The Vine – 1111 - York St Church of Christ

Welcome to Overseas Missions.This newsletter will provide the community withupdates on those working in ministry overseas andcelebrate what has been accomplished throughGod’s love in practical and real ways abroad.SPEAKING CELEBRATION SUNDAY:SCOTT HAWKINS is a ChurchMinister and the State Manager forCompassion who work with thepoorest of the poor children aroundthe world; providing them withsafety from traffickers, food, healthcare, spiritual development,housing, education and jobtraining, faith, hope and love.Scott has over 24 years of ministry experience and hasworked and pastored with Baptist, Salvo, AOG, and Churchesof Christ, most recently with Allan Meyer at Careforce Churchin Mt. Evelyn. He currently serves as the lead minister of amissional community in Melbourne‘s inner suburbs.Scott works locally with churches, mission agencies, jails,sporting clubs, schools and universities. Oversees he spendshis time in slums, villages, schools, orphanages, theologicalcolleges, healthcare clinics or surfing and playing twenty20cricket.Scott and his wife Jacqui have four gorgeous children: Lili,Lucy, Molly and Lucas. His goals for this year are to; eat morechocolate, write a hit worship song, mow the lawns, and tofinish reading one of the ten thousand books he has started.MEG MITCHELLAt the end of August, I left Ballarat to take on the greatunknown of Youth With A Mission in Vancouver, at their NexiaDiscipleship Training School (DTS). For the past four weeks Ihave been living in community with what started out to be 20random people, who are now my Vancouver family.We have two schools doing the training phase of the schooltogether. There is an ice hockey school, which is all Canadian12In this issueNovember FOCUSScott HawkinsMeg MitchellRebecca HowlettHayley MahOpen Doorsstudents, aged between 18 and 22, and then there is theNexia school with 8 students from all over the world, agedbetween 18 and 26. Between the two schools we represent 9different countries.Every week we have classes on a different topic with adifferent guest speaker. The topics so far have been: Hearingthe Voice of God, the Nature and Character of God, theFather heart of God and Sharing Our Faith. Not only doeseach topic help us develop our own relationship with God, butwe‘re also learning how we, with our own strengths andweaknesses, impact the local and global community.It is clear to see why God has placed us in the neighbourhoodwhere were live and go to school. There are so many hurt andbroken people that God wants us to love and share His lovewith them. Each week we have a community involvementtime, where we go into the community and either talk topeople or ask God if he has anything he wants us to sharewith someone. I find this pretty confronting at times. Thenumber one rule I had growing up was ‗don‘t talk tostrangers‘, but when you have God asking you to do it, wellthat‘s a different story.In early December we head to Malaysia and Thailand, whilethe hockey school goes to Russia. At this stage we still don‘tknow exactly what we will be doing. We have spent muchtime in prayer asking God how He would like us to serve Him.We have weekly outreach preparation time where we spendtime discussing the needs of the countries and finding out allwe can about the culture of the individual countries.Although I have only been here four short weeks, I havelearnt so much and know that this is where I am supposed tobe for this time. At times I get this sense that God is saying‗I‘ve got you‘ and encouraging me to keep taking little stepseveryday more and more outside my comfort zone. Anotherthought that comes to mind often is a line out of a song-‗Don‘t take even a moment for granted‘ (OC Supertones –Dedication), and that‘s my plan. To do the best I can everymoment for God.