lot to unpack in 11 verses. We had 9 people on Tuesday, 7 on Wednesday and 11 on Thursday. On Tuesday we only got through interpreting the first 5 verses, and on Weds and Thurs we got through all the verses. There were a lot of subtle hints in the text and it took me a while to get my head around it even though I had read a commentary on the passage.

I'm really enjoying taking the Thursday Bible studies now. I go along to the Tues and Weds ones also, so by the time I'm observing the passage for the 3rd time I have a good idea of what I'm doing. It's been challenging for me to lead these Bible studies, and I've only led 3 but I'm enjoying it more and it's been encouraging; stepping up to this role. I have learnt to not just blurt out what the "answers" are but to hold back and let the students struggle with the passage a bit, and I've learnt to pose questions that will steer the study onto the right track. I don't confess to know everything.. in fact I don't know the Bible as well as some of the students at all and that is something that I'm working on this year.

Going into Thursday's Bible study I was a bit hesitant... it had been a hard passage the past two days and I wasn't sure whether I would be able to lead it effectively. Praise God, definitely, for an answer to prayer - one that one of the Jeffs had prayed for me during the team meeting. The study was amazing... God was truly working within the students and they wrestled with the passage and when things came to light, they were right onto it. It was so encouraging and I was so thankful at the end of the study, my hands were shaking and I felt like crying!

After the phenomenon that was Bible study, Sarah, Kate and I went along to Maclaurin Chapel for the OCF Chill event. There was dinner (YUM!), board games, and live music by Shi Ern. Being extremely tired and with brains that weren't functioning enough for Taboo/Scrabble/Monoply, we decided to stay in the kitchen and do the dishes instead - which was quite therapeutic and didn't require any brain function at all... well, barely any anyway!

Today is good Friday...and I cleaned the oven and the stove and the exhuast fan thing... a lot of grease splatter I tell you.. and lots of food-stuff on the stove. Luckily, I learnt from my mother and trying to preserve/not damage the stove in the apartment, it's always lined with foil... so all I have to do is peel off the foil and chuck it in the bin. I do clean the stove top still though.. just getting rid of that lil bit of grease that gets through. Oh.. which reminds me, a part of the exhaust fan thing is still outside on the balcony... I'd better go take it in (I can't believe I just wrote that much on cleaning my kitchen! So sorry!).

A getaway, Christian...really? And "who do you say Jesus is?"

As mentioned in my last post, Sarah and I went to Bethlehem, Tauranga over the weekend for Justine's 21st. It was great fun, beautiful weather and a very classy afternoon tea with LOTS of fun had.



We also got to visit BTI (Bethlehem Tertiary Institute) - where Justine is studying to become a teacher. We got to sit in on her English class - learning about reciprocal reading, and I remembered using this reading method in primary school. Then we got to join in on her art class where we were makin "juicy" stencils for silk-screen printing. Sadly we had to leave class early to catch out bus back to Auckland so we missed out on the printing part, but I had fun creating my underwater scene, complete with Jellyfish for Jellyfish catching (like on Spongebob Squarepants) and Gary - the pet snail.. "meaow!" It was a really good lil break, and good to get out of Auckland, although I do love being in Auckland.

We arrived back in Auckland at 3:40pm, then I walked to my brother's workplace - Opus in Westhaven and we went straight up to Orewa to have dinner with the family... Now, whenever I go up to Orewa, mum tends to cook a feast.. and the food is SOOO good! I ALWAYS over-eat!

Tuesday - back to work! We had our weekly AUTCF committee meeting at 9am in The Hub, and the main thing on the agenda was the upcoming Easter Outreach (which we did today - more on that later). I will write about the Bible studies later... but there was bible study 4-6pm. Then I went to see Slumdog Millionaire which I really enjoyed. I liked the way it was shot - with constant flashbacks enlightening the audience as to how he got to where he was.

OK, so today... was an amazing day I think... not because of one big thing that happened but a lot of things today which both challenged me and led me to praise God. We had our Auckland Team meeting this morning. During our sharing time, I felt that I was quite happy with where I was. I couldn't think of any prayer requests for myself on the spot, but that doesn't mean that I didn't need prayer. I think it was one of the Jeffs who prayed for me though - for leading the bible study today. Anyway, we'll get back to that.. but we did a Bible study in Mark at the meeting. One of the things that came up was ... "What was Jesus doing with these people (tax collectors and sinners)." In the application stage, Andy spoke about sometimes questioning whether certain people had really turned to Jesus, but that is not for us to judge. This really challenged me and this is why: Some of you may know that the trials for those who were leaders during the Pol Pot regime (or the Khmer Rouge) are happening now in Cambodia. The man who they are currently persecuting is Kaing Guk Eav, or Duch (pronounced Doik). He was a torture prison boss at Tuol Sleng or S21 prison camp where approx. 17,000 people were detained, tortured and executed. My mum's family lived through the Khmer Rouge. My grandfather passing away because of lack of medical services, leaving my grandmother with 8 young children and 1 on the way. I don't know if they did ever encounter this camp or Duch but he was part of the team who oppressed and killed so many Cambodians - and estimated 1.7 million people including babies and children, and especially targetting the educated.


So why was the Bible study challenging? Well from reading about the trials, I came across this report: "After the lunch break the defence requested to be allowed to make balancing claims about Duch's character. He is now a Christian." This request was refused. My initial reaction to "he is now a Christian" was literally, "yeah right." I find it hard to believe that this man, who was part of such an evil regime, who had his hand in killing 1.7 million Cambodians, is now a Christian. I questioned whether he really was a Christian or if this was just a ploy to improve his image in court. What we learnt from Bible study in Mark was that we are right with God because we are saved, NOT because we are righteous. This may well be true in Duch's case.. But I will still struggle with this for a while. In my mind he doesn't deserved to be saved, and God shouldn't love him.. but just because I think that God shouldn't doesn't mean that he won't. I know that God loves everyone and it's not my place to judge - that God will ultimately judge us for our hearts. But in my humanness, I don't see why Duch should be saved, why he should be shown grace. It's been on my mind ever since I read the article over a week ago. And today Scripture brought it back to me.


So, after the team meeting, Sarah and I (and 8 bi-lingual Bibles for Ben) headed to AUT for our Easter Outreach. The group stuck up a red cross in the quad, above it they put "Jesus: Who do you say I am?" And had 6 "I am" statements around it. From 12-2:30pm, they invited passing students to write down who they thought Jesus was and stick it on the cross, in exchange for a mini easter egg.



Here are some of the responses:




Praise God for the response that we got from the students and for those students who stopped, read, thought and wrote something to stick up on the cross. We are so lucky that we are able to do this kind of thing here in Auckland without any opposition. We were able to leave this up in the quad for the rest of the day til 6pm.

I think I'm going to have to continue writing this post tomorrow... There's so much and I want to write and reflect on for the Bible studies this week but it's late and I need some sleep! So this blogpost is to be continued...

A Quick Update

Right - so seems that I have quite a bit of blogging to catch up on so will try to keep each account brief! Have just finished my Minty assignment (YAY! 1000 words), and like I've said before, if only those words came to me as easily as the words of this blog!

So AUTCF - we have been doing our usual Milo Mondays. Met a couple people last Monday, one of whom showed up to Bible study yesterday with a friend! Bible studies running Tues, Weds and Thurs from 4-6pm in WT1101. Last Tuesday we had an amazing turn out! 13 people altogether, with 7 newbies and 6 oldies. Praise God for answering our prayers about integrating the new and the old and for providing people eager to study the Word! Weds was a good turn out as well - 8 altogether. Yesterday I was leading the study, and E from Milo monday brought her friend and we started straight away as they had to leave after 30mins. We were able to work through the first half of the passage, but pray that they will come back next week. Then C arrived and we did a little one-on-one bible study as the two Es had to leave. This was a little different to what I had prepared for so we just worked through the passage, observing and interpreting as we went. Some good applications were drawn and we closed in prayer.

AUTCF are also preparing for an Easter outreach on Campus. More details and pics will be up after the event on 9th April.

EU - We had a very summery Bible study in Jonah last week as we decided to hold the bible study outside, in the shade of the tree on the lawn outside Maclaurin Chapel. It turned out to be a little dangerous though with the acorns (?) dropping at any moment and we had a few loud clanks on the table!

On Weds 1 April, we had a table in the AU Quad from 10-1 and we were giving out lollipops and flyers for EU. We had about 160 flyers and 200 lollipops. I think we had about 20-30 flyers left so will be praying that some of those people with flyers would come along to check out the group.

We had a very small Auckland Team Meeting yesterday, with Jeff in Wellington and Andy deciding to use his 12 hours for the meeting in Wellington as well. There were just 4 of us and we shared what had been happening and prayed for each other. As I was writing down the prayers, I decided to start a prayer journal, just so that I could keep track of what needed to be prayed for so that I wouldn't forget.

Sarah and I will be off to Tauranga tomorrow at about noon. We are going for 2 nights, staying with our good friend Justine! It's her 21st birthday today and we're going to join her for her celebrations on Sunday - a high noon tea party, Jane Austen style.. (still need to find something to wear!) Am really excited to see her!!

Am LOVING Skype at the moment, even though I only really use it to chat to a couple people. But it's great being able to see Esther's face! (She's my beloved bestie.. who decided to rough it in wild South Africa (or safa) for a year). It's been good keeping in touch AND getting some very good shots of her through the webcam:P There's one in my previous post, and here's another:

There are some others that are less tame, but they will find their way up here somewhere in the near future!

ESTHER!!

Skyping Esther this morning:

Not sure what the African sun is doing to her skin! Incredible Hulk anyone?

(She's gona kill me when she sees this photo!)

More updates coming - exciting Bible study yesterday!!

Jam-packed!

What a week! And it isn't even over yet! I think I'll start from where I left off last time...

Sunday 15th March - Church in the morning. As we walked towards the entrance of the hall, there was Tim with a cast around his arm. What a shock to hear that he had broken his wrist at Sport on Saturday while playing touch! He told me later that he had taken a couple painkillers so that he could get through preaching to us that morning. We're going through 1 Corinthians at the moment; a letter from Paul to the church in Corinth which was facing many problems.

After church, we had lunch back at 22MA ("the flat") and then Sarah and I were off to Hannah's 21st in Mt Albert. A gorgeous garden party with 300 cupcakes, punch, tea and club sammies! The weather was perfect for the occasion and beautiful Hannah was in a dress that she had fashioned up herself.

Straight after the 21st, there was a newcomers' dessert and coffee evening at the Webster's house at One Tree Hill. It was great to meet people who were new to the church (like myself) and also to hear a bit about the church's history, how it was formed and why it looks the way that it does today. Had some good conversations and great cheesecake! The Webster's are such a lovely couple and SO unbelievably hospitable! After that I went home and got some sleep, ready for...

The first official MILO MONDAY of the year!! Went a bit slow that morning but praying for a better morning next week. After milo monday, I went to get my support leaflets printed out. So exciting to see them printed out and ready to go! Thanks to the couple at Copies Plus for a good price and good service.

Tuesday - went to the AUTCF committee meeting - just a weekly meeting where things are planned, organised, suggested and prayed about for the coming weeks. Then had my supervision time with Jane, and had some good discussions about EU, AUT and my role within these groups. Am still trying to figure out how to balance my time and my roles on Campus but God is making things more clear each day as needs arise and opportunities for me to step up are presented.

Wednesday! Museum day with Keith - that's what is written in my diary, and that's what I did. Duncan, Keith and I went to the Auckland Museum, and even before I had gotten into the car and asked the big question, it seems that the boys had discussed it already - YES we were going to go see A T.Rex named Sue! I hadn't been to the Museum in ages so it was fun making new discoveries and randomly remembering things that I had drawn for art class last time we had a class trip there. I did see a few fashion things - one Rei Kawakubo outfit for Comme des Garcon and a World and a Zambesi dress. But there were many other interesting things there. I will upload photos once I get them off Duncan as I used his camera for most of the day. T-Rex was VERY cool I have to say - amazing how the palaeontologists had worked out how to put together the skeleton in the first place! Oh and mum and dad came down from Orewa for dinner, (YUM! have missed mum's cooking!) they were dropping my sister off cos she was going to stay the night - explained below...

So that brings us to today - Thursday. Thursday started with and early up-getting. Well not really but earlier than was normally neccessary. Got up around 7am, organised and packed some things that I would be taking with me to the Auckland Team Meeting at 10am. But before that I walked my sister down (and her luggage!) to Princes Wharf as she was going on the Spirit of New Zealand today - a 10 day berth on board this ship:

First thing that she did after she had been shown to her cabin was to climb over one of the smaller masts - they don't mess around on this ship! Straight into it! She was a bit nervous this morning but excited. I think it will be a good experience for her - testing and challenging herself personally and it will be a great life-skills-building experience.

After she got on the boat I hung around for a lil while to watch her, and to kill some time as I needed to go to the bank, and they don't open til 9am. As soon as I started walking towards Queen St, it started raining. Calming down a bit as I walked into the bank but when I came back out it was POURING! I tried to keep to the sheltered parts of the pavement but the last stretch to my place is uncovered and so, consequently, I was drenched. Thinking that the rest of the day was going to be similar, I changed warmer clothes, and rushed around my place trying to get ready for my 9:30 pick up for the trip to the office.

Had a good catch up with the rest of the staff at the Team Meeting - warning: Sarah and I have taken over your desk Gill! ...Well almost! :P We spent some time praying for each other then we started a maunscript Bible study in Mark, led by Andy. Spent the rest of the afternoon in the Office, having lunch, chatting and borrowing books from the library. Then headed back to AUT with Jeff for the Bible study this afternoon, picking up Jeff's daughter, Sascha, on the way.

We had 7 people with us for the bible study today and it was so encouraging! There were 3 new people and the way that they embraced the manuscript style of studying the Bible and the observations and interpretations that they were making were amazing. They were really engaging with the text! I had prepared myself to speak up and offer questions etc. in case no one did but straight off the ball there were questions and discussions happening and they were great discussions! This was such an encouraging and prayer-answering study, after yesterday where no new people turned up. And I know it's not always about the new people but after the great turn out at the welcome party (which I have forgotten to write about!!! Will do so below), it was a bit disheartening to see that none of them had turned up to the Bible study on Weds. It would be so sad to have lost contact with those people and to have missed an opportunity for them to study God's Word. I think that a more social, less formal gathering with them being invited might be good as a way of staying in contact and then inviting them again, individually, to Bible study.

So welcome party - happened Tuesday, 4-6pm with Pizza, drinks and bit of AUTCF vision as well as a brief informing about TSCF and IFES and AuSM. There was an awesome turn out and lots of conversations happening. It was a really exciting thing to see and what a great bunch of students!

So we're praying for more of these people to turn up to the Bible studies. Hopefully we'll have a good indication of who's coming and who needs following up after next week. We've also had some interested in sport on saturday - so that's really kewl. Let's hope that there'll be no more serious injuries at sport! EU tomorrow and then it's the weekend again! Time flies!

The Week That Was

This week was the second week of Orientation for AUT on both campuses. On the North Shore campus, clubs day took place on Tuesday and Sarah, Jeff and I ventured up to help out with North Shore Christian Fellowship - a new group set up by Laura and Jack. We weren't the only ones there though. There were 5 other Christian groups with stalls there - Campus Christian Movment, Christian Club, Real, Ako 4 Christ and Red Frog. The presence of the 6 Christian groups definitely made an impact on the students with many of them saying that we were all there "to battle it out". With just Toastmasters and the Salsa club there with stalls, we were the majority (I don't know if that happens very often?).

Now, I don't know what the other groups believed about Jesus and the Bible, so I don't know how relevant this will be but I remember during a bible study last year (I think that it was a bible study.. or maybe a discussion), we were discussing if Jesus is talked about and people hear about Him, even if it is in a negative context, is it really a bad thing? Jesus is still present in people's minds, whether it be because of that man proclaiming Him on the street or because of the unexpectedness of someone saying "I burn bibles" (which actually did happen - more on that later). So, regardless of whether these people are right or wrong about Jesus, the bottom line is that people are hearing of Jesus. But here is the tough part; teachings of Jesus and hearing of Jesus. Different - yes, but sometimes confused. This kinda ties in (?) with a bible study that we were doing with EU (More on them later too - exciting!). In 2 John 1:1-13, there is a warning about "deceivers" as those "who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh" and those who do "not continue in the teaching of Christ"; it says, "Watch out that you do not lose what you have worked for" and "If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching [of Christ], do not take him into your house or welcome him. Anyone who welcomes him shares in his wicked work." What am I trying to say here...it's good that people are hearing about Jesus, but when it comes to learning about Jesus, people need to discern whether what they're learning is correct, or is in fact of Christ. Confusing, and I haven't made it very clear here, and I haven't come to a definite conclusion, but just wanted to get it down - maybe something to come back to.

Anyway, so, NSCF got about 10 sign ups - an encouraging start for them I think and exciting to see what will come from this group this year.

AUTCF - took up the optional clubs days this week (Mon, Wed and Fri) with the actual clubs day on Thursday. They handed out milo and flyers and there were good conversations and lots of keen people who signed up. I wasn't actually there on Thursday as I was at an Auckland Team Meeting at the TSCF office, but AUTCF took up the opportunity to have stage time - so about 5-10 minutes of time on the stage in the centre of the quad. They did a milo-chugging competition, with the winner drinking about 10 cups of milo (from what I've heard) and walking away with a 1.9kg tin of Milo (which I'm sure he won't finish before it expires!) Jess also got up on stage and shared what AUTCF were about during our stage time. There's going to be a welcome event with pizza this coming Tuesday, where we'll get to meet the new people who have signed up.

EU - we had our first meeting yesterday, talking abit about vision and why everyone was there, as well as doing a manuscript bible study in 2 John. It was a small group but all were keen and very encouraging. One guy who came along had just become a Christian 3 weeks ago and was keen to get into the bible studies - amazing. Am planning on chatting to him more in the coming weeks, but he has class til 3pm and the EU meeting is 2-3:30pm at the moment, and there are a few people who couldn't come because of the time so that might be revised. Really exciting to see this group starting to get off the ground, and with all new members I think they will be able to take ownership of this group and do amazing things.

So the "I burn bibles" guy - was actually a lecturer - don't know his name or lecturer of what but I overheard him saying that he burnt Bibles. The guy that goes around AUT and AU trying to get you to update your election enrolment details happened to be standing next to our stand yesterday (and had a couple milos himself) and the lecturer, came up to him and said something along the lines of "what do you think about christians, I burn Bibles." And the election guy just straight out said, "I'm a Christian." Now, election guy seemed quite soft-spoken, so it turned out to be a very short conversation with the lecturer saying, "Oh, well I burn Bibles, I think all religions are evil" And thats about all the dialogue i heard. But election guy came over after lecturer left and said, "I didn't expect to hear that. People with different views huh. The end times are coming soon." ??? But I myself was thinking "did i really just hear that?" ("I burn Bibles"). And thought that the election guy was VERY cool - just saying, straight out, "I'm a Christian." Not ashamed and not afraid but confident that he had Christ.

So and interesting week that was.. I'm sure there will be many more...

First Ramblings

So, I have decided to create a blog. I'm thinking it will just be my thoughts and ramblings on here about what I get up to, so there will be a lot of randomness. The most exciting thing I've dont so far since creating this blog is to go through A LOT of free blogger templates, and picking this one. There are a few others that I downloaded, but whether I remember what they look like, or whether I can be bothered unzipping them and uploading them (with the possibility of having to reformat my posts) remains to be seen.

Is there an "about me" section in this template? I forgot to check so I'll just do an "about me" blurb here. So, I've just graduated from AUT with a Bachelor of Design in Fashion. 3 years of studio time, that was spent mostly thinking about our collections and didn't really feel like a "degree" at all. This year I am doing MINTY - a Ministry INTernship Year with Tertiary Students Christian Fellowship. There will most definitely be more written about MINTY on here as it will be my life for the next 9 months. Oh and family - I have a mum and dad and a younger sister, Lynda - who all live in Orewa, just north of Auckland (just before the new electronic toll gates). I live in Auckland Central with my older brother - Jonathan, a "graduate electrical engineer" (that's the title he has on his business card) for Opus. My brother and I are Auckland-born and my sister was born in Melbourne, Australia, and we're of Chinese-Cambodian heritage. I love latin and ballroom dancing - but now I have to be content with watching it on Dancing with the Stars - where I don't know who the celebs are and cheer for their partners instead. My favourite colour is orange. I love cooking, and trying different foods, LOVE oysters - raw with lots of lemon juice.

So, that's about it. Let's hope that 1. there will be upcoming posts, and 2. they'll make some kind of sense.