If you were to walk around the bottom floor of St Barnabas’ Church, Broadway, at 7pm on a Thursday evening this semester, in the Howard Guinness Hall you’d hear Cantonese from one corner – students and staff sharing what they discover about Jesus from part of John’s gospel. Wandering to the other side of the room you’d hear Mandarin – other staff and students sharing discoveries of what the Bible says about humanity. Strolling across the foyer and down the corridor to the meeting rooms you’d hear English, but with multiple accents – in one room students from Vietnam, Lesotho, China & Indonesia; in another Singapore, Malaysia & Hong Kong, alongside Australians – now sharing how they’ll live out what they’ve heard from God, and who they’ll share it with in the coming week.
This is euFOCUS’s Come Home Dinner, where 70-90 international and local students and staff have been gathering each Thursday night of semester. In 2024 we decided to run small groups called Simple Gatherings after dinner, keeping people in the same groups each week. Like the last few years numbers were high in weeks 1 and 2, with 87 and then 96 people attending, grouped into two Mandarin, three Cantonese and six English Simple Gathering groups – a promising beginning as the EU moves towards its 2030 Big Kingdom Proclamation Vision to be a multicultural, multilingual Christian community, passionately and proactively proclaiming the gospel across ethnic and linguistic differences to lead students from every culture on campus to Christ. Unlike previous years though, students have kept coming throughout the semester, even during the busier weeks when assignments and exams have kept students away. In week 11, 82 people came, compared with 50 the same week in 2023. We think that having consistent, smaller Simple Gathering groups meeting after dinner each week has increased students’ sense of belonging and their commitment to one another. Groups begin by looking back on the week past, loving and caring for one another by sharing things we’re thankful for and struggles we face, bringing them to God in prayer together. Then we look up to God, hearing him speak to us through a passage of the Bible, sharing what we discover about God (Jesus), and people. Then we look forwards to the coming week – making plans about how to live out what we’ve heard from God, and who we can share it with.
Praise God with us for the increased number of international students gathering at Come Home Dinner. More students means more potential growing edges in the vast international student harvest field. The 2023 Annual Report confirmed Sydney University as Australia’s largest international education provider with more than 31,000 international students – 46% of the student population. Please join us in prayer that the Lord of the harvest would work powerfully through international and local students in euFOCUS’s 12 Simple Gathering groups (one more meets on Friday afternoons) to start new groups with more students from the nations, and that these groups would in turn multiply so that every international student might come to know Jesus’ gospel, and an even more multicultural and multilingual EU might proclaim the wonders of God in even more languages.
– Ben Lim, EU Senior Staff
