May Newsletter

Kia Ora everyone.

We hope you’ve had a great month! Here is our newsletter for May.

At the beginning of the month, our students completed the Kairos course. For those who don’t know what Kairos is, it’s a nine-session, interactive course on world Christian mission, designed to educate, inspire, and challenge Christians to active and meaningful participation in God’s mission. We’d like to thank all the facilitators for sharing their time, passion, and experiences with our students. Everyone really enjoyed the course, and we plan to continue doing it annually with each new intake. Here is some of the student feedback:

“I came in thinking this “missions” thing isn’t for me. But now I’m willing if this is what God wants for me.”

“It has given me a biblical understanding of how important mission is and how I can be a part of God’s kingdom and Great Commission.”

“Kairos was fantastic! It awoke a passion for missions I didn’t know I had.”

Our students have been busy most weekends with Outstations. We’re continuing to help the Jesus Reigns team once a month on a Saturday at Memorial Park. Last time, one of the students shared his testimony, while another preached a short gospel message, and several other students helped with the worship. We’re very grateful for the opportunity to be a part of this weekly outreach and give our students a chance to try something new and maybe a bit uncomfortable for them.

We’re also continuing to support James Muir and Graham Preston with their monthly city prayer walk.

Something new the students did this month was help Welcome Bay Community Church with their monthly “Be a Neighbour Project”. This is an initiative that started after the first Covid lockdown, where the church felt to reach out to their local community to offer connection and support. They deliver food parcels to different families in need and build relationships with them. Our students have enjoyed being a part of this and from this, we were also able to help a solo mum with her lawns and gardens in preparation for her house inspection.

Another new opportunity the students got involved with this month is “Feed the tinana, Feed the wairua”. This is another awesome initiative started by a Christian couple who host a Sunday morning breakfast for the homeless in Tauranga City and share the love of God for these men and women. We took a group of students to help, and they had a great time serving and talking with those that came. We got to share some worship songs with them and a couple of testimonies, which were well received.

If you’d like to support any of these initiatives or get involved, then contact Frank for more information – frank@fbc.ac.nz

This month we put on a Mad Hatters themed quiz night for the campus. It was a really fun evening, filled with lots of laughs, creative hats, food, and of course, several rounds of questions. Congratulations to The White Rabbits for winning the overall quiz and to the student that won the prize for the “Maddest” hat.

Finally, we were honoured to have Luke Collis from Unashamed come all the way from Hawkes Bay to teach our students about evangelism. Luke has done a fantastic job stirring the students to fulfil The Great Commission, teaching them effective evangelism tools, and then taking them out onto the streets of Tauranga. We love having Luke come and seeing our students equipped and activated to share God’s love.

Thank you once again to all of you for your prayers and support.