1 histoire: Rencontrer Jésus (et 1 photo)

A little story for people who like such things.
Theme: "Meeting Jesus".

Transcript from sharing on Sun. 24/03/19 at St. Andrew's Cathedral 10:30 service.
{Thanks to Ruth S. who encouraged me to do it, and to my Christian sisters (women of the Wednesday morning Bible study) for their feedback.}

Photo: My Christian grandmother, pictured with her future sister-in-law.

I’ll start by saying where I am from, because there is always someone who wants to ask..
I was born here in Sydney.
My father was also born here.
But my family is from China,
- and it is because of them that my story of meeting Jesus actually starts more than 100 years before I was born.

Way back in the 1870s, God sent Christians from England into south China as teachers, doctors, hospital workers and ministers. These British Christians learned Chinese languages and told unsaved Chinese villagers and townspeople about Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. Many southern Chinese people met Jesus in China, and believed in Him. And one such woman was my great-great-grandma.

Great-great grandma was one of the first Christians in my family, and by the time my grandfather and grandmother were teenagers, they went to Christian schools in their town. Today that town is called Shantou (older Chinese people would have called it Swatow). From what I know, as the Bible was taught at their school and churches, my grandfather and grandmother met Jesus too, and they followed Him.

And when they married and moved here, to Sydney, in the 1930s, and when they had two boys and a girl, they introduced their children to Jesus - my father, my uncle and my auntie. So then, I met Jesus through my own father and mother, who taught me the Bible and took me to a Bible-teaching church in Milsons Point. Even as a very little girl, I could sing lines like this from Christian songs:

My sins are all forgiven,
I’m on my way to heaven..

By the time I was seven, I knew God was real. I never doubted what Jesus had done. He died on the cross to save us, and my sins were all forgiven. Jesus had risen from the dead and I knew I could have eternal life in heaven..

But as I grew I didn’t always trust the goodness of God. Because when I was eleven we learned my father had cheated on my mother. He had a girlfriend and a new baby. My Christian father - who had first introduced me to Jesus. As a result, we saw how hurtful sin could be, in my father’s actions. Yet around the same time this happened, I was challenged at school and church camp to trust Jesus myself - more than just accepting what I’d been taught.

Meeting Jesus in a fresh way at age twelve was a whole new ball game from when I was little. I was in high school, and - like many teenagers - what I found most hard was wanting to make friends and be accepted. Yes, I had accepted Jesus - but, like your average teenage girl, I wanted to be with people my own age as well. So knowing Jesus in high school was just like having a friend who’s always there, a friend who always accepts you. But you just take Him for granted.

In God’s kindness, after disappointments in my last year of school and first year at university, I realised I needed to know Jesus better. He’d been with me all my life, as long as I could remember. But in most of that time I’d never really read God’s Word for myself. I actually think I only started growing as a Christian when I started reading the Bible properly at age nineteen. It was like taking my friendship with Jesus to the next level, as I met Him again and again through my Bible reading. I got to know God through His Word and to see for the first time how He’d worked through Bible history from creation up until now.

And then, only 10 years ago, God opened a door for me to go overseas and meet Jesus in another new way. For the first time I realised fully what He wanted to do in His world, and how He might want me to play a part. I’d given and prayed for people in Europe before, that they might meet Jesus. But it was only when I went to France in 2009 that I understood how blessed we are to live in Sydney with many churches that teach the Bible well, and that help people meet Jesus. I was a French speaker hanging out with French Christian students and I saw the reality of how hard it was to introduce French people to Jesus. How little confidence French Christians had in using the Bible to share about Jesus.

Since seeing what I saw in France I’ve been challenged to help whoever I can, wherever I can, in the task of introducing people to Jesus. And for me, having met and re-met Jesus at many times in life, I don’t think there is anything more important than knowing Him, or growing in Him, or telling others about Him.

If Christians from England had never introduced my Chinese ancestors to Jesus, they might not ever have met Him. And so, nearly 150 years after those British Christians took the good news of Jesus into south China, I want to keep asking the questions:
Who else does God want me to introduce to Jesus?
Who could I help meet Jesus?
________________

L/T.

2 amis; moins de 35 équipiers (un jeu de nombres)

{En. = 2 friends; less than 35 staff team workers (a numbers game)}

Come and play a numbers game with me!
________________

Today I shall endeavour briefly [hah!] to introduce you to 2 of my friends, Isabelle V. and Yuya S.

Isabelle is a French staff worker with Groupes Bibliques Universitaires (GBU) in France.
Yuya is a Japanese staff worker with Kirisutosha Gakusei Kai (KGK) in Japan.

GBU and KGK, for those who don't know, are the IFES national student groups for the 2 countries noted above; the closest equivalent to each - where I live - is the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical students, or AFES.

Isabelle lives in France.
She is one of between 30 and 35 GBU staff workers in her country.
That means no more than 35 French-speaking Christian staff workers nationwide
- for a population of 65 million.
In effect, for France's 65m people
there are up to 35 national staff able to be engaged in GBU student work.
(And some of those staff workers, to my knowledge, are not even funded to serve the GBU full-time.)

Yuya lives in Japan.
He is one of about 35 KGK staff workers across the country.
So, 35 Japanese-speaking Christian staff workers nationwide
- for a population of 126 million.
That means, for Japan's 126m people
there are (just as in France) only 35 national staff able to be engaged in KGK student work.

Does that sound like it's spreading the student work out a bit thin?
I think so.

When I look at Australia, when I narrow it right down to Sydney (where I went to university), I think it seems a bit unfair, actually...

~

Before continuing this post I paused to compile a quick list of all the people I could think of who are currently AFES staff workers in the Sydney metro area, including those from EU (Sydney Uni.), CBS and FOCUS (UNSW), ECU (Cumberland campus at Lidcombe) and CU and FOCUS at Macquarie. I recalled and wrote down 15 current staff workers just in the first fifteen minutes. One CBS worker - whom I consulted the same day I was drafting this - reckoned there were at least 9 others on his staff team at UNSW alone; add those 9 CBS workers in, and it totals 24. Moreover, those 24 Australian-based staff workers are NOT the only 24 in Sydney, nowhere near it! If you joined in and helped me, we'd come up with a list of over 35 student workers quite easily, just for Sydney alone, and we'd still be counting...

The point of what I am saying is this:
Right now in the city of Sydney alone there are well over 35 AFES staff workers.

35(plus!) staff for Sydney's population of less than 5 million.

In effect, that means more than 35 staff just for ONE. Single. Australian. CITY.
________________

We are a gospel-rich city, and country, generally. Even if we had only those 35 AFES staff workers for our whole population of 24 million Australians, we'd still be far better resourced than GBU France or KGK Japan. After all, we have only half of France's 65-million population and only one-fifth of Japan's 126-million.

And yet I hope it's clear here that there are more AFES workers based in Sydney alone than the total 35 national French or Japanese staff currently serving with GBU in France or KGK in Japan.

I wish you could feel the disparity I've tried to highlight above.
Isabelle in France and Yuya in Japan each represent a situation so very poorly resourced when I compare it with the AFES movement in Australia.

To me it's unjust, that in just one Aussie city (pop. 5m.) we have so many AFES workers serving campus Christian groups full-time
- whilst overseas in France (pop. 65m.) and in Japan (pop. 126m.),
GBU and KGK respectively have no more than 35 staff workers - apiece! - currently serving in their national teams.

These are situations that break my heart.
And they need our prayers
- that the Lord of the harvest send out workers into His harvest field, outside of Australia.
And maybe, they also need some of us to rethink.


Where might the Lord of the harvest use us, if we are willing & able to leave here, and go to the lands God will show us..?

If, at this time, God has disabled us from going ourselves,
how can we be sharing what we have with our French, Japanese and other international gospel partners to see God's salvation reach to the ends of the earth?

L/T.
~