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

North Island Winter Conference

We have been at the Winter Conference now for a few days and it has been great! We got into the first day recouping from our day of traveling. We spent some of that afternoon and all of Monday getting the camp ready for the students to arrive. The New Zealand staff were very thankful that our team was so willing to ask what we could do to serve them and do some physical labor.

Our team has started to get used to the time change, but not the weather just yet. It has rained on and off every day since we have been here. It even rains when its sunny outside. Today most of our team was playing “sport” barefooted in rain and cold weather. It was a lot of fun, surprisingly for most of our students. They have really jumped into getting to know other students in their small breakout teams and are starting to get a better picture of the culture here. We had a little time together tonight after being put to work (we are more or less staffing this camp as a way to serve the New Zealand staff) and were able to enjoy a Kiwi delicacy, Tim Tam Slams. It is basically a chocolate cookie that you use as a straw to drink a hot coffee through before you eat it. You’ll have to ask the person you know on this project to bring back some Tim Tams and share the experience with you (see picture).

We have met some of the student leaders in Wellington and have walked through some plans to reach the Victoria campuses with the STINT (Short Term INTernational) team that has been in Wellington since September of last year. We are excited to get into the city soon and start to help the STINT team and student leaders to build up the ministry there. I heard the story of a student named Ryan today who had no Christian background and came to know the Lord because a friend of his who was involved in Student Life (aka Campus Crusade for Christ) invited him to church and then a Student Life meeting. His story was much more in depth than that, but it was so refreshing to see the joy in his eyes as he told his story of meeting Jesus for the first time. Then he said something that made look at my own faith. He said that even though he started a relationship with Christ about 10 months ago, he has been as excited each day as he was that day because he knows what Christ did for him. He was a computer science major, but now he wants to go into full time ministry. It was an amazing example of how God is drawing people to Himself here we get to be a part of that!

There are a few ways that you can be praying for us:
1) One of our girls is a little sick from the food here. Please pray for Amy Barton as she recovers and rests. It’s no fun to have to take yourself out of the project.
2) We are getting some pretty in-depth training in how to better share our faith and then we are getting the chance to go out into the town near the camp to share the Gospel. Please pray that God would go before us and prepare the hearts of the people we will talk to.
3) We are leaving here Friday morning at 4:30am!!! Pray for safe travel and that our team is able to get everything together to head out on time.

Thanks so much for your prayer and we’ll try to get updates here as much as we can so you know what is going on.

dave

Briefing in LA

We are finally all here! Our team of 24 has arrived in LA to start our briefing and I must say that I think we have an amazing team for this project. It has been very interesting to hear how each person here has overcome some sort of obstacle to be able to be here. We have had a great time getting to know each other already and it has been really encouraging already to see each student’s heart for the Lord. They are trusting that He is going to do something BIG this summer in their own lives and the lives of the students there. One of our guys, Greg Ellington, has already been quick to point out how he wants to do everything he can to grow. We had a short men’s/women’s time last night and our guys have started early to be open about wanting to have accountability, honesty, and the absence of pride be an integral part of the summer as we talked through Proverbs 17:17 and 27:17. I am excited about what the Lord has in store for each of them.

God has been doing some crazy thing to get our whole team to be able to go with us overseas. The Campus Crusade rule about support is bascially if a student doesn't have the support they need in, they can't get on the plane. In the past 12 hours we have seen over $4,000 dollars come in for our students! On top of that, one of our students still hadn't received her passport and will be picking it up tomorrow without having to pay extra! God is showing his faithfulness to us in a lot of ways.

Other than that we have just had a good time as we have gotten to know each other and hang out. Tonight we were able (with the help of my good friend Dave Kleinknecht and his girlfriend Lauren) to have a bonfire on a nearby beach. Quite a few of our students got to set foot in the Pacific Ocean for the first time. We hope you enjoy a few of these pictures from our trip to the beach tonight. It has been great so far. Thanks so much for your prayer and support and we will keep you updated as much as possible.

dave