One of the delights of being a long-term staff worker is following our graduate’s next steps. Recently I heard from Chris Tompkins who studied environmental science and biology at Sydney University from 2014-2017. Read on to see how the LRLR value has affected Chris’ choices post-uni.
“I had always planned on working as an environmental scientist. After graduating I initially worked in Sydney as a tractor driver, and did a short stint in northwestern NSW amongst cotton farms, before moving overseas to Peru. In Peru, I worked as an environmental scientist and tour guide in a small research station of fifteen people where the nearest town of around one hundred thousand people was a two-hour drive away. I was remote. Near me, there was no evangelical presence, but there surprisingly were Mormons and Seventh Day Adventists in the small villages nearby. I was woefully unequipped for living in such isolation, but the Lord kept me close!
As someone who was working out of Sydney, and would continue to do so, I quickly realised that I needed some theological training to either help the church if I worked in a small community or to stand firm in my own faith when there was no local church community helping me. This led me to return to Sydney to think about being trained. Alongside these thoughts, I had been annually catching up with an EU Staff worker who helped me think theologically rather than humanly, and to be intentional for the Lord in what I did with my career. The LRLR value also helped me to expand my ministry horizons.
Having lived and worked outside of Sydney I can more clearly see the great opportunities and blessings that are presented to us in Sydney, both through our churches, our university ministries, and the church culture in which we are living. With this recognition and the LRLR value, I came to understand and care more about the inequality of gospel resources across the global church, with regard to people, training, and physical resources.
So while currently studying at bible college my wife Naomi and I decided to take a student minister position at Sadleir. The church has a ministry reach that is quite different to the demographics I have grown up in. The church has a fantastic ability to reach those in housing commissions and those who are doing it tough, which is quite different from my ministry history of middle to upper-class, university-educated people in Sydney’s north. Naomi and I are convicted that all people need God, not just those like us, and the more we have been at Sadleir, the more we have seen God at work in the hearts and lives of the people here.
There is no denying that there are great gospel needs in any nation and community around this world that God has created, but amongst the marginalised people of Sydney there is often a great need and a need not necessarily being met. The poorer members of our society are often the ones forgotten about when we think of ministry strategy and the goals of growing the kingdom and of raising up generations of Christian leaders. However, there is still a great need for gospel work to be done in these areas, and there are many marginalised and poorer communities in Sydney’s southwest. Great ministry can be done and is being done, and it is appropriate that we support the local churches working in these areas to reach these people for Jesus.”
Join with me in thanks to God for graduates like Chris who are joyfully embracing service to those who are less reached and less resourced. May God continue to raise up many more workers for his harvest field from the EU!
– Celia, EU Senior Staff
