Today’s Avondale students are strongly motivated by the vision of a needy world and the opportunities they have to make a difference.
The student organisation One Mission mobilises Avondale College volunteers to undertake community development and mission projects in developing countries. “Service projects are our chance to help change the world, but they also change us,” said Jessica Parsons, an international development studies student and co-director of One Mission.
“My passion changed on my first One Mission trip,” said Sandro Bastos, a Bachelor of Science/Bachelor of Teaching student and co-director of One Mission. “Going on a mission trip is only half the blessing you receive; the other is inviting your friends on a mission trip so they might get to know God in a more personal, practical way.” Student participants come back different people.
During the past summer One Mission sent teams of student volunteers to the Philippines and the Solomon Islands. Jessica Parsons and Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Business student Reuben Ennor spent three and half months on a mission project in Rwanda. One Mission has also sponsored mission trips from the Lake Macquarie campus to Mozambique and Fiji, and from the Sydney campus to Kenya, the Philippines, Vanuatu, Thailand and Cambodia.
The recent Philippines mission
One Mission kids’ club in the Philippines. Credit: Sandro Bastos.
In January 2010 sixteen student volunteers went to the Philippines led by Sandro Bastos and Neil Bustos, a Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Teaching student. The students ran an evangelistic campaign and a kids’ club, built an extra classroom for a local Adventist school, ran a service project at the local high school and a feeding ministry for poor children in surrounding towns, working every day from 7 am to 10 pm.
The Adventist Church in the Philippines assigned the students to a poor area where communities were often disrupted by violence, teenage gangs, and alcohol and drug abuse. However, the group’s community service work, especially with the children, won the confidence, respect and friendship of the people, and there was no violence or tension during the students’ stay. So much did the students win the hearts of the community that forty men from a nearby village formed a security cordon each evening around the meeting place, and took turns to guard all night while the students slept.
To the astonishment of the local Adventist pastors, more than 600 people attended the evangelistic meetings every night, including many teenagers involved in gangs. Three students conducted the preaching: Neil Bustos, Joel Heise (a Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Teaching student), and Ray Moaga (a theology student). They delivered gospel-centred messages covering the major Adventist beliefs, and the Holy Spirit empowered the preaching.
One factor contributing to success was that the kids’ club ran from 5.30 to 7.30 pm each evening, followed immediately by the evangelistic program. The parents came to collect their children from the kids’ club and stayed for the preaching.
The meetings climaxed with a baptism of 25 people, including one of the Avondale students. Many others are preparing for baptism under the guidance of the local pastors. Many former churchgoers made a commitment to return to the Lord and are now attending church.
After one of the meetings two gangster kids aged seventeen and eighteen came to Joel Heise in tears, saying they wanted to be baptised. Another evening a crying blind man asked Sandro, “Are you one of the missionaries from Australia? I am so blessed that I could hear the message of God tonight.”
Participation in the project powerfully affirmed students’ commitment to Christ and to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. “It changed those who went,” said Neil Bustos. “We went with our plans, but God had much bigger plans, and bigger results.”
After paying for their own air fares and food, the students raised an additional $20,000 for the project. They returned with a vision to continue supporting the community where they ministered and to raise funds to sponsor at least one child to attend the local Adventist school ($60 will sponsor a child for a year).
The Solomon Islands mission
Twelve students went to the Solomon Islands, led by Jared Martin, an Avondale graduate now practising as a digital artist and photographer. The group worked with local villagers on the island of Guadalcanal constructing a nurses’ residence in association with a new health clinic. They also ran a kids’ club and conducted worship services in nearby villages. The local people were overjoyed to have the visitors with them, the students’ presence motivating the villagers to participate in the building project.
The Rwanda mission
Reuben Ennor fits out a bicycle trailer to enable the woman pictured to carry goods for sale to support herself and her children. Credit: Jessica Parsons.
Jessica Parsons and Reuben Ennor participated in two Christian humanitarian projects in association with the Transformational Development Agency (TDA) in Rwanda. The first project was a support program for deeply traumatised young people whose families had been murdered in the genocide. The program, operating in the capital, Kigali, and also in a village in the mountains, included a photo voice project in which participants were taught photography and encouraged to talk about the symbolism in their images. In the rural district almost every image evoked horrific stories of the murders the participants had witnessed. The program helped the young people work out some of their trauma and develop trust. It also opened opportunities for the program leaders to talk about issues of identity, betrayal and forgiveness in the context of God’s love. The youth deeply appreciated the program, some in the mountain area walking up to two hours to participate.
The second project was a transformational ministry for sex workers in Kigali. Every Friday night Jessica and Reuben accompanied the TDA director for prayer and dialogue with the women in the group. The three helped reclaim one young woman who had also been orphaned in the genocide. She had borne seven children, four of whom had died, and she also has AIDS. A year before the development agency workers met her, a pastor had been impressed to tell her that three people would come to help her. Jessica, Reuben and the TDA director were able to persuade her of God’s love and acceptance (she thought she wasn’t good enough to be accepted by anyone). She has now left her former way of life and is attending church. The three development agency workers were able to set her up in a small business selling vegetables, charcoal and oil (see picture). Her business is growing, she is able to support herself, and her children are now attending school.
Jessica Parsons talks with young people orphaned in the Rwanda genocide. Credit: Reuben Ennor.
One Mission works in association with the Adventist Volunteer Service of the South Pacific Division. Leadership training is provided for mission projects. Students are encouraged to dream big and trust God’s leading, so that they can go out in confidence to reach a world in need. In God’s strength and with good leadership, young people are able to accomplish things that many older people would not dare.
One Mission is grateful to the donors who resource its projects.
