Ah, it's good to be back home in my own bed again. Got back from college mission just before midnight on Sunday night. Been catching up on some much needed sleep. The family I've been staying with the past week has a little boy who likes to wake up at 5:30am - the problem is that he likes everyone else to be awake with him as well!!

There's so much to tell that I can't be bothered to type it all up. But perhaps a few highlights...

• Arriving at my billet's place in the middle of an engagement party. Yummy food. :)
  
• Meeting another Ernie who is an atheist and having a conversation about God.
  
• Teaching scripture class in a public school for the first time and telling them about Jesus.
  
• Meeting kids who have wanted to be a missionary since they were 3 years old!
  
• Going to Girl's Brigade and participating in 'synchronised swimming'.
  
• Making up 'dance moves' to memorise John 3:36 - and the kids looooved it!!
  
• Dancing to Christian kid songs and doing puppet shows.
  
• Hearing that 70 kids became christians at one of the public high schools in 1 day!
  
• Teaching a lesson on justice, mercy and grace, and God providing the perfect opportunity for me to illustrate grace to one particularly naughty boy.
  
• Playing handball for the first time in 7 years and beating all the Yr 5-6 kids. =D
  
• Going to Hyam beach - reputed to have the whitest sand in Aust.
  
• Coming home...
  

<< Give praise and glory to our Almighty God for the way in which he used our team to bring the gospel to the people of Nowra. Thank God for the way in which the local church worked alongside with us in many things. Pray for those who are new christians, and also for those who are interested in finding out more. Pray that the christians there will continue to grow and mature and to be active in reaching out to the lost. >>

There's much more that I could talk about, but I'd get really long winded. Let's just say that everything smoothed out and we got our act together (for most things) and God was pleased to use our meagre efforts.

I've been resting yesterday and today. But I'll be off again to Club 5 this long weekend. Look forward to catching up with many old friends and meeting new friends. And especially looking forward to sitting under God's Word and being challenged to serve Him with my whole life.

I've also got to get back into college stuff fairly soon. I've got one last Greek quiz to go, and a major OT essay to write. Then come final year exam!!!!

Anyways, I'll worry about all that in due course. For now, I want to just enjoy the rest of my day off. Ahhhhh...

It's one day before College Mission at the moment. And everyone's kinda in panic mode, doing last minute preparations - or for some, still finishing off essays!!!

I'll be going down South to Nowra for 9 days. I'm in the Primary Section, so I'll be mainly running scripture classes in 3 different public schools. We will be doing "Who is your King?" - the kids version of 2 ways to live. So please pray that many kids will come to put their trust in our Lord Jesus.

We've got a pretty packed program: like a daily devotion with primary kids at the local Christian school; Boys Brigade and Girls Brigade; School Assemblies and church services; some street evangelism and home Bible study groups, etc, etc...

I'm not feel as excited for this mission as I was about Cowra or RICE. But perhaps that's just cause I'm not as prepared... :P

<< Please pray that we can all be faithful and diligent in our preparation so that we can present the gosspel as clearly as possible. Pray that the people in Nowra will hear the gospel and be cut to the heart so that they will turn in faith and repentence. Pray also that the local Christians will be active in inviting their friends and also in doing the evangelism themselves. Pray that we can work well together as a team and to be salt and light to Nowra in our words, thoughts, and actions. >>

Ok, gotta go finish preparations...

PS Yay, less than a month since my last post!!

Just popping in to let you all know I still exist...though my existence seems pretty boring right now...I'm so sick of writing these days. Ugh! Essays, essays and more essays. :(

Well, hopefully you have received my belated newsletter by now. If not, let me know and I'll send it again.

Right now, I'm busy writing an essay for Church History on Jansenism - that's Jansen, not Jensen. But I'm sure in a few decades, they'll be asking people to "evaluate the impact of the Jensen brothers on the Sydney Anglican church in the 20th and 21st century."

Got research week next week, which means (in theory) that I'll be spend most of the time catching up on my Greek. There's just so much stuff to memorize! After coming back from research week, we have College Mission coming up very quickly. I'll be heading down South to Nowra and teaching the Primary School kids there. I'm looking forward to it, but boy, do we have lots of stuff to do. I'm all snowed under at the moment and I'm desperately wanting to come up for air (sorry for the mixed metaphors).

Lots more stuff I could say, but as I said, I'm sick of writing. If you are interested, then gimme a call and encourage me. But even if you don't there quite a few things I've mentioned there to pray about. All I can say now is...

BLEH!

Started another college semester. The three weeks of holidays went by so quickly! Got all my exams results back (including the Greek quiz on Tuesday) and everything went ok - yay!

This semester, my subjects will include:
* Exilic Prophecy
* Church History (1550-Modern Day)
* NT Greek
* NT exegesis: Hebrews
* Intro to Theology
* OT: exegesis: Chronicles
* Preaching Workshop
* Expounding Scripture (actually preaching sermons in small groups)

Like everyone else, just trying to ease myself back into study mode. Very lethargic and procrastinating heaps at the moment! Ugh! But at least I have a better idea about college life so hopefully I will re-adjust much faster this time.

<< Thank God for the relaxing break and time to catch up with friends. Pray that I can be a diligent student and not be lazy - especially when it comes to studying and apply God's Word to my life. >>

RICE is finally over for 2004! Phew! I haven't blogged much about it this year, but in short, it all ran very smoothly and the gospel was preached and God was glorified. On the first week at RICEfest I was looking after the jumping castle and horizontal bungee (fun fun fun!). There was a little hiccup at first getting them set up - they refused to be inflated and keep falling down...But in the end it all got sorted and there were many happy kids jumping around. =) I missed most of the gospel talks cuz I was running around doing other misc stuff, but Center Stage seemed very lively and all the feedback I heard about the talks were good.

For the 2nd week of RICE I was involved in the skit team. A very embrassing experience pretending to be a chicken and a superhero in front of 1,000 people. I was also on stage as Dr. Frankenstein doing a mime with voiceover. Hehehe...very funny skit! I had lots of fun doing that as well. All in all, 2 very successful events! And God was gracious and merciful because we had 70 (yes - 70!) kids who prayed the prayer for the first time. Whoa!!

<< Pray for the follow up for all of these kids. Pray that each church/youth group will be faithful in making contact and helping these new believers take their first step. Praise God for the amazing way in which all the leaders worked together over the last 2 months. And praise God for His abundant love for us through His Son Jesus Christ! >>

Hello!! Yes, I am still alive, even if this blog doesn't seem like it.

Ah it's so nice being on holidays. It's been over a week since I finished exams and after all the essays, I really didn't want to do any more writing - even to blog or to write my newsletter. But I'm slowly getting back into it. And I owe it to you guys to let you know how I've been going.

Exams were quite hard and some of it was completely different to what I studied. *boo hoo* But I have learnt a lot in the last 6 months! But now that I'm holidays I still have to study! :( There's a class quiz for Greek on Tuesday the first week back - and it's on a hard chapter of Greek. So I've been pretty good and doing a little bit of study each day. Hopefully it'll all stick in my mind and not leak out too early...

Other than a little bit of study, I've been spending most of my holidays just relaxing. Yes, I know it's hard to believe, but I AM actually relaxing. *give myself a pat on the back. There's still plenty to do at church and for RICE, but I can spread things out nicely without too much pressure.

Speaking of RICE, that's probably my main prayer point at the moment. If you don't know what that's about, basically, 23 youth groups from around Sydney are getting together to hold 2 evangelistic events hoping to reach about 800+ high school kids - and the first event is a fete this Sat, and then secondly a outreach night next Sat. Please pray that there will be no rain this Sat, and that many non-Christians will come to hear and respond to the gospel.

One of my goals for this holidays is to catch up with as many people for brunch/lunch/arvo tea/dinner/supper as I can (nup, I can't get up early enough to have breakfast). As I said I don't like writing and so I'd rather talk to people in person. Especially while I've been at college I haven't been able to do that at all. So if you're reading this and I haven't met up with you yet, then contact me!

Counting down...

Today is the first day of stuvac, and my first exam (Pentateuch) is on Friday. This is the exam that I'm probably most unprepared. We had 3 lecturers for this subject focussing on different parts of the first 5 books of the OT. But one of the lecturers I found to be quite hard to follow and I'm disappointed to admit that I didn't learn a whole lot from his lectures. So now I have lots of reading to do to try and patch up the holes in my learning.

My second exam is Church History. That one is a bit of a worry too, 'cause I have no background knowledge of history, so that means I haven't learnt any of it before and I have lots of new information to remember. It's one of my most interesting subjects, but also one that will take a bit of work. But at least I've got good lecture notes for this so I don't have to do any research.

And lastly is my Biblical Theology exam. This one shouldn't be too hard. We have been give half the exam paper already, so we can be really well prepared - but that also means that really good answers will be expected! I probably won't be able to study for it till after my Church History exam. So the 2 days after that will be cram, cram, cram! Not ideal learning, especially since I'm reading God's Word...hope to improve on that in the future.

I've had a few people tell me lately that they have been visiting my blog and actually praying for me. Thanks heaps!!! People have been very faithful in sending financial contributions, and a few other people have also mentioned that they would like to also support me in this way. I haven't been able to thank everyone individually, but I hope you guys know how much of an encouragement that is! =D (I hope you guys are reading this!)

<< Thank God for His love and grace in providing me with so many faithful brothers and sisters in Christ who support me in so many ways - prayer, transport, money, lunch/dinner, accomodation, the odd word of encouragement, even just understanding my limitations in ministry. Pray for these fellow workers in the gospel that God will continue to bless them abundantly in their godliness and understanding of His Word. >>

I doubt if I'll have time to blog again in the next 2 weeks until my exams are over. But I'll try and get started on my newsletter afterwards!

Again, I have failed my readers on this blog. No updates for like a month. It's become a regular habit, isn't it? =(

Even without me telling you, I'm sure you can guess that it's been incredibly busy. If you've been keeping track of my assessment schedule, you'll see that I had a lot of assignments due. And though I really don't like writing essays (still don't after a few months), I am learning heaps through the research and in the lectures.

Especially in church history. I never like history in high school 'cause I didn't want to memorise people and dates and events that were largely irrelevant to me. But I've discovered that history is not irrelevant, and even more so in church history. So much of what has happened in the past still has an impact on us today. And much of the struggles of the church and for the individual christian has been faced in the past and discussed. Very, very interesting to learn about!

I think what's been keep my most busy though is church ministries. I've enjoyed teaching Romans over the past few week (although it's HEAPS of work preparing it and thinking about different ways of leading it). I've been reminded about a lot of things I learnt a few years ago when studying Romans.

Organising SCCCA was another HUGE task! We had two of our seminars pull out on us at the last minute! >:( We almost killed ourselves trying to find someone else to do it. It was also hard to find time to prepare my seminar on Biblical Theology - I mean, how do you cover the whole Bible in 90 mins?!? I don't think I did very well in my seminar, probably 'cause I had too much material. But we had a good turn out on the day and about 30-35 people came. Still thinking about how to improve it for next time...

Well, that's a quick update of what's been happening. The outlook for the next few weeks is much the same. Except that instead of having lots of assignments, I now have lots of exams coming up. And instead of thinking about SCCCA, the next big thing is RICE - more about that in weeks to come.

Stay tuned and keep praying. Forecast for next update is in 2 weeks - right before exams start!