What a great night!! – it was awesome to see so many new faces and heaps of new people come along to check out NCS. Top food from the chefs, awesome weather from God and uber welcoming all round! Almost a shame it has come and gone, but there is more on the horizon to be excited and prayerful about…
photo credit: JoshuaDavisPhotography.COM
For those who didnt know (or forgot), NCS sponsored me to go as a missionary to Bangladesh for a month over January. I have been asked to write a short summary of the trip.
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We did two main things over there, evangelism and contextualisation (helping pastors out with practices in their church community). Evangelism was probably my favourite and most rewarding experience. We told stories from the bible, about creation and about Jesus to the villages in the mountains. The villages couldnt get enough of these stories, they had never heard anything like them before. The village elders would even come to our camp to try and get more stories out of us that they could relay back to their people. When we were in the villages, the children would all sit down the front with their mouths agape. Everyone was excited by these stories, and soon forgot their fears that we were trying to convert them to christianity (which we were), and became lost in the stories.
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So yea, the evangelism was hella rewarding. Aparently – most of the people who come to Christ in BD come through the stories they hear about Christ (rather than through proposition, which is something we put alot of emphasis on in western evangelism).
One thing i noticed is that over there they have evangelism as a job. I dont think i have ever heard of anyone in western civilisation who evangelises for a living (save Smith Wigglesworth, but he’s in heaven now).
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The second thing we did over there was contextualisation. My group focused on the christian marriage ceremony that the marma people group undertook. Our aim was to reduce syncratism (where they have mixed in their cultural beliefs with christian beliefs). I will give you an example of one practice that we asked that they remove from their practice. They strangle a chicken, then boil it. When the marriage ceremony is complete, they remove a main artery from the neck of the chicken. A straight artery means a good omen for the marriage – a curly one means a bad one. We did research on this and found that divination is an abomination to the LORD. Also that strangling causes blood to seep into the flesh and in acts 15 (i think) it says that we must not eat blood. We strongly recommended to the pastors that they remove this ritual from the marriage ceremony.
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So that is a brief few examples of what we got up to over in the big BD (no really its the size of tazmania – with 156 million people). Of course there is a month worth of experience for me to talk about, but i will keep this post short.
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Bless you all, go in peace
David
Steve and I just spent the last few hours dreaming and scheming and laying plans for O’Week.
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It’s going to be a fun week!
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We’ve got BBQ’s Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday, we’ll be giving out business cards like there’s no tomorrow, there’ll be so many conversations that you could literally drown in them…. And not to mention the Light House Walk on Thursday night at the Train Sheds.
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We hope you’re getting excited about welcoming stacks of new students to Newcastle Uni, we certainly are!
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Why not take a minute now to pray for the incoming students?
Pray that’ll enjoy starting Uni and make good friends quickly.
Pray that we’ll get to meet them during O’Week
And pray that God will give us words to speak and will help us make them feel welcome.
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photo credit: Lyndi&Jason
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2010 is upon us, the 3 months of holidays are almost over, and it’s time again to prepare for an onslaught of new students!
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The shear number of incoming personnel makes every O-week seem like a daunting task: how do I welcome so many people?
Even if I only shook hands, smiled and introduced myself to each newcomer, I’d be overwhelmed; drowned in a sea of new faces, names, backgrounds, personalities, expectations, tastes, questions, and doubts.
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And yet I’m confident. I’m looking forward to O-week and meeting new people, because welcoming the throngs of individuals isn’t a job I’ll be doing alone.
During O-week, it’s exciting to see the body of Christ at work – I’m excited because as NCS we’ll be welcoming together. We have a throng of our own. And not only our own, but God’s own.
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I’ve already been encouraged at the NCS Leaders’ Conference earlier this week, and with Kickoff coming soon (20th of Feb!) I can’t wait to get prepared with all of NCS for the good work ahead. To see God working through his people, diverse yet united, eager to serve their King, standing firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the gospel… what a privilege we have in being a part of it all!
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Gee I’m excited by this new website!
There are just so many possibilities, so many different things that we could include…
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Which makes me wonder…. if you were designing this website what would you include? An events calender? Bible commentary? What would you like to see? Please give us your comments below….
photo credit: luc.viatour
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