G’day Praying Partners:
“And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they
said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is
risen…” Luke 24:5-6a He is risen – were better words ever spoken? We pray
that you celebrated Jesus’ resurrection praising Him for His redemptive work on
the cross. For us, Easter is usually very low in attendance. It falls during
school holidays and there doesn’t seem to be an urgency to be in church. There
was a pretty good group on Sunday, though, even some new faces. But, the best
part about the day was when a young man that has been coming sporadically over
the last couple of months, genuinely seeking the truth, accepted Christ as his
Savior on Easter day! It has been an amazing journey watching God
work in this young man’s life – we look forward to the rest of the journey!
Last week we held our
Easter “Eggs”travaganza. Thank you so much for your prayers as they were
answered abundantly above more than we could have asked or thought! This is one
of two outreaches that we do at the school. We advertise in the school
newsletter and they also let us put a banner in front of the office letting
kids know about it. It’s on a much smaller scale than the one we do in
September and generally we have about 30+ kids there. We decided to prepare for
60 – faith! God brought us about 75 children and more than 30 parents who
stayed to watch! Rob had asked the young man who is preparing for Bible classes
to bring the Gospel presentation, assuring him it would be just a small group
of children. Needless to say, it was a bit intimidating to speak to over 100
for his first time! He did a great job, though, and it was good experience for
him! We hid over 650 eggs, colored about 120 eggs and gave away lots of
lollies! The kids had a great time and went home with gospel tracts and
invitations for children’s church. We have about half a dozen Hindu and Muslim families that come faithfully to all of our outreaches. What a blessing it
is to be God’s hands and feet in this community. Our church family was so excited about what
God had done! The funny part was, because of other obligations, we only had 1
boy from our church that attended – all the others were from the school or kids
that had been before. Please continue to
pray for the seeds of the gospel that have been sown. Our job is just to give
the message – it is God who brings the increase!
As joyous as all of this
is, when we turn on the news we are reminded of the world that we live in. It
all hit very close to home when a young man, 18 years old, from our little area
of Craigieburn, recently joined ISIS and took part in a suicide bombing. We saw
an interview with his father. The young man was raised in an atheist home and
his mum had passed away about 2 years ago; he never fit in at school. He had
even started collecting chemicals, hoping to do something here if he couldn’t
get over there. My heart breaks even as
I write this, wondering if I ever saw him in the shops or around town. So many
people without hope – and we have the answer! May God give us the boldness to
share the message of hope that we have – that we just celebrated on this Easter
Sunday! We never know, do we, how desperate the people are that we meet every
day. May God give us eyes to see people
as He sees them and may we demonstrate His love with every breath that He gives
us on this earth!
Shining the Light Down
Under,
Rob, Jackie, Stefanie and
Tori
