First week in Newy!!! :)

Lunch Hour on Campus with students.

So, my time in Newcastle has been so great thus far! I definitely miss people back in Sydney, but I definitely feel like this is where God has called me for the second half of the year.

I am currently working at the University of Newcastle and the semester started 2 weeks ago. After being on campus for a week and a half, I just have such a joy and can not wait to go back to campus each day!

So I thought I would give you a look into my first week here in Newcastle!

Monday: Walk on campus for the first time....our team starts each day with an hour of prayer, which is so refreshing and makes us focus on the Lord for the day! After praying, one of the students volunteered to show me around campus! It was so beautiful and I absolutely loved it. Briony, the girl who showed me around, has such an amazing heart as well and I have actually begun disicpling her! This has been such a blessing! :) After walking around campus, we have a lunch hour where students, staff, and anyone else will have lunch together every monday. This was so much fun....I met a guy who had never heard of Jesus and was interested in reading the Bible. So that was just such a great time of fellowship. After that, Kara (my teammate) and I went out for 3 hours and did surveys (or walk up evangelism). This was so great...we got into three conversations with people and just talked about Jesus and His love for us and it was sooooooo fun! :) Monday nights we will eventually have a womens bible study, but as this is the first week we didnt have it, but I am sooo excited for it in the future.

Tuesday: We again started the day in prayer as a team....Then right after prayer we went to coffee hour! This is an hour where we drink coffee and hang out with students. A lot of new people came and it was so much fun. I got to talk to one girl who is just searching for God, but not sure if she wants it. So yeah, we talked for ages and I am hoping to see her again throughout the semester. After that I went surveying again and had a really good talk with a guy. Then I had my discipleship time with Stacey (my teammate and discipler). This was so amazing....I feel like I am going to learn so much from her and just grow in my way to share the Gospel and disciple girls and just really grow in ministry through this time!

Wednesday: Again, we started the day in prayer...I just love this part of the day! Just to come to God for an hour each day before we begin is so amazing. Then I met with Nick (our team leader) about my team roles...I am going to be taking on the role of prayer for the team and the students...I am so excited about this! After, Nick and I went surveying and talked to 2 girls and they both wanted to hear the Gospel, so we got to share Jesus with both of them, which was such a sweet time! After we went to lunch/frisbee which is our event for the day. So we eat together and get students involved in frisbee. This was such a great time of conversation and I feel like I really got to know some of the students really well. It was full of great conversations.

Thursday: Start the day in prayer and then I went surveying with a student here who is on their summer mission trip. This conversation was soooo good. I went with Scott and we shared with another girl and guy and they were both so interested in Jesus. They kept asking us questions and just wanting to know more. They had been hurt by different Christians before and hurt by the church so we got to apologize to them for that and we seriously just had an awesome hour conversation with them. After, I met with my teammate and we prayed together for the campus and for each other which was so encouraging. We then get the afternoon off on thursdays and I came home and relaxed a little bit. Then we have a team dinner together which was so much fun! We went out for thai food. Then we went to our weekly meeting that night. This is a time where we worship, and have a talk and then just hang out with the students on campus. This night we talked about prayer and how to take prayer into action. So praying for others, but seeing how we can by answers to that prayer as well! It was really good and really fun.

Friday: Team staff meeting...this is our team day where we kind of plan for the next week and have our team meeting. So we had that meeting which was good and then this is our admin day. So getting work done and prep for the following week! :)

So yeah, that is kind of what a week in Newcastle looks like and what we are doing! So it is so much fun and we are seeing so many new students who are interested in Christ coming to meet up with us. So I am stoked to see how God uses the team this semester and I cant wait to see how God moves through Newcastle uni this semester!

Thanks for all your prayers and support in my move....It definitely would not have gone as smoothly if it wasn't for all your prayers. I am still trying to get settled, but as each day goes by the more and more I am loving it here! God is just moving in amazing ways and I love getting on campus each day and just being able to pour into students lives and just go out sharing the Gospel! So thank you all....I hope this reaches you well and I miss you heaps and pray that God is blessing you in many ways! :)

I will write again soon! :)

Many blessings,
Erin