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