Our last week in Wellington

We are right now getting ready to leave our hostel in Wellington for the last time. It is a bittersweet feeling of leaving the people we have been connecting with and getting to head home. It is obvious from walking around and talking that we are not from here. Though we have really enjoyed our time, we belong in another place. Just like we have to consistently remind ourselves that we are “aliens and strangers” in this world and meant to go home to heaven.

Again, so much has happened that I need to update you about… I’m not sure I’ll get the chance in the short time that I have. Our last few weeks have been really great. We had a Killing the Giants week, a flat (aka “apartment”) cleaning outreach to Uni students, a visit from the National Campus director of Student Life Justin O’Malley and a celebration dinner with a visit from the National Director of New Zealand Roger Osbaldiston.

The Killing the giants week is centered around the passage in 1 Samuel 17 with David and Goliath where David relies on God’s provision to defeat a giant against overwhelming odds. Our team was challenged during the week to write down a giant in their life that they needed God to intercede for them to overcome. Things ranged from sharing the Gospel with 20 people, writing a letter to a friend that they know doesn’t know the Lord, to seeing people come to Christ! It was great at the end to hear not only how God provided for the things that they asked, but also for how their hearts grew for the things they were praying and trusting God to do. It was definitely something where we were all forced to step out in faith, out of our comfort zones, and do something that we knew God could do. We all wrote our giant on a smooth stone and at the end of the week said how God had work and then threw it into the ocean as a symbol of the single stone that David used to kill Goliath. During the middle of the week we were able to go to a local rugby “test” between the Wellington Lions and the Otago… somethings… Wellington embarrassed them 65 to 7 and it seemed like our group was cheering the loudest in the stadium. It seemed strange to us that most kiwis just don’t get incredibly in to sports like we do in the states.

The cleaning outreach was a stretching time for us both physically and geographically. Students signed up on campus that lived in flats spread out over Wellington. We split our group up into 5 person groups and each team had 2 flats to clean in a day. We cleaned kitchens, bathrooms, washed dishes, etc. for 30 minutes and then shared the Gospel right after. It was a good experience for us and it was interesting to hear how people were just really surprised that we were just cleaning for free. Ultimately, it was a great way for us to serve the Wellington STINT team (since they can’t do that type of outreach with only four people) and to show the students whose flats we cleaned a tangible representation of God’s love.

We ended our time with a challenge to think about returning to New Zealand on STINT in the next few years. Almost all of the current team isn’t coming back and there is an extreme need for guys. Justin O’Malley talked with those who were interested and 7 of our students are going to apply to STINT within the next year! Right before we left, Roger Osbaldiston came to thank us for serving in New Zealand this summer. We had a meal to celebrate our time at a restaurant off the water. It was a great night!

Thanks so much for keeping up with us this summer. I am going to make a few more posts to close everything up with our debrief and some final stats of what you have been a part of this summer. Thanks again!

dave

picture 1 – we got to give the Wellington Lions mascot, Leo the Lion, a high five
picture 2 – Brian enjoying one of the many large lattes we got. I have heard that Wellington has the highest number of cafes per capita in the world. There is seriously one every 10 feet.
picture 3 – The STINT team after we treated them to a meal. From left to right; Matt, Alex, Jen and Sarah [not pictured Chris, Josh and Jill]
picture 4 – Our sign up time for the cleaning outreach with Amanda and Amy manning the table
picture 5 – The guys decided to wear all matching plaid shirts at one of our weekly meetings

Oh the places you'll go...

We have learned quite a bit in such a short amount of time that we have been here. Since mid project we have seen a few more people start a relationship with Christ and we have now shared with people from over 30 different countries! Please pray for those who are starting to walk with the Lord, both new believers and those who are rededicating their efforts to make God the Lord of every area of their lives. In the coming week we will be leaving [which is crazy to think] and flying out and leaving them here, but our goal is that each student who desires it would have the opportunity to get plugged into a church, a Bible study, discipleship and the ministry of Student Life at Victoria University. I will be sure to let you know names so you can be praying specifically just before we leave along with the full list of countries that we have shared with.

God has been using this time not only to move in the lives of people we talk to, but also to speak heaps of things to our team. One of the girls on our team shared something with us during one of our times together that I thought would be great to share with you. It is a journal entry that is addressed to herself so she could look back later to remember the weight of what she learned. It is a bit longer than our average post, but worth the read. Here it is:

I used to pride myself in having the ability to talk to people and communicate with them. I used to think that if I didn’t say something right or use the right words that the person I was speaking to wouldn’t respond well to what I was saying, if at all. I thought that if I made the topic I wanted to speak about appealing enough that the person would become enlightened and would agree with what I have to say. I especially thought this about sharing the Gospel. There was just never a very appealing way to get people to listen in my opinion. I mean if you go up to someone point blank and ask them if they want to hear the gospel there is a slim chance that they are going to say yes to you - and I only wanted to hear the yes answer. I never wanted to hear no because that would have meant that people didn’t like my presentation. It had nothing to do with whether or not the topic of what they were hearing was what they wanted to hear or not, it was all about the presentation. Because, after all, first impressions are everything and if I didn’t make a good first impression then no one I talked to about God was ever going to accept Christ. With this attitude I didn’t really share the gospel or anything else. What I did was put on a show. I wanted being a Christian to look really good to someone who didn’t know what it was about. Let me say that again…I wanted being a Christian to look really good. Reading this are you freaking out on the inside because I know I am just writing it! I have spent most of my walk with God if not all of it trying to make it look good. It’s not about me its about God!! I just want to scream it so the whole world can hear what I have learned about God. I have been shown that no matter how well I present the gospel to someone - if their heart is not ready then I am going to hear a no. It has nothing to do with whether or not I make this look good. Being a Christian is not about looking good or appealing to someone’s better nature. It is about speaking life directly to another person’s heart. That is what the word of God is. THE WORD OF GOD IS LIFE! There is nothing I can do or say as a human to make a hard heart open up to God. Just like there is no way that in my own strength I can take a rock and turn it into a beam of light. 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 Paul talks to the people of Corinth delivering the gospel. And when he talks to them he tells them that he didn’t come to talk to them with eloquence and superior wisdom but that he came to give the testimony of God. The only thing he knew was Jesus Christ and his crucifixion. By knowing that truth about Jesus he come to his brothers in weakness and trembling. He was afraid to speak to the people about Jesus. Paul said, “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the spirits power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.” God is so much bigger then any one in the world. His wisdom is infinite. I do not want the world’s faith to rest on my wisdom, because if that was the case man would surely die. I am nothing compared to God. I am small and insignificant. 1 Corinthians 1:25 says that God’s foolishness is wiser then men’s wisdom and His weakness is stronger then man’s strength. I used to think that God’s weakness and man’s strength were millimeters apart from each other. Now I see that there is an infinite gap between the two. Never in any of my strengths can I ever even attempt to climb the ladder and even catch a glimpse of God’s strength and wisdom. In 2 Corinthians 12:9 Jesus said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” To me weakness was not being able to make the gospel or even Christianity look good. I had to be strong and make sure that I was carrying that heavy mask around with me wherever I went. I had to especially to wear it when I was sharing the gospel. I have been shown that there is nothing I can do or say to anyone to make them accept the free gift that God wants to give them. I am not a sales man I am a messenger or delivery man if you will. I am weak because there is nothing I can do to get people to let Jesus in. In Revelation 3:20 Jesus says that he is standing at the door knocking. Did you read that? JESUS is at the door knocking! Not you, not me, Jesus is the one who can enter the heart of another person. You cannot. I delight in my weakness knowing that that is the will of God and he will use my all of my insufficiencies for his glory. He is the creator of heaven and earth and can use all things together for good. No matter how bad I mess things up God is always stronger and can use me in that broken state and mold me into what He wants me to become.
- Johanna C.

It is a great reminder to all of us as we step out in faith to share Christ with those around us to realize it's not about us. Just as Psalm 115:1 says, "Not to us, O LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness." Amen to that.

Dave

PS - pictures and stories to come in the next 48 hours...

Mid-project and other great things

We have figured out that in the 2 weeks that we have been sharing on our faith with people on campus we have been able to share the Gospel with people from [get ready for a big list]: New Zealand, China, Cambodia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Fiji, Norway, Iraq, Iran, the Philippines, South Africa, England, Germany, Vietnam, Oman, Samoa, Japan, the United States, the Nile Islands, Tonga, and Australia. That is a total of 24 different countries! I got to walk a student named Steven Zhang, a 2^nd year student from China, through one of the first follow-ups and as we got to the end of it I asked him how sure he was that he had eternal life in Christ and he said 50%. I was surprised because he had said that he already believed in Christ. So I walked him again through the prayer to receive Christ into his life and asked him if he wasn’t sure if he had done something like it or if he wanted to do it now to be sure and without hesitation he said, “I want to be sure, I want to be sure.” So we prayed through the prayer in the middle of the atrium of the student union. That is just one story, but it was great to be a part of what God was doing in Steven’s life.

Some of the guys were able to get involved in trying to minister with some of the STINT team by getting involved in communities of university students. Ronnie, Alex, Chris and I got to be involved in the indoor ultimate Frisbee ministry by going to a practice on Tuesday morning. We were able to see how some of the stinters do longer term ministry and met up with a girl named Maggie that knew Corey Grazul from last year’s trip! She just transferred to Victoria and has been looking for a place to get plugged in. She was telling us how she was feeling homesick and was so thankful that God set up meeting our team and getting her connected with the Campus Crusade for Christ ministry here.

Thursday night we had a men’s and women’s time where the guys were able to ask a panel of women questions and a separate time where the girls could fire away questions to a panel of guys. Then we were able to have a meeting for just our team with a time of worship, testimonies from Kim and Ronnie, and some teaching from Galatians. We had our first sharing time where we were able to tell some stories of what God has done, some funny things and even some frustrating situations that we have been in. It was great to see what things have happened with different people on the project and was probably the most beneficial thing that happened the whole evening.

Right now we are in Rotorua for our mid-project retreat. It is in the north part of the north island and is known for its natural hot springs. The pools are naturally heated but it does make the entire town smell like sulfur… not the most pleasant thing to catch a big whiff of… Last night we talked through some of the norms and values that we went over during our briefing in LA – things that we wanted to be to true of us for the project. It was really good for all of us to get to talk through lots of things. Today has been a day for us to enjoy some tramping (NZ for hiking), Zorbing (a human hamster ball), Agroboating (a 3 person rocket boat) and some rides down a luge on the side of a mountain. It was a really fun and relaxing day for all of us.

A few things that we would love for you to be praying for:
- Lee from Malaysia who wants to become a Christian but his parents told him he would be disowned if left their faith.
- A girl named Tracy that wanted to pray to invite Christ into her life on her own. Pray she would and that we would get the chance to follow up with her.
- For God to open a student named Xia Oyu (pronounced Shou You) to hearing and receiving the Gospel.
- safe travel on the 7 hour bus ride back to Wellington.

dave

picture 1 – Ronnie and I playing indoor ultimate Frisbee
picture 2 – Alex and Emily emcee-ing our meeting
picture 3 – Johanna bouncing down the hill in a Zorb
picture 4 – Brian, Amy and Kim shooting down the Luge
picture 5 – Alex’s red badges of courage (after wrecking on the luge)

Wellington week 1.5

We have had quite a bit of excitement in a short amount of time! Our weekend started after seeing 7 guys start a relationship with Christ through the tune-in survey follow-ups and doing initiative evangelism! One pair of our guys, Greg and Ronnie, were able to see 3 guys come to Christ in about 1 ½ hours on Friday - Raunar, Gaurav and Viren. Here is the story; they started sharing with a Guarav from India who they said was a pretty big dude. They were going through the Gospel when he called his friend Raunar over to hear it too! So both of the guys (who were both Hindus) heard the Gospel and then prayed to receive Christ. Greg and Ronnie set a time to meet and follow-up with them and left to talk to some more people. They went back and the guys that had just received Christ had just got done sharing the Gospel booklet with their Buddhist friend Viren who was now by himself. They went over to talk to him and walked through it with him and he accepted Christ as well! Please be praying for them and the other guys that have come to Christ that they would continue to grow in their knowledge of the Lord and get involved in Student Life.

Our team is focusing a lot on follow-ups this summer. Pretty much anyone we talk to we try to get another appointment with them to share more about the Gospel, answer questions or to walk them through some of the basics of a relationship with Christ. We want to make sure that we are building into people so that they can walk with God for a lifetime and multiply their lives into other students. It has been a little messy as we are figuring out how to help 24 people communicate with students al over the city. The way communication works here is that everyone texts for communication because phone calls are so expensive. As a result, we text everyone prior to our meeting on one of our three phones to make sure they remember the appointments.

For any of you folks who were on the New Zealand trip last year, I have been able to connect with a few of our friends from last year. Johnny, Oli and even Reuben. Reuben came down from Auckland for a brief bit to visit his parents and I was able to take him out for some dessert and hang with him for a little. Johnny is working at The Street City Church and is still minorly involved in Student Life. Oli is very involved and we have been able to see him quite a bit. Sadly those are the only folks from last year that are involved in Student life still. That is why we are placing such a high value on follow-up!

Over the weekend we were able to enjoy some of the great sites in Wellington. A group took the Wellington Cable Car up to the botanical gardens and a few of us hiked up to Mount Victoria that overlooks pretty much the entire city of Wellington. On a clear day you can see almost all the way to the south island. On our way down we found a rope swing on a tree by an overlook of the city [which we found out you can clearly see from ACROSS the city because it is in a clearing in the woods]. The landscape here in New Zealand is unlike anywhere I have been in the world. It really isn’t hard to be looking out at God’s creation while just being in awe of what He created.

As a side note, I have decided to put captions for pictures at the bottom of each post so that you know what each picture is of since blogger doesn’t allow you to post captions.

dave

picture 1 – Pipitea, one of the three Victoria University campuses we focus on
picture 2 – Jenny on top of Mt.Vic with Wellington downtown in background
picture 3 – Lindsay playin on the rope swing
picture 4 – you can almost picture a hobbit leaping out onto the path can’t you?
picture 5 – a flattering picture of me and Reuben

Wellington week 1

We have had quite a few things happen in the past few days so be prepared for a somewhat long post. I have to start first with the most exciting news. 3 guys started a relationship with Christ today! I’ll tell the full story later, but know that it’s coming further down on the page.

We have had some good time as we are getting to know each other better. We have “mixer dinners” where the 2 students split people up into groups and we have a series of questions we walk through to get to know each other better. It has been really fun to get to know each person a little better and hear more of what their heart is for reaching lost students in New Zealand. I have been really impressed with how our team has been intentional to be inclusive. We talked through some values and norms that we wanted to be true of our project during our briefing in LA and we have a few of our girls who have been “norm and value police.” I’m not going to mention who they are, but Emily and Sarah F. are doing a great job at keeping people in line…

We had some training on how to take students through two of the five basic follow-ups on our training night and were able to spend some time together worshipping God as well. The follow-ups are essential to our goal of seeing students starting a relationship with Christ, being built into and seeing them share God with others.

We finally got to get involved with the students on campus after all our training. The Student Life movement here is doing a survey outreach called “Tune In” that asks questions about what people value and gives them an opportunity to “tune in” to a relationship with Christ. We spent Wednesday going to three different campuses (Kelburn – the main campus, Te Aro – Architecture and Design, and Pipitea – Law and Business) and asking students there to take a tune in survey. We got the results together that night and called about 250 students between our project team and the stint team!

So here is the real exciting part, today we went on campus to meet with the people we had set up meetings with the night before. Two guys, Nate and Caleb, met with one of their appointments and had some time between their next appointment and that one and decided to walk up to a guy to see if they could share the Gospel through a student life survey. The guy they talked to answered each question in the ideal fashion. At the end Nate asked him if he would like to pray to receive Christ as his savior and they prayed right there in the hallway! Alex, one of the STINT guys, had several appointments throughout the day and had 2 guys, Nick and Leo, pray to receive Christ as well. It has been a great day! We then were able to go to the fortnightly [every two weeks] meeting of the Wellington Student Life and share stories with each other of what God has done over the past few weeks.

We know this is just the beginning of what God is going to do in and through our team here. Thanks so much for your prayers and keep praying for BIG things!

- Dave

PS Here are some things one should know when coming to New Zealand (in no particular order):
- Jandals are sandals
- A kiwi is a person, a kiwifruit is something you eat, a kiwibird is a flightless bird
- "Sweet as" is not a swear word
- "How you going?" means what are you up to, not how are you getting there.
- You tick things off on a survey, not check them (not sure if you can still be "ticked off")
- There is a lot of wind and rain, your umbrellas are useless against it
- everyone has a cafe... they are everywhere
- "lollies" are candy
- everything is reversed. Toilets flush opposite, Northerly winds are warm, people drive on the opposite side of the road and walk on the opposite side of the street.
- everyone texts, even your grandma - and she uses shrthnd 2 typ 2 u

Our first experiences in Wellington

Finally in Wellington and we have now been here for a few days. Our team is doing a great job adapting to the city. We have done a few scavenger hunts (one for the city and one for the campuses we will be ministering to) and most folks know their way around fairly well. Everyone has had a lot of fun, but it has been easy for them to get worn out. The city scavenger hunt on Saturday took 4 hours and had them walking to city landmarks, singing to a local barista, sharing the Gospel with a stranger and finding out facts about the city. Lindsay and I got to walk around the city the day before to take pictures and put it all together and it was fun for me to get reacquainted with the city from last year. If you wanted to compare Wellington to a city in the States, I would say it’s kind of like a mini-New York [and I mean very mini]. It is a very cosmopolitan city and for the most part pretty expensive, especially due to the poor exchange rate on the US dollar in New Zealand right now – but, as they say here, no worries. Our team is learning to budget as well as some great tools to share the Gospel.

Today we had some cultural training where we all learned a little bit more about the Kiwi culture. Something very important for us to learn is something known as the tall poppy syndrome. The tallest poppy gets cut down. Contrary to the way things are in the States, if someone excels at something or is better than others that is seen as a negative thing. So we have to tone down our American attitude of wanting to be the best so as not to hurt our opportunity to share the Gospel. Just as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9, “I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some.” We also did some training on two of the five follow up materials we will be using with new or newer believers to make sure they are grounded in their faith and to set them up as best as we can to be leaders in the movement here and to multiply those truths to other people, like their friends, who need to hear the Gospel.

A fun story happened Saturday as the students and staff team were out at the scavenger hunt. Lindsay and I were taking some time to get a late breakfast and spend some time in the Word at a local café. As we finished a young Cambodian girl named Kesar who is going to be studying at the Uni (short for University – it’s the term everyone uses here) and works at the café came over to clear our plates and saw that we were reading the Bible and asked if we went to church in the area. We told here about the church we are going to [called “The Street”] and about Student Life at Victoria Uni. She told us she couldn’t make the morning service but would like to come to the night one so our whole team got to meet here at the night service and then she hung out with us afterward. She offered to make dinner for our whole team while we were here! She loved the church and said she wants to keep going and will hopefully be involved in the International dinner that Student Life is putting on in two weeks. Two of our girls from our team are going to go through some follow-up with her later this week. It was just fun to be a part of something God wanted to do in Kesar’s life and all we did was spend time with Him.

A few things you could pray for are:
1) Our team as we get ready to due the “Tune-in” outreach this Wednesday.
2) People are getting a little worn out from walking quite a bit around campus and the city. Pray for energy and excitement to get up and spend time with the Lord and go out to share the Gospel.

Thanks so much for all your prayers and support. Its great to read your comments and hear bits of feedback. I have been passing those bits on to folks on the team.

Dave

P.S. I forgot to mention a while ago that Amy Barton is doing great. Thanks for all your prayers!

Heading to Windy Welly

We may have been able to celebrate the 4th of July before all of you due to the time change, but it is just not like being in the US. No fireworks, no bands, and…it’s cold and rainy. However, we have had some great experiences these past few days. Our team has been getting training in how to share the Gospel and their testimony and yesterday we put that into practice. We went out into the town of Matamata (also known as “Hobbiton” because it is where the Shire scenes from the Lord of the Rings movies were filmed) and talked to residents about a relationship with Christ. There were a lot of great conversations! My partner and I (we went out in pairs) were able to talk to a couple, John and Caroline, where the husband had just accepted Christ 18 months ago and walked them through the Four Laws because they wanted to share the Gospel with Caroline’s mother but didn’t know an easy way. We were able to pray with them and give them a Jesus Film DVD as well. One of our

students, Ronnie Vales, got to see someone start a relationship with Christ! In all, there were 180 people that we talked to and 6 people received Christ as their Savior and we are passing their information on to a local church for follow up. Each person on our team was able to have some great conversations to encourage people to take a step towards Christ.

It has been really great for our team as we have been able to hang out with so many Kiwi students and our team has already made quite a few friends. One of our team was able to be a part of the Maori (New Zealand’s indigenous peoples) traditional dance called the Haka, it is very rare that an American is invited to be a part of it. [see picture] We have met people from New Zealand, China, Taiwan, Tonga, Fiji and Scotland and we have only been in one place! It is very apparent that New Zealand is such a strategic place to reach the world with the Gospel without going to each place. One of our conference speakers, Justin O’Malley, told a story of a guy named Aaron that was a student studying in New Zealand from China. Aaron accepted Christ a few months ago and already wants to reach China with the Gospel, ALL of China. I am not sure that he knows that China is about 1.8 billion people, but that is his goal. It is crazy to see what God can do with a few people who are excited about serving Him.

We are getting ready to head to Wellington in the morning at 4:30am (12:30pm EST -which is just a few hours from now). We are taking a bus to Auckland and then flying to Wellington. It is backtracking a little bit, but our motto for the summer is “Flexibility is our friend, expectation is our enemy” and we are getting plenty of opportunities to put it into practice. We are getting in to Wellington around 10am, and then we’ll get to our hostel and get the chance to tour around the city for the first time. It will be a bit colder for us and a definite shift from the countryside, but our team is very excited to get onto campus!

Dave