Team Australia

Every day when we go into the scripture classes, its a unique experience. Every class is different, even when we cover the same material. In most of the classes at Model Farms we've been continuing to share from the story of the Firey Furnace from Daniel, as it has been well received and given us good launching pad to discuss some important topics with them such as that miracles like that still happen today (we gave examples from our lives and the lives of people we know), doing the right thing even in the face of opposition in the form of peer pressure, and why perhaps God might sometimes rescue, but in other cases allow someone to die. Its not an issue of whether God is capable, and that's a huge message to these kids.

One thing that has worked well was something Daniel started to do in a couple of the classes, if the kids were disruptive, he'd pick out the most disruptive kid to "be" King Nebuchadnezzar in the story. "King Nebuchadnezzar, you're supposed to be mad right now" and have them get actively involved in the story. The kids loved that. Though in a number of the classes, the kids were just so amazingly attentive we didn't have to reign in their focus.

They have definitely been listening to our message, and asking lots of highly relevant questions. In several of the classes in the past couple days we've been asked whether drinking or smoking marijuana are sins. These are the kind of issues many of the kids are facing around them. It was a great opportunity to share with them about temptation and being enslaved to snares of the flesh, versus the freedom in Christ. The idea that the kind of fun God wants them to have doesn't have negative concequences like hangovers was one we presented to them.

Other kids wanted to know why having pre-marital sex is wrong--and its quite a change of paradigm for the kids to answer that one from a perspective that isn't "because God doesn't want you to have any fun" but from the perspective of God wanting good things for them, wanting to spare them pain and suffering, wanting them to enjoy sex the way he designed it (in marriage), rather than letting ourselves lie to ourselves that we "know better" than God how his design should work. Physical union is designed to bring people together as "one flesh"--tearing that apart is very painful and has a lot more concequences relationally than a lot of 13 year olds realize.

After one of the classes today one of the boys in the class approached me to say he'd made a mistake and stolen something last week (he had gotten caught), and he felt really broken up over it, he knew it was a bad thing to do, and felt so bad about the poor choice he'd made. It was such a blessing to be able to share with him what the bible says about repentance and God's forgiveness.

In one of the other classes today another boy asked to receive Christ and didn't seem to mind if some of his classmates might have been watching when Diana and John prayed for him in the front of the room. Every kid we've encountered is really special and God has a unique heart for them, and we could see a lot of unique struggles and successes.

As we say goodbye to the classes when we find its the last time we'll be seeing them, the kids were sad to see us leaving and were hoping we might come back next year.

Every week we've had a number of "practical ministry" service projects worked into our schedule. Tanya and Lia cleaned Pauline's kitchen Wednesday. Thursday the entire team is at Paul's house re-painting a few of the walls. Other service projects have ranged from baby-sitting to yard-work for many of the different members of the church at Calvary Chapel Sydney.

A lot of those people didn't want to ask for help. Culturally, Australians don't like to ask for help. They'll tell you "no, no, that's alright" if you ask them if you offer assistance. It took a bit of persistence on our part for the doors to be open for serving in practical ways. It requires a bit of humility sometimes to admit when we really can't do everything on our own and we do need the body of Christ around us.

But the thing we've noticed, both here and on our mission trip last semester to Poland, is that the service projects consistently have ons of the most profound impacts on the church as a whole. So many churches its just the case its just not something people think about, when people haven't experienced love expressed in that way its so easy to be hesitant about the idea of helping someone else in like manner. But after seeing the positive impact its had on the church, Des, the senior pastor, now wants to incorporate a service component into the upcoming addition of home-groups at the church.

The benefits are multi-faceted. Not only are individuals blessed with accomplishing something they might not have the time, energy, or capability of doing on their own, but the time spent helping creates opportunities for fellowship and getting to know others in the church. We even heard one story about how Pauline used the girls coming over to clean her kitchen as an evangelism opportunity at work.

Tanya shared a devotion with us at the Wednesday night church prayer meeting about receiving the blessings of God. I asked if she would recap a little of what was on her heart that night for those of you reading the blog who weren't able to make the prayer meeting:

From what God has shown me (Tanya) here in Australia, there is a real need for the love of God to be practically lived out, and God had been stir this in my heart for a while. I would see a lot of needs and see that these needs could be filled by the team while we are here. My hope and desire is that as the team is living the love of God, it can be a great witness for the church and that they too would be encouraged to serve one another. Just as the scripture says in Galatians 5:13-14 and Galatians 6:10:

For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." -Galatians 5:13-14

So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith. -Galatians 6:10

These two verses are great book ends in the book of Galatians, and within those verses are some really soul searching verses and Paul just beautifully wraps things up. I have been really touched and moved by what God is doing for the Molteno family and others, to let them be helped and assisted as this is the definition of what it is to "through love serve one another." And through it all, the greatest blessing was to be able to get to know and build relationships with these families.

Thank you to the families for allowing us into your house and into your hearts.

The past three days we've been sending teams over to Paul's house after our schools outreaches to paint two of the rooms in his house.

The difference is dramatic on the half-painted wall

Uploading photos for the Blog (Paul in background)

You can kind of see the painting in the background

We are still going into Model Farms High School and teaching scripture classes almost every day. To give you an update, here are a couple praise reports from this morning.

The first period today is a class we've had at least twice before, one you may remember from the blog as the class that wanted to see God do supernatural things in their lives. And after seeing other classes of eighth graders, (and even their own class) the fact that everyone in the class was quiet and attentive this morning could only be the work of the Holy Spirit. Because they were so attentive we were able to cover a lot of material. We shared Daniel Chapter 3 (the firey furnace) and emphasized the points that the three had gone against peer pressure to worship a false God and that God still does miracles like that today, sharing stories about people from our church and friends of ours who have seen God do amazing things to save people from death. And we were also able to share Psalm 30 in that class and have a discussion about the ways God protects us and helps us.

One of the kids in that class was excited because she had also been camping with her family in Narrabeen for the weekend (at the same time we were), and had unmistakably seen Daniel retrieving a nerf football from the road through the campground.

The third period class was a completely different atmosphere. That particular class is a little roudy and talkative today as they had been on the other days we've been with them. They had lots of questions, not all of them biblical. There were a lot of misconceptions about who God is in that class. "Did Jesus really marry Mary Magdelane?" "Are Ghosts real?" "Is Scientology a Christian religion?" "What if you worship demons instead of God?" And so on and so forth. Some of them know who God is too, but they have doubts, aren't sure about what they believe, and what's true and what's fiction they've been told is truth. The thing that really quieted them down though, and drew in their attention and focus was hearing our testimonies. They'd already heard parts of them, as Diana and I (Jessica) had both been to that particular class before, but Diana shared more details she hadn't shared before, and they were really listening to how God had changed Diana's life--the holy spirit had quieted them and drawn them in with facination about God.

And it was also really neat talking to the substitute teacher who was supervising that period (Chris the scripture teacher has been with the 7th grade swim camp for the past few class days) and hearing him share that he was really impressed by the stories from our lives that we'd shared (our testimonies), he said he'd never really read scripture before, so the ideas we shared about who God is was new to him too.

Friday afternoon we went to Narrabeen, a beach town about 40 minutes away for a camping trip with the Youth Group. Most of our group went down there early to set up the tents and get dinner organized. However, some of the group stayed back to drive the kids out to the coast, and a couple self-sacrificing warriors from the church went back to pick up a load of kids after driving all the way out to the beach at rush hour to drop off their carfuls of camping equipment. It was a warm afternoon too, and a couple of those cars were not equipped with air-conditioning.


The kids arrived around dinner time and had snags for dinner and then a "youth group" style meeting with worship and sharing. Some of the kids from the group shared their testimonies. In the morning, John shared a devo, and everyone came away raving about how much his devo had spoken to them.

Overnight the sky had changed though, and in the morning it was rather rainy and cool. But by the time group quiet time was over and it was time to pack up the tents, the rain turned into a drizzle and then stopped. The afternoon was spent at the beach before a pizza lunch and returning to Castle Hill.

All in all, the most common complaint about the trip was "it wasn't long enough!"