“(I’m) just excited on a whole new level, so glad I came to AnCon!” – this is the way that one student described the difference that this year’s Annual Conference made, but her story is not an isolated one. In late July over 600 students from the EU gathered together for Annual Conference. AnCon was a great time away together studying God’s word, however the benefit of AnCon doesn’t end when the conference does; the flow on effects of our time together that week are huge for the EU’s ministry on campus.

In the faculties I have been working with (Vet, and Economics/Business), the impact that AnCon has had on enthusiasm to be involved with the EU has been overwhelming. Those who attended AnCon have been encouraged to come to the EU’s weekly Public Meetings (PMs), and this enthusiasm has also spread to those who were not at the conference. In Vet we had less than 20% of the faculty attending PMs regularly in semester one, whereas now we have over 60%.

It has also been great seeing students from both faculties be excited to bring their friends along to PMs to hear about Jesus. This has encouraged many students to spend time being trained in their personal evangelism by participating in the ‘Jesus Centred Conversations’ training course offered by the EU, which explores how they can better engage with their non-Christian friends about Jesus.

However, whilst these stories are exciting, the best testimony I can give you of the long term impact AnCon has in the life of the EU are the words of one student from a small group I lead:

“It’s my first year and I attended my first AnCon. AnCon has given me this incredible encouragement in every aspect of university life and I’ve been reaching out to people on a whole new level ever since. I also haven’t missed a single PM or small group this semester which is huge for someone who wasn’t even a part of a small group and attended just 2 PMs last semester. AnCon has been such a blessing to me.” – Dheekshanaa Subramaniam