Making connections on campus

by EU GradsFund

Sydney Uni is a big place and many students struggle to find true and deep connections. Classmates come and go from semester to semester and everyone seems to be going somewhere important. Surely you can’t be lonely in such an important and busy place, with 75,000 students! However, amongst this busy chaos, there are often feelings of loneliness and disconnection, brokenness and lostness. This semester we have noticed a change, a spiritual searching and openness that is different as our walk-up evangelism teams talk and care for students on campus. 

As bold and sometimes even trembling pairs of EUers prepare to meet new students in walk-up, we pray God will lead us to those he wants us to speak to, where he is stirring new life. God has been faithful in answering this prayer as we have met many students willing to chat. On average, 75% of people are happy to chat about Jesus. Isn’t that SURPRISING! And 25% have been interested in knowing more. Speaking with at least 200 students in walk-up (many more that were not recorded), that’s a lot of people to follow up! Students in 2024 have noted a wind of change as students are more interested to keep exploring Jesus. We have been overjoyed to have over 30 students reading the bible with newcomers and pray new brothers and sisters will emerge from this faithful work. We are also praying for more people to help us in the harvest. We have an amazing opportunity to reach broken and lost people who may not join our events otherwise. It’s encouraging to know people are willing to talk, even waiting to talk about the deep things in life.

It’s also been encouraging to see students open and keen to cross cultural barriers, meeting students from many different cultural and religious backgrounds. We meet students from Buddhist, Muslim, Atheistic, or Hindu backgrounds and from all over the world. Understanding different challenges and barriers enables us to engage in a way that makes sense to them.  Supporting students in these new interactions is a wonderful privilege where we learn how deep and true the message of the gospel is for all nations, is truly life-giving and changes lives. 

Seeing Christian students step up in faith, grow in their convictions, and desire for others to know the love of Christ is a wonderful work that God is doing on campus. Seeing the look of both fear and conviction in their eyes is pure God-given courage. While sharing our faith with strangers seems daunting for most of us, young and old, doing it faithfully together in the power of the Spirit is producing fruit on campus. And as their boldness grows, and their experience grows the students report feeling more confident to chat about Jesus with friends and family. 

To Jesus we give the praise as we pray he will meet the lonely, the lost and the destitute with his love this semester. Thank you for your prayers which our Lord is answering!

– Karen Sowden, EU Senior Staff

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