NEXUS
How to summarize our staff week in Brisbane?!!? It was fun, exciting, new, adventurous, challenging, dirty, overwhelming, difficult, awesome!
First what is NEXUS?
This is the one and only conference held in Australia where all the Campus Crusade staff in the entire continent of Australia come and meet together to get vision and direction for the upcoming year!
What did we do?
Mostly, we had meetings and talks about what this next year will look like as far as ministry. We also looked deeper into our relationship with God and where we personally need to grow! There was a whole day where we actually went through a set up tabernacle like they had in the Old Testament. This was amazing and I learned so much through this experience. We also stopped our conference for a whole day and went and helped with the flood clean up in Brisbane! This was such an amazing experience that also just taught me so much!
Why it was challenging?
I am still adjusting to my team and just to Australia in general! It is different here and I have definitely realized that I have been going through cultural adjustment. I am still attempting to figure out my place on the team and just see what specific plans God has for me this next year! Next week is our missionary planning retreat, where I think a lot of these questions will get answered so that will be good!
I think I really realized my brokenness through this retreat as well and just felt so unworthy to be in God’s presence. It is difficult recognizing sin and just being able to see God’s grace is amazing and hard all at the same time! God really showed me this year is going to be a growing year and a learning year, which means I have to let God prune my branches and that I will make mistakes…this is hard for me because I hate failing, but I know God will grow me through this year, even though growing hurts sometimes!
What I learned?
I think I wrote out a list of like 50 things that I learned, but I will not share all that on here! I will give you the top 5!
1. Hope: When God promised the child to Abraham, He didn’t answer that promise right away, it took a few years. The same thing for the Israelites wandering through the dessert for 40 years. I just learned that when God does give us a promise, it might not be answered that very day, but He will never fail on His promises! We have to have hope in the middle times and know that God will always follow through! This just helped me so much because I feel like I can pray and pray for something, but I don’t see answers straight away, but God will answer it on His timing!
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2. During the tabernacle walk, there was a place where we ate bread together and there was instruction to look around at your neighbors! We are all one family bonded in Christ! In our group we had two stinters from Japan, and so many nationalities. When the Japanese stinter prayed he said that when we knock Jesus opens the door and says welcome! It was just so amazing realizing how big God’s family is and seeing the nationalities come together to worship Jesus!
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3. Also, in the tabernacle, there was an arc of the covenant…They had bread, a staff, and stone tablets laying out…I had never really heard the reason for what was in the arc and learned a lot! The bread was placed in the arc because when the people were in the desert for 40 years, God provided for them, but they were ungrateful! The staff was placed in the covenant because God chose Aaron to lead, but people rebelled and therefore did not respect God’s authority. The stone tablets were placed in there because they were God’s laws that we have failed to obey. So these three things were placed in the arc to show our sinfulness and the actual arc that is built is covering up our sin. I found this so interesting and we actually carried a sheet over the bread, staff, and stone to represent the arc and when I looked down, I could see nothing! This is how God sees us, He doesn’t see the sin beneath the arc or sheet, He sees our righteousness! Something I don’t think I will ever fully comprehend!
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4. God really opened my heart up for the lost here….I realized how privileged we are to be able to have such access to the Bible and to God, where in some places it isn’t even allowed to pray in public. God just amazed me through the blessings we have and just how lucky and privileged I am to be saved by Him!
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5. I think the number one thing I learned is just that I am broken and completely lost without Christ. I am broken, I sin, I mess up all the time! I am imperfect and nothing can save me except Jesus! His cross, His willingness to die on the cross for me is overwhelming! I have to be able to depend on Him and place my hope in Him every day!
Flood Relief
So for a really good portrayal of what we did and the smell and everything take a look at the link of my previous blog! A guy actually wrote a story about what we did!
But I think for me it was just incredible to see the destruction that something in nature can do…these buildings were far from getting back up on their feet and it was amazing to see the work that the people put in every day to get their buildings cleaned up!
It was an amazing experience to be able to help out and be able to give back to the community! I felt like God really used us in that warehouse and it was just an amazing experience and an amazing opportunity!
Where I am right now!
I am doing pretty good! It has definitely been challenging and as I said this is going to be a growing and learning year which means it will definitely hurt a little bit along the way! I am seeing God’s provision in amazing ways and seeing Him answer amazing prayers! I did find a permanent house to move into on Saturday which is so exciting and we are having our missionary planning retreat next week where our staff team discusses our campuses and what exactly ministry will look like and what our specific jobs will be! So I think after next week I will feel more in tune to what I am doing! This week is a lot of administration work online, but it is all stuff that needs to get done before students arrive on campus at the end of Feb! So yes, I am doing well and learning to grow closer to God each day!
*Sorry this is long, but I wanted to give an accurate and good update! Thanks if you read this...if not just read the sections that you want! I will try to post a page of pictures soon of my house and us cleaning up the floods and everything! Thanks to all...I couldn't be here or do this without your support and prayers! :)
