The event is held in Canberra and the students come from all over Australia to get trained for ministry and be exposed to potential avenues of service as either high-functioning lay people or even consider full-time ministry here or overseas.
It is always a pleasure to meet these young adults and see their passion for Jesus and bringing the Gospel of love, hope and salvation to others.
This year, Rev’d Phil Zamagias was approached by the leaders of the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students, North East (Adelaide), to work together on a mission in Echuca/Moama with some of the students on their way back from Canberra. Rev’d Phil spoke with his colleagues from the Echuca-Moama Ministers Association and the mission was a go — with several churches participating to support it.
Christ Church Anglican, Echuca, the Epicentre Church, the Community Church, New Life Baptist Church,the Salvation Army, Campaspe, the Catholic Church and Uniting Church.
The mission objective was to work together for the extension of God's Kingdom. seeing people come to Christ and grow in Him.
The mission team members were billeted by families from some of the supporting churches. The students attended nursing homes and talked about their Christian journey and being part of the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students.
Some of the students were interviewed by Rev’d Ron Wood at the Echuca/Moama EM/FM radio station.
They sang Christmas carols at the Hopwood Gardens and outside the Uniting Church and they went into residential streets and dropped cards with information about the Christmas services of the supporting churches.
On the final Sunday in Echuca, they attended the supporting churches and gave children’s talks or testimonials to the congregations. In all the events that they participated in they had one goal. To bring glory to God and share the gospel.
It wasn’t all work though, many of the students involved haven’t had a lot of exposure to regional areas and they were able to speak with church leaders in Shepparton, Rochester, Elmore, Echuca and Moama about the challenges and benefits of ministry in the country areas.
Through the kindness of churches and parishioners they were able to experience a paddle steamer ride and go on an e-bike tour of Echuca/Moama to learn about our history and to speak with fellow Christians about living in our beautiful city.
We have hope that this exposure to life outside the big cities will encourage them to look at job roles or ministry in regional areas.
We were able to see some immediate results from the mission events, with members of the community engaging with the students about their mission.
And some people who had received cards and had the opportunities to speak with the students during that evangelical event, attending churches, some for the first time.
We know that these students have planted seeds of faith in our community and we trust God that those seeds will produce great fruits in the future.
We hope to continue to host missions like this in the future.
In a world where we see young people being distracted and influenced by negative behaviours and ideologies of the ‘world’, we have seen God’s work in these students and the hope that through our youth, the gospel will continue to reach the ears and hearts of all people in our community, so they can experience the love and salvation of God our creator, through Jesus Christ.
God bless you.
Pauline Vicary
Christ Church Anglican, Echuca
