This year the Faculty of Allied Health finally finished their move from the Lidcombe campus to Camperdown! With this has come the absorption of the Evangelical Christian Union (ECU) into the EU, and a period of transition for myself and the students.
On paper the changes are enormous: Last year the ECU was a tight group of about 50 core students seeking to reach a small campus while restricted to meeting entirely online. This year we are part of the EU: a group of at least 450 active students seeking to reach a large campus while planning to meet entirely in person. What a change!
But God has been good to us through the EU’s own transition to the ‘Day Program’. Although quite a different experience of university ministry for all of us, it has actually been received quite positively by our ex-ECU students. The Allied Health students have enjoyed meeting a variety of EU students while in smaller, regular groups. It has been a joy seeing them mingle across the health faculty lines, with some of them coming to rely on one another as fast friends and family.
The experience of one particular student is worth sharing. He became a Christian at the end of 2019 but had few Christian friends and little fellowship. Due to family circumstances he was not able to attend a church regularly. However, ECU managed to connect with him throughout 2020 and, although his experience was limited to our online ministry, he enjoyed it and grew tremendously. Imagine his joy now that he can meet with us weekly, face to face, for a whole day! He has been having a blast – attending the whole of our day program, enjoying the company of other Christians, and being trained by God’s Word. Praise God!
It has been my joy to see the Allied Health students come to know and be known, love and be loved, by the wider Health region of the EU. How good it is that we are one family serving the same God!
As you give thanks to God for these things, would you please pray for the students who have been unable to attend, or are finding the length of the day program (10am-3pm) challenging? As we rocket through the mid-semester break and the rest of the year it can be easy for them to be left behind – would you please pray that we would remember and include them?
Would you also pray that during AnCon 2021, which will hopefully be in person, many of our Allied Health students will step out boldly into the wider EU community and get to know students across the EU? This will be a key moment of transitioning and integrating themselves into the EU’s all-union body.
Tommy Wu
Second year Howie, Health Region
