Hello everyone! Thank you for all of your sweet messages and prayers. It is so cool that our team has a group of people that is praying for us, and in support of what we are doing. Our CCP team can not thank you enough. As of today, we have been in New Zealand for over two weeks, and we are coming up on almost a month since we left Minnesota! Time has been absolutely flying by! We finished our first week of full time ministry on the campus, and I am excited to fill you guys in on what that has looked like. It has definitely been a learning experience for us all.
On Tuesday, we picked up three staff members from Minnesota at the airport! Travis Barth, Stephanie Pohl, and Johnathan Buschke. The three of them have been in Wellington, New Zealand since July 3rd on a vision trip. Wellington is a huge city on the North Island, it is the capital of New Zealand. They were in Wellington to scope out the possibilities of planting a Campus Outreach location at Victoria University. The ministry house (Grace House) is quite the party…to say the least! We’ve got 12 people living here. It can get tight sometimes, but we have been so blessed to have such a wonderful team. I truly enjoy every single person on my team. We are cooking meals together, bunking together, studying the bible and having late movie nights…It's starting to feel like a great big family! I am so grateful that the Lord has hand picked each and every one of us to live and walk alongside each other in this season of life. What a blessing!
And a special shout out to our fearless leaders, the Forkers. Josiah and Emily are absolutely crushing it. The 8 students on our teams have been divided to do ministry in 3 different halls on campus. The Forkers bounce around between our halls, kind of like roamers. They are taking care of all the behind the scenes work, which is so much more work than I am even aware of! They are leading a group of 12 people on a 6 week international mission trip. We are all very grateful for Josiah and Emily.
ENGAGE!
On Thursday night, we had our first Engage night! It was a blast. CO Dunedin hosts students for dinner, fellowship, a talk, and games on Thursday nights, at the Engage ministry house (Grace House). Since this was the first Engage night of the second semester, the theme of the talk was simply the gospel. The gospel is something that all Christians regularly need to hear; the Good News is simply that good! The speaker based his gospel talk on Hosea 3. For context, God tells Hosea to marry a promiscuous woman (Gomer). Hosea is commanded to remain faithful to Gomer, despite the fact that she is being unfaithful to him again and again. The story of Hosea perfectly encapsulates the gospel, because humanity is like the unfaithful wife. Jesus sacrificed Himself on the cross to defeat death; to save humanity from themselves. Jesus gave us this free gift of salvation, yet we continue to turn our backs on him; we sin against Him over and over again. We sin against Him, even though we know it is wrong. We do it anyway. Yet God remains faithful to us. It is not a “three strikes and you’re out” kind of system. Gomer was unfaithful to her husband countless times. She did not deserve forgiveness, she deserved to be divorced. But Hosea welcomed her back with open arms, and their marriage was reconciled. Hosea’s faithfulness to Gomer is an image of the Lord’s faithfulness to humanity. We absolutely do not deserve to be reconciled to God. We are more sinful than we even know, and we deserve the wrath of God. Yet God welcomes His children home with open arms. Through Jesus Christ, humanity can be reconciled to God. What a beautiful gift it is, that those who put their faith in Jesus Christ can be with God eternally in Heaven!
Pancake People!
One of the Engage staples in pancake night! Sometimes, the nickname that the Otago students give us is the “pancake people!” We love it. In Dunedin, there is this term called “Thirsty Thursdays.” College students drink dangerously heavily on Thursdays and Saturdays in Dunedin. It is very sad to see this. I’ve had students tell me of times they have badly injured themselves or gotten into risky situations as a result of their drunkenness. The Engage team makes pancakes in three different halls on campus, with the purpose of familiarizing our ministry with the students, and inviting them to Engage events. Another reason why we do this is because it can be dangerous for students to be drinking so heavily on an empty stomach, so we as the pancake people like to get some food and water in their system before they go out.
Prayer Requests:
1. Boldness in the gospel. Christ has defeated death on the cross, and as believers, we share in His victory. Because of this, we can confidently preach the gospel without hindrance. Please pray that our team will be confident, even in times when we are feeling weary or incompetent.
2. Health and safety. Influenza A is going around at Otago. Please pray that we stay away from this! It would be unfortunate if we came down with sickness that prevented us from ministry time with students. We only have six weeks in New Zealand, and we want to spend as much time as possible with students.
3. University students. I won’t go into detail, but our CCP members are forming friendships with many new college students! Praise the Lord! Most of these college students are unbelievers. Our goal as a CCP team is to get new students connected with a student leader from Engage, or a staff member. Please pray that the CCP team (Carson, Landon, David, Tommy, Matthew, Olivia, Briella, Ashlyn) would form meaningful connections with five college students during our time in New Zealand.
We are truly grateful for each and every one of you!
– Olivia Usselman, CCP student