News and Prayer Points for January

News:

• Ben has about 4 weeks left of his summer break before college starts again. Faith has successfully completed her 1 year Diploma of Bible and Missions course and is now looking for some work to help out with the finances.
• During these next few weeksm Ben has to complete quite a bit of reading and Greek translation work before college starts up again which should probably keep him busy for about 3-4 hours a day. As for the rest of our time, we are currently relaxing in front of a bit of tennis and cricket and beginning to prepare for the year ahead. We have just gotten back from Brisbane and have begun meeting up with some of the students who are around for the summer as well as some of the 'long-termers' who are ex-students who have remained with us as congregational members or as leaders helping out in this valuable ministry to international students.

Praise and Prayer points:

• Please continue to praise and thank God that the pregnancy has gone so well so far, besides just a bit of sickness for Faith, especially in the evenings. We have just seen the doctor and gotten the results for her blood test. All remains A-OK!
• Pray that the coming months will continue to be a time where we can both continue to be faithful and effective in the ministries and responsibilities we have under God. Pray that student life and 'pregnant' life will provide us with opportunities to keep serving God and live out godly lives.
• Please especially pray for the upcoming year of student ministry on the Campus. This year sees a significant shortage of staff due to the decrease in the number of MTSers on campus. This has been due to a number of factors, one of which is a great shortage of funds to sustain the number of staff able to be taken on board.
• Pray that the ministry among the international students especially will continue to bear great fruit. Pray that among the students themselves, they will take on the responsibility and desire to want to reach out to their fellow students. Pray for us as staff to continue to have the passion, desire and energy to faithfully serve the students with our lives and doctrine. Pray that we will be a people of prayer and the word and good deeds.
• Please pray especially for Ben that he will be a disciplined, faithful and wise husband, father-to-be, minister, student and friend. He continues to struggle with some of his emotions and energy, so please pray that God will continue to be at work in those areas.
• Please pray for Faith particularly as she prepares for motherhood. Please pray that God will help her to manage the change from being such an active and involved worker and servant to being much more homebound. Pray that God would help her see the great joys and privilege of nursing a baby and not be too depressed by not also being able to do as much with the girls that she loves to meet up with. Pray that Ben would be helpful and understanding to Faith in these things.
• Please praise God with us for so many who support us with such love and care, with lots of prayer and in so many practical ways!

May God continue to shine the light of the Gospel into your hearts and minds and onto the paths you walk.

Prayer Points for December

There is much to praise and thank God for as we approach the month of December, as well as many things we ourselves would like to be in prayer for and hope you will join us in!

Thanksgiving and Praise:

• Praise God for the academic year that has just passed - it went by relatively smoothly, but more importantly, we know that we have learnt so much from God's Word, so much from Christian thinking and so much about Christian living.
• Praise God for the new community at college we have become part of this year. Every community has its 'good's' and 'bad's', but we are thankful for being in fellowship with so many like-minded, Christ-centred people. What a privilege!
• Thank God for his generous provision of learning, fellowship, support, finances and material things throughout this year. Through so many different people and in so many situations, we have not been in need of anything, spiritual, emotional, and physical!
• Thank God for the many opportunities to be serving His people over the summer. We will be heading to Canberra for the National Training Event on Saturday for 4 days of conference and 5 days of mission in Queanbeyan after that. Thank God for the opportunity to lead a daily seminar on Biblical Theology, as well as an oppurtunity to run an elective for International Students from all over Australia. Thank God that many students (over 30) from our church (FOCUS) will be coming along for NTE as well!

Prayer points:

• Pray that NTE will be a great time of growth for all concerned. It did great things in enthusing last year's students for ministry and mission. Please pray that this year would be no different and even better!
• Please pray for us as we lead seminars and electives that we will do so humbly, faithfully, serving and preaching Christ, not ourselves and that we will teach with great skill and in a winsome manner. Pray that our teaching would be clear, effective and powerful. Ultimately, pray that God will be at work through His Spirit in this entire process!
• Pray that God will energise us for the task ahead. It has already been a relatively long and tiring year for us. Do pray that He will give us the physical and emotional strength to see us through the next 2 weeks and serve whole-heartedly and self-lessly.

There are many more things we need to thank, praise and pray to God for, but we hope this will give us all a starting place in our prayers to God. Please send us your prayer points as well, that we may also be able to bring our requests to God on your behalf. Email us or give us a buzz!

Prayer Points for November

I thought I'd set up another blog specifically for ministry news and prayer points for those of you who don't want to trawl through heaps of innane posts to find out more about what we're actually doing, what we're involved with, how we are struggling and how you can be praying for us in all these things done under God.

So please check back here for more specific ministry news and prayer points.

More to come when exams are done... but for now, if you could remember us and all students (both in Moore College, the students we minister to at UNSW and all students everywhere!) during our exam period, we would dearly appreciate that. Specifically for us, praise and thank God for all the things we have been learning as we have been consilidating, summarising and preparing for our exams. Pray that we will continue to remember all that we are learning so that we can continue to teach God's word faithfully and truthfully!

Thank you for you care for us and prayers for us! Please do drop us an email and let us know how we can be praying for you also.