another update! amply supplied
Phillippians 4.19 "And my God will supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus."
So time for another update!
Sydney was AWESOME.
I spent a whole three days exploring Sydney with my best friend ; shopping, beaching, cafe-ing, meeting up with her old roomate whom we were both close with and just unwinding from uni!
It was great.
But new things have happened since then, but as always, this update needs a bit of background info.
As I've already talked about before, back in 2008 I was studying Social Science at a different university and looking into going on student exchange. One morning during that year I was reading Genesis 13 in a morning devotion which talks about the parting of Abram and Lot in Genesis 13. Lot chose to part from Abram and pitch his tent near the people of Sodom, a people who were known to be wicked. Lot flirted with temptation by choosing to live near them and as a result of this bad company, His trust in God and God's messengers were compromised, and his family became just like the wicked people. Abram, on the other hand let God direct his eyes to the place that He would settle and walked in obedience to that. I realised that I didn't ever want to actively seek to live in a land of wickedness just because it looked good and promised adventure and independence. This has been the foundational reason I haven't moved out yet, and have travelled with only select people. And that included me surrendering going on student exchange. God knew I desperately wanted the amazing experience of living on campus in a different country but since there were no Christian partner universities to exchange with, I knew very well that 'exchange' could mean living in an environment that wasn't overly condusive to somebody trying to live out a holy, higher calling.
So when I applied for this scholarship for exchange, I asked God to withold it if it meant that I would be led into too much temptation and the lifestyle would compromise my faith.
And a few weeks ago when I recieved it, my knees hit the carpet and I thanked God in faith for the Christians I hoped and believed he would be orchastrating for me to be friends with. God knows how much my spirit is willing to walk in holiness before God, but I am such a human, too.
I googled churches around the university, but websites are kind of hard to read when links and paragraphs are randomly left untranslated.
So I prayed and trusted that God would provide me what I needed.
THEN.
:)
I got an email from my Social Work co-ordinator on Friday night asking me to contact a girl named Bridget from the university of Queensland who was trying to contact me, a fellow Aussie student. Bridget is also a social work scholarship winner and she wanted to see whether I wanted to try to arrange accomodation together with her for social support. As per me, I then looked her up on facebook to scope her out.
And the only Bridget I could find was a full on christian! So I sent Bridget an email introducing myself and telling her I looked forward to meeting her. I also slipped in the corny 'Are you a christian' question. I say corny because I find it such an awkward question to ask! Like your some secret agent who knows true reality and your scoping out someone else's identity to see whether they're a secret agent too.
Not letting my hopes get too high I went to bed.
I woke up on Saturday morning and sure enough, Bridget had replied . . . yes she was the christian I had found on facebook. Now when I say 'full on christian' I mean that almost every category in her 'About Me' pointed to Jesus. This is so exciting, because I can be so shy on facebook. I love people who boldy declare God in public forums.
Bridget was going to Sydney on Monday to organise her visa, like I had to, and had loads of questions. So I offered to phone her. I was so nervous as a began to dial!
We ended up talking on the phone for about 20 minutes scoping out eachother and hearing eachothers stories. We were so similar! Basically, Bridget had just found out that she had been accepted into the scholarship a few days before and was in the same whirlwind I was in getting herself sorted out.
She too had her reservations about the 'exchange experience' and was praying for christian connections once she was over there! And she too had tried looking up christian churches and was coming up against the language barrier.
WE WERE BOTH SO STRUCK AND THANKFUL TO GOD FOR ORCHASTRATING OUR FRIENDSHIP BEFORE WE HAD EVEN MET! He knew both our needs, heard both our prayers and SOMEHOW put us in contact together to keep us in His perfect peace about this situation.
So now Bridget and I are in the process of organising our housing to be together so that we can be support for eachother, and obviously in sharing the same worldview be like iron sharpening iron together.
I just can't believe God's amazing provision and protection over this whole experience. It just deeply encouraged me that if you are in the Will of God, He will amply supply all your needs according to His riches. He knows all of your needs in order to remain righteous and in a holy union with Him and He is able to reach into the storehouse of heaven to amply supply His saints with what they need. He wants to prosper, confirm and protect the faith of His saints. And He WILL fulfill His purposes and do this!
And I can't wait to keep you updated on the blessings and gifts He has in store!
Excited.
So time for another update!
Sydney was AWESOME.
I spent a whole three days exploring Sydney with my best friend ; shopping, beaching, cafe-ing, meeting up with her old roomate whom we were both close with and just unwinding from uni!
It was great.
But new things have happened since then, but as always, this update needs a bit of background info.
As I've already talked about before, back in 2008 I was studying Social Science at a different university and looking into going on student exchange. One morning during that year I was reading Genesis 13 in a morning devotion which talks about the parting of Abram and Lot in Genesis 13. Lot chose to part from Abram and pitch his tent near the people of Sodom, a people who were known to be wicked. Lot flirted with temptation by choosing to live near them and as a result of this bad company, His trust in God and God's messengers were compromised, and his family became just like the wicked people. Abram, on the other hand let God direct his eyes to the place that He would settle and walked in obedience to that. I realised that I didn't ever want to actively seek to live in a land of wickedness just because it looked good and promised adventure and independence. This has been the foundational reason I haven't moved out yet, and have travelled with only select people. And that included me surrendering going on student exchange. God knew I desperately wanted the amazing experience of living on campus in a different country but since there were no Christian partner universities to exchange with, I knew very well that 'exchange' could mean living in an environment that wasn't overly condusive to somebody trying to live out a holy, higher calling.
So when I applied for this scholarship for exchange, I asked God to withold it if it meant that I would be led into too much temptation and the lifestyle would compromise my faith.
And a few weeks ago when I recieved it, my knees hit the carpet and I thanked God in faith for the Christians I hoped and believed he would be orchastrating for me to be friends with. God knows how much my spirit is willing to walk in holiness before God, but I am such a human, too.
I googled churches around the university, but websites are kind of hard to read when links and paragraphs are randomly left untranslated.
So I prayed and trusted that God would provide me what I needed.
THEN.
:)
I got an email from my Social Work co-ordinator on Friday night asking me to contact a girl named Bridget from the university of Queensland who was trying to contact me, a fellow Aussie student. Bridget is also a social work scholarship winner and she wanted to see whether I wanted to try to arrange accomodation together with her for social support. As per me, I then looked her up on facebook to scope her out.
And the only Bridget I could find was a full on christian! So I sent Bridget an email introducing myself and telling her I looked forward to meeting her. I also slipped in the corny 'Are you a christian' question. I say corny because I find it such an awkward question to ask! Like your some secret agent who knows true reality and your scoping out someone else's identity to see whether they're a secret agent too.
Not letting my hopes get too high I went to bed.
I woke up on Saturday morning and sure enough, Bridget had replied . . . yes she was the christian I had found on facebook. Now when I say 'full on christian' I mean that almost every category in her 'About Me' pointed to Jesus. This is so exciting, because I can be so shy on facebook. I love people who boldy declare God in public forums.
Bridget was going to Sydney on Monday to organise her visa, like I had to, and had loads of questions. So I offered to phone her. I was so nervous as a began to dial!
We ended up talking on the phone for about 20 minutes scoping out eachother and hearing eachothers stories. We were so similar! Basically, Bridget had just found out that she had been accepted into the scholarship a few days before and was in the same whirlwind I was in getting herself sorted out.
She too had her reservations about the 'exchange experience' and was praying for christian connections once she was over there! And she too had tried looking up christian churches and was coming up against the language barrier.
WE WERE BOTH SO STRUCK AND THANKFUL TO GOD FOR ORCHASTRATING OUR FRIENDSHIP BEFORE WE HAD EVEN MET! He knew both our needs, heard both our prayers and SOMEHOW put us in contact together to keep us in His perfect peace about this situation.
So now Bridget and I are in the process of organising our housing to be together so that we can be support for eachother, and obviously in sharing the same worldview be like iron sharpening iron together.
I just can't believe God's amazing provision and protection over this whole experience. It just deeply encouraged me that if you are in the Will of God, He will amply supply all your needs according to His riches. He knows all of your needs in order to remain righteous and in a holy union with Him and He is able to reach into the storehouse of heaven to amply supply His saints with what they need. He wants to prosper, confirm and protect the faith of His saints. And He WILL fulfill His purposes and do this!
And I can't wait to keep you updated on the blessings and gifts He has in store!
Excited.
just awesome.
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