Christmas Letter

We can hardly believe that we are preparing to celebrate our second Christmas in New Zealand! One thing we always love about Christmas is the giving and receiving of gifts. This season, we reflect with much joy over the good gifts that the Lord has given us! In the course of this past year, God has given us time to see family and get spiritual nourishment in Colorado. He has blessed us with a second pregnancy and the excitement of a new child! Upon returning to our field assignment, He has provided a larger house for our growing family to live in, a car to drive, a committed staff team, a supportive church community, and deepening friendships with New Zealanders.

In addition to all these wonderful gifts, the Lord has also blessed our mission and allowed us to see spiritual fruit!
At our last Student Life (Campus Crusade for Christ, NZ) event for the year, it was so rewarding to look out over a room filled with the faces of young university students and marvel at how God has, in one year, taken Student Life from 2 students to 56 students! Half of these are either young or new believers who are now being discipled and are starting to share their faith on campus. Even more encouraging was to see several students leading the event and casting vision to their peers about giving every student on their campus the opportunity to know Jesus Christ. I thought, “Lord, is this not the beginnings of a new spiritual movement in Wellington!?” I believe it is! This past year, our staff team and students have had the opportunity to share the Gospel with 256 students in Wellington. We have also had the joy of seeing 26 of those students indicate decisions to follow Christ!

Of course the greatest gift that we thank God for is that of our Savior, Jesus Christ. I still find it extremely difficult to get my head around what God has done for me and the forgiveness that comes from the cross. I recently found my heart resonating with the words written in Psalm 116, “Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; our God is merciful. The LORD preserves the simple; when I was brought low, he saved me. Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you. For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling; I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living.” How wonderful it is that we are delivered from death and our souls can be at rest! God has indeed dealt bountifully with us!

We wanted to share with you what a few students have said about how the Lord has dealt bountifully with their souls through their involvement with Student Life:

“I sort of went ‘off the rails’ when I was a teenager and I knew something had to be done. Student Life has given me that little bit of a kick and it’s given me heaps of support to keep going in my faith.” – Ryan

“Student Life helped push me out there and stand up and say [to others], “Hey… I’m a Christian. Do you want to learn more about it? Do you want find out about God?’’’ – Ollie

“I got involved with Student Life about a month or two ago and I’m really loving it! I’ve found that you really become accountable to yourself and your mates… and it’s just a really good opportunity to grow and mature in my faith.” – Dan

When we see and hear the excitement of students like these, we continue to be grateful for the opportunity to live here and extend the life-changing message of hope, love, and forgiveness that is found in Christ.

As this year draws to a close, we ask you to pray that God will continue to work through our mission, making it possible for many students in Wellington to hear the Gospel! We also ask for your prayers surrounding the birth of our second child. Please pray that Jill will not be anxious about delivering this baby overseas, for her energy and strength, and for the Lord’s provision as we work out all the kinks and additional expenses of giving birth in a foreign country.

We remain thankful for your prayers and faithful friendship to us as we bring the Gospel to students—even to those at the very ends of the earth. Merry Christmas!
Warmly in Christ,
Josh & Jill

Team Retreat at Castle Point

As we finished out our first year of pioneering a spiritual movement in Wellington, we spent a great deal of time evaluating and reflecting on how we went about the vision of putting every student in Wellington within arm's reach of Jesus Christ. We found ourselves blown away by what is evidence of God's hand at work! In the course of one year, God has given us the beginnings of a movement, going from 2 students to 56 between February of 2006 to October of 2007! We also spent a good portion of time praying - asking for continued direction and blessing as well as praising God for what He's done.
With one year behind and transitioning of teams, we felt it was the perfect opportunity for all of us to get away from the city to enjoy fellowship, connect with God, and have fun. As combined teams, we headed further up the North Island to a place called Castle Point on the eastern shore. It was nice to get away and refreshing for us to see and take part in God's creation.

Following are some pictures of our retreat.

[The Castle Point Lighthouse]

Welcoming the 2008 STINT Team

There’s been a lot happening over this past month as we are saying our goodbyes to the 2007 STINT Team, giving hugs and shedding some tears. But there is also great joy as we’ve welcomed our 2008 STINT Team family (Kara, Lacey, Susanne, and Justin) into Wellington. So we’ve spent a good deal of time and energy helping them get settled into houses, meeting students, building relationships, and familiarizing them with the city of Wellington. It’s so great to see their excitement and anticipation for the year ahead. For fun, we greeted the new team (after their many hours of travel) at the airport dressed as Scooby Doo and the Gang!


[The 2007 STINTers and I wait patiently for the new
team to arrive in Wellington... dressed as Scooby Doo
and the Gang.]


[Isaac gets a huge kick out of Matt in his Scooby costume.]

[Laughs and shocked smiles from Kara and Lacey when
they set eyes on the cartoon characters come to life.]

[Both STINT Teams united at the Wellington Airport.
"Welcome to New Zealand gang!"]

"Missing the Mark"

Another highlight to my time in Australia was some archery lessons I took during a free day at the conference. The last time I did archery was back in 8th grade or something. I forgot how much I enjoyed it! Anyhow, it reminded me of the little analogy we make about our sinfulness and God's holiness. It was challenging for me consistently shoot an arrow at this target and attempt to get a bull's eye. I did get better the more I shot, but it still goes to show that we can't hit bull's eye of perfect holiness every time. I'm thankful that Jesus is a better archer than I am - able to live a perfect and holy life on my behalf! Anyways, enjoy the pictures.

[Aim]


[Release]

Cultural Dance

These are some pictures of some of our New Zealand staff men doing the Haka, a traditional Maori war dance, while in Australia. (This is the same tribal dance performed by The All Blacks - New Zealand's Rugby team - during their games.) It was pretty incredible... and intimidating to watch! The guys did the Haka out of appreciation for our Australian counterparts.

Pictures from Australia

I recently attended the Australian Campus Crusade for Christ staff conference near Sydney. There's sort of a rivalry between Aussies and Kiwis if you weren't aware. So one of the ways to sort out their differences was to take it to the water! Below are a few pictures of the dragon boat race between the Australian and New Zealand staff. Dragon boats are pretty much just big canoes with lots of people inside rowing like mad. :)


[Launching the Dragon Boat]

[Center: Justin O'Malley - Director of Student Life,
New Zealand - ready for the race.]

[Headed toward the finish line!]

Well, unfortunately New Zealand lost the race. But we claim that it was an unfair match, as the boats were supposed to have an even split of male and female rowers. The Aussies apparently couldn't get their genders figured out and won with testosterone. :)

Transitions

[Moving Day]

Once again I've been enormously horrible at updating this blog. I honestly don't know how some people blog as much as they do. Perhaps they've built it into their daily ritual somewhere! :) Anyhow, I attribute my lack of posts to the perpetual transition I feel like I'm in. Upon returning from the States until now there's been a lot of change happening! The picture above is the crew of guys and students who aided Jill and I on our moving day in early September. We love our new place that's both bigger and closer to the city centre. Just this week we finally unpacked some still packed items and acquired some furniture for the kids' rooms. Crazy! It feels more and more like home with each new day.

More than just physical changes, we have also been in a process of changing over our staff team. The 2007 STINT Team (Matt, Alex, Chris, and Jennifer) have completed there time in New Zealand and are returning to America. In light of that we've welcomed a new STINT Team for 2008 (Justin, Lacey, Kara, and Susanne).

[L-R: Justin, me, Lacey, Susanne, Kara. Copper Mt, CO]

It's been a bittersweet time for me as our first team of pioneers leaves these shores to go on to other things. We've done a lot and learned a lot together this past year in regards to planting and cultivating a new spiritual movement in this nation's capital city. It was so rewarding for me to see them interacting with the new team, oozing excitement and casting vision for the direction God's been leading us in here in Wellington! I know that this year of overseas mission work will forever impact their lives and view of ministry.

The Victoria University campus is also winding up and transitioning to the summer break. At our last Student Life Event (Crusade NZ) for the year, I was just praising God and encouraged to see that He has taken us in one year from 2 students to 56 students involved in our movement. Half of those are either young or new believers. Even more encouraging was to see students lead the event and cast vision to their peers about seeing the Holy Spirit at work on their campus, building a spiritual movement.

Finally, in the midst of all these happenings, I've been to three different conferences/training times in New Zealand and Australia. Needless to say, it's left me a little tired and just needing some to rest and reflect. Even now, I'm turning my attention to leading a Summer Beach Project on the South Island. Still, I'm hoping that there will be some time between now and then to get that needed R&R.

X-Track::Training for Living Cross-Culturally with a Mission

The training and preparation for our overseas mission that we received this summer was simply incredible! We feel that it has perhaps been some of the best training and practical life application that we have ever gotten from Campus Crusade for Christ.
We have definitely come away from our time with a greater awareness of the variety of people God has made on this planet and a rekindled passion to reach the world for Christ, starting with our assignment in New Zealand!
It was also life-giving for us to take part in the national staff conference this summer. There were some rich times where the Speakers really helped point our hearts to Christ.

More Students Coming to Faith

The second semester at Victoria University is well under way and Student Life is once again reaching out on campus to give students the opportunity to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Along with the help of 25 Summer Project Students who came to Wellington from U.S. mid-western universities, our team is once again promoting the “Tune In” campaign on campus. As we raffle off a the prize of a new MP3 music player, we pray that God ultimately uses it to point many to Him. We’ve already seen 6 students make decisions to follow Christ duringb the first week back and we are praying that many more will have a chance to know Him through this outreach! We are asking God to use “Tune In” in a mighty way at Victoria.

While we have been back in the United States this summer for our training, our staff team back in Wellington has been working hard to lead more students to Christ and develop students who have continued to be involved in our campus ministry of Student Life.
During the first week of July, our team and a dozen students from Wellington traveled to Matamata on the North Island to attend Student Life’s Winter Conference. The conference was focused on helping students know how to stay connected with God and walk with
Christ for a lifetime. There were around 120 students from universities on the North Island who attended.



One of the most exciting things to see at these conferences is how God literally changes students lives right in front of your eyes. Such was the experience that Matt Wunderle from our team had. A student of his named Sugi hadn’t been showing much consistency in walking with the Lord prior to the Conference and Matt wasn’t even certain that Sugi would attend Winter Conference. Well, Sugi came and throughout the course of the week it was obvious that the Holy Spirit had been doing a great work in His heart. Sugi at different times during the week would come up to Matt and tell him all about what he was learning from God and ways he felt challenged in his faith. Now Sugi desires to have a greater impact on his campus back in Wellington and even wants to teach other men how to share the Gospel!
This is just one of many stories of how God has worked in student’s lives during this conference!

I Fell Off The Blog Wagon...

Well, it's been some time since I've actually sat down to write anything. Jill and I left New Zealand and went back to the United States for the summer to get additional training for our work in Wellington. In the busyness of the summer, I just never made a point to blog (I'm sure some have even given up looking at my page because of it). Anyhow, we just made it back to New Zealand this past Friday. We had an interesting summer... a lot of great things and a lot of situations that tested us as well... but all in all, I'd say we had excellent time at home seeing friends and family. We really enjoyed the training and spiritual refreshment as well. The last few weeks in the States proved to be a little tumultuous, as we weren't even sure if we'd be able to make it back to New Zealand as planned. I can share more about that later. I hope to bring everyone up to speed over the next few blogs. For now, we are glad to be back and look forward to settling into life in Wellington once again.

Alcohol in New Zealand - The Hard Facts

I'm continuing to attempt to get my head around all the cultural differences between New Zealand and the United States. One thing I blogged about earlier concerned a travel ad on campus that encouraged drinking. A dynamic that will be very real to our missional approach here is dealing with the fact that most college students drink... legally (drinking age is 18 in NZ). I dug some facts on drinking as it relates to university students here. The figures are sobering to swallow.



* Between 58% and 65% of NZ students have been out binge ("binge" being defined as six or more drinks in a row)
drinking in the past two weeks.

* Drinking and driving accidents are the No. 1 killer of New Zealanders aged 18-24.

* 84% of the students at one NZ University have been impacted negatively by other students' drinking, including humiliation, sexual harassment, and rape. [ALAC media release 4.24.2004]

* One in six students ended up in a sexual situation they were not happy with after drinking. [Adam et al, 2000]

* 87% of students survey at another NZ University reported at least one alcohol-related harm in the past year. [Adam et al, 2000]

Making Disciples

In order to teach God's Word and make disciples who make disciples, we have put students together in what we call Life Transformation Groups (LTGs). We've borrow this idea from the California based church-planter, Neil Cole. What I love that it creates an atmosphere that promotes intimate friendships, spiritual growth, faith challenges, and accountability. Students, split up by men and women, meet together in LTGs of 3-4 people on a weekly basis. Everyone really seems to enjoy the feel of this type of learning environment.


[Left to Right - George, Matt, Chris, Aidrian]

These are some very large and very strong men who love Jesus! Chris Burton on our team has raised up this LTG group of guys who are new believers. Though they are young in their faith super thrilled about walking with Christ. They have really meshed well as they’ve met together to study the Word and apply it to their lives.


[Left to Right - Niki, Jen, Jessie, Jill]

My wife Jill, though she is laboring hard at being a full-time mommy, has one day a week that gets to spend on campus doing ministry. A major highlight every Thursday for her is spending time with her own LTG group. Jessie, a first year student, came to Christ a few months ago with one of our other teammates, Sarah. Sarah bought her a bible and she has been very eager to read and learn more about God’s Word and what it means to be a believer. Jill has been going through the book of 1 John with her and Jessie has also started reading through the Bible (hoping to read it completely) on her own accord. She said that she wanted to understand more about God and she figured the best way would be to read the Bible straight through! Good job Jessie.

A Taste of New Zealand

Since our arrival in New Zealand, we have experienced the goodness of God in providing houses, cars, furniture, and friends. So we just want to thank Him again. We continue to still be blown away by His provision for us!


I just wanted to share with you more about how we are proceeding building spiritual movements everywhere in New Zealand. Part of our approach to ministry in Wellington is to establish a spiritual movement that is highly relational and natural. We hope that students will gain a heart for what we call “Oikos Evangelism”. (Oikos is a Greek word meaning household or community. This method for extending the gospel to others is very evident throughout the Book of Acts.) This method of engaging in missions revolves around the idea that God has set up existing communities on campus and around the city with the intent that they would be a natural conduit for the Gospel to go out. Our responsibility then is to go (Matthew 28:18-20) to these oikos groups and be a light in the darkness rather than create a new, artificial community that would pull students/people out of a place where people need to hear about Christ. We pray that students will invest in the natural Oikos groups that are around them in order to spread the awesome truth about Jesus Christ!

Virginia Tech Tragedy

[Photo Credit: FOXNews.com]

Faithful friends and family,

By now I’m sure you have all heard the tragic news about the shootings at Virginia Tech University. Jill’s and my heart sank when we heard the news here in New Zealand. I even write this blog now with some tears in my eyes as I reflect on the student’s lives that were taken yesterday. Still, we serve a sovereign and mighty God.

We hope you find joy and encouragement in being a significant part of our mission that is working in opposition to such evils in our world to give Hope and Life to university students everywhere. Please join with us in praying that God would work through this situation somehow to bring Himself greater glory. Amen.

In His Service,
Josh

Sheep and Seals

During the month of March, we had a group of 12 Campus Crusade staff and students come to Wellington over their Spring Break to help us in our ministry. They came at such an important time and were a huge blessing to us as we were in the midst of following up with student from our "Tune In" outreach. While those 12 were here, we thought we'd give them some classic New Zealand experiences: sheep shearing and seal watching. Bellow are pictures of the seals and sheep. I hope to get some pictures sent to me of the staff and students who came so that I can post them.


Sheep Shearing: Before, During, and After

Lazy Bum!

Headed out to sea.