FREE4all

So missions week has been and gone...and again we're trying to remember that the CU isn't all about just one big week of events and evangelism per year, but about encouraging and equipping us to be sharing the good news of Jesus all year round!!

The week itself was brilliant though, after the first week where we focussed on giving out FREE gospels, doing text-a-toastie and giving out free bottles of water, we had a week of prayer where from 9am-9pm each day, we tried to have people with allocated hour slots to pray, so that pretty much all day every day someone was praying for the mission. For me it was important though to remember that we won't get answers to our prayers just because we pray ALOT, its about praying in line with Gods will and having the right attitude too... and even then obviously God is still sovereign over anything and everything that happens.

So the first event was the lunch bar with billy mccurry speaking on can God forgive terrorists? I wish so much that this event had been later in the week and we could have really bigged it up because it was brilliant, the talk was just the perfect mix of life story and Gospel, he even got "free" into it! :)

Andrew arrived on Sunday night, ready to be our main speaker for our evening events during the week, the first night was the pub quiz at roper which was fantastic. There were about 10 teams we think, the one i was in was probably the biggest with 12 people on it (a few of them in the photo), I don't think there were any smaller than 5 or 6 though, and Andrew spoke on how Jesus sets us free from uncertainty, how people don't know what life is about, or have a reason for living without him.

Tuesday was the pancake night, probably the one we were the most worried about as we had no idea how many people would come, there was a champions league match on the same night, and the venue was quite small, and we didn't know how we were doing the pancakes...! ahh! but where we had to stress, God din't (cheese!)... he knew exactly what was going on and the venue was fit for a capacity of 50 max, and 50 people is what we got. It was such a great atmosphere or people just sitting and chatting, eating pancakes, and when Andrew got up to talk he had a really captive audience. It was just right for conversations, we met quite a few people that night to have quite deep discussions with that went further than just listening to the talk and then forgetting about it...!

During the days between events by the way we had prayer meetings every morning at 9 for an hour, and then ran a stall in the Foster building on campus from 10-4, people would stand on the stall, give out flyers and badges and beermats, basically just telling people what we were doing and offering Gospels to people who were interested. Other would go out in pairs to either the Foster or Harrington Refectorys to do some questionnaires about student beliefs which lead onto asking people what they thought about Jesus, and whether or not they had ever investigated his claims and the evidence for themselves or not. Nine times out of ten they'd wouldn't claim to have really investigated Jesus for themselves as an adult, which gave us the opportunity to then offer them the chance to do this by reading Mark's Gospel. Over the two/three weeks, we gave out 4000 flyers with our events and contact details on, and I think we have given out about 1200 of the 1500 gospels we ordered. It's easy though to be proud of that in human terms, but it was only by God's grace that we kept going, and that we even had the priviledge of being able to be involved in proclaiming his Gospel. Because he doesn't need us to, I always forget what a privilege it is, we shouldn't feel like it is a duty or a chore that we HAVE to do, it should be a joy! And there are so many countries that don't have the FREEdom that we do!!

But yeah..Wednesday was the boys football tournament down at PSA, I think they had about 60 guys there and Andrew did another Gospel talk which they all stayed for. Wednesday night was the much more low key, girls-night at a couple of the CU girls' flats, a lady from a local church came and gave a talk about how God is the best kind of Father, and the one that we really need. And then we had some snacks and watched Mammamia together (it was a bit weird because it's morals really aren't the best but, I think everyone had a good time...) There were about 15-20 of us there anyway, after that me and Sarah went to Asda to buy the food for the FREE Course Meal on Thursday night, to cater for 100!

On Thursday it was really nice to have two of my friends from Liverpool CU who I know from the Moldova team last summer, come up for the afternoon and evening to help out!! They did a great job of trying to unblock the dishwasher afterwards anyway!! (until malcolm came and showed us the button you're actually supposed to use!) The free course meal was brilliant though, we never managed a really accurate headcount even as waitresses trying to firgure out how many desserts to serve, there were around 90 there though, and the talk that night was perfect again as we reached the topic of how Jesus can free us from guilt, and Andrew spoke about what Jesus did for us on the cross. I think afterwards people had one of two reactions, either it's not for me, or I want to know more. Out of the people who filled in response forms, 9 said that they wanted to know more, and 1 said that they'd like to read Mark's Gospel and study it further with someone one-to-one. :) :)

Thursday there was also the lunch bar "sex, drugs and rock and roll... is there anymore" again a local church leader came in to do the talk, and people listened to how God created us for pleasure, but not for the unfulfilling pleasure of sin, but for the pleasure of being in a relationship with Him.

Friday was the last event, the latin dance night which was great fun...(i want to go to lessons!)... we learnt a basic cha cha cha and just had a really good time. The final talk then was about the Gospel sets us free from death and people heard about how they can't avoid death, it is the ultimate statistic that one in every one people die, and we need to be ready for it.

Over the course of the week, one person made a profession of faith, several one to one bible studoes in Mark have started, people are coming along to Alpha courses and Christianity Explored courses run by local churches, and over 200 people must have heard the Gospel being preached at one or more of our events. Over 1000 students have their own copy of the Gospel and we hope and pray that God will use His Word to change people and expand His kingdom.

Thank you for your prayer, please don't stop now that missions week is over, and by God's grace, we won't stop proclaiming His Gospel either. :)