Every year, teams of students follow up the National Training Event conference in Canberra by heading to locations with less access to the gospel and less resources to share it, to get involved in their life and ministry for a week. These weeks are an opportunity for students to experience ministry to communities that are ‘less reached and less resourced’ and to be challenged about how they could practically be involved in bringing the gospel there.

Under God, the EU is prayerfully planning to send out 12 teams of students around the country for a full week in December. Below are some of the locations that Howies are leading students to, why they are excited to go there, and how you can be praying for them.

Felicity Kerr, St Barnabas Fairfield & Bossley Park

My mission location is St Barnabas Anglican Church at Fairfield and Bossley Park. This church is located in South West Sydney, and is composed of a number of congregations with people from all different ethnic backgrounds. As a multicultural area, the church has multiple services in a variety of languages and styles.

I am excited for this location because of the difference in experience it will offer to most our team, simply in there being such a diverse cultural, ethnic, and religious community in these suburbs. In meeting our church contact, he let us know that while many people in the area would call themselves Christian- or are, in fact, refugees fleeing from religious persecution- whether they have faith in Christ alone is a different question altogether. I think it will be illuminating and helpful to see the kinds of challenges faced by the church, and particularly to consider how vastly different they are from those faced by my church (in a wealthy, Inner West suburb) and most of the churches of students on my mission team!

I am really keen to see my team grow in their eagerness to go outside of their comfort zone, and to meet Christian brothers and sisters of all different backgrounds. I am praying that God lays it on the hearts of those in our team to seriously consider taking the training, experience, and resources they have acquired both in the EU and in their home churches to serve a church in a less reached or less resourced area, like Fairfield or Bossley Park. I also pray for unity and servant-heartedness during the mission week for our team so that we can be helpful and loving to St Barnabas as we serve them there.

Meagan Llewelyn, Lanyon Valley Anglican ACT

I’ll be heading with 11 students to Lanyon Valley Anglican Church in the ACT on mission this year. The community is filled with people who serve the government faithfully and yet don’t know the ultimate king who serves them in Jesus. It is an affluent, small suburb with the main “religions” being catholic and non-religious.

I am excited to see what ministry can look like in a different cultural context and a different state, as well seeing how God is at work and changing people’s hearts in different places – no matter their background or struggles.

I am keen to see my team grow in confidence as they share Jesus with people who may be similar to them. I am also really excited to be able to do things we haven’t done on missions in a few years such as staying with church families, going to aged care facilities to sing carols, and visiting scripture assemblies. I am keen to see how the team adapts and how God grows in them a heart for the lost, wherever they may end up.

Sarah Chaudhary, Campbelltown Anglican

This year, I’ll be heading to Campbelltown to partner with Campbelltown Anglican church. The church there is facing a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reach out to the over 100,000 new residents who are projected to move into the area within the next 10 years. Alongside the massive growth in population, other challenges churches in the area face include reaching out to a population with high numbers of diverse disability needs and marginalised lower socio-economic communities.

I’m keen for me and my team to be challenged by the current needs of south-west Sydney for faithful and active Christians in their churches and communities. In particular, I’m praying that we will leave Campbelltown with a broader vision of God’s work in less reached and less resourced areas of Sydney – and hopefully, that some of us will soon return for the long-term!

Henry Li, Bateau Bay Baptist

We’re going to Bateau Bay Baptist Church in, not surprisingly, Bateau Bay! The area is near the coast so it’s peaceful and lovely. Because of this, there are quite a few retirement villages around the area and the make up of the church reflects this – a higher proportion of older Anglo Christians. They also have young families but are really missing the 18-30 age range presence in the church.

It’s exciting because of the opportunities it presents for us to grow in our awareness of the needs in churches in a different context as well as in areas to practically serve in a different community (and we’ll be doing lots of that during the week!). There’s a Christmas event being held where the church will transform itself into first century Bethlehem to immerse visitors into the Christmas story in the Bible. Such a creative idea!

We would love to see the students becoming more aware of the gospel needs in other areas and picture how they could play a part in having the gospel reach out to every area of the world, starting with somewhere more local. If we’re able to inspire students to think “I could see myself living and serving here”, then that would be wonderful.