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Europe NewsMinistry in AthensAthens—The beautiful city where Paul waited for Silas and Timothy did not leave him with a favorable impression. There he became greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols, and the writer of Acts accused all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there of spending their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas. (See Acts 17) The first of this month, we visited a young woman in Athens; a student pastor who is carefully laying the foundation for a student ministry in that great city. What she finds today is that students avoid carefully considering the problems of life, preferring rather to cover many superficial topics as they drink their coffees. KH joins them, hoping and praying that she can become a close enough friend to touch those carefully hidden souls when they face hurts and disillusionment. We walked the city and prayed with KH. God is putting together a team to minister in that great city. She is the spark that Christ in his love can use when the time is ripe. Pray with us and with KH. “Lord, let students come to Jesus in Athens, and let a community of Christ be born on the universities.” Rejoicing in Belgium for Students for ChristIn 1999, John and Anita Koeshall began meeting with 2 students at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles, all the while praying for workers to come help with the overwhelming need on the campuses of Belgium. God answered that prayer by sending Steve and Deanne Turley to Brussels and Blair and Dina Bonin to Louvain-la-Neuve. Ten years later, there are MANY reasons to celebrate! The first ever SFC-Belgium Banquet was held on March 20 in the Chateau of Thieusies near the southern town of Mons. It was an exciting evening of good food, formal attire, and getting together with former students and other friends of SFC to look back at what the Lord has done and to look forward to the great things yet to come. It was also an evening of challenging them to help equip Students for Christ in the next level of campus ministry. At this writing, 100-120 university students are currently active or affiliated with SFC. Additionally, there are about 150 former SFCers making an impact in the marketplace in many different nations of the world as bankers, lawyers, researchers, programmers, architects, doctors, managers, accountants, nurses, midwives, teachers, speech therapists and even a government minister. There are also those who are serving in their local churches as Sunday school teachers, youth group leaders, worship team members, deacons/elders, Bible teachers and one who has become a pastor. And of course, there are those who have found their spouses and have become parents now raising a new godly generation. Clearly, SFC is not what has made them the successes they are today, but SFC has without a doubt had a part in whom they have become. Netherlands HappeningsWe have launched XA (Chi Alpha) Groningen and are blessed to see what God is doing. When we first moved to Groningen (about 15 months ago), we did not know any students but now we are meeting regularly with a growing group of Dutch and international students. This last week close to half were non-Christians. We are thrilled because that is our passion to introduce people to Christ! Also, over the past year, we have met so many people (including students) who could not find a Spirit-filled, vibrant church in our city. So in the past few months, we have sensed the Lord leading us to plant a church in Groningen. The Lord is bringing the pieces together as only He can. We are beginning to meet together to pray with a team of people that God has brought together. Our hope is that the church will be a relevant place for people of all ages to meet God, but specifically targeting the 50,000 students in the city. We have been approved by the Dutch Assemblies of God to begin this project. The name of church is "The Community" (church) reflecting our heart and passion to live life together in Christ. News from StockholmWe are prayer walking the campus of Stockholm University. At CSM in Brussels we felt compelled to start praying for the campus and its strongholds before starting actual ministry. We have felt that SU is like a Goliath. Loud, dirty, strong, mean, scary, intimidating, yet NOT unbeatable! We need God's guidance in how to proceed in this highly secular and liberal campus. After many talks, we have heard of Christian campus clubs that were shut down in the 90's. Would you join us in praying for the campus, the students and its administration? Would you pray for a core group for us? Would you pray for the Christian students we have started meeting with one-on-one? Would you pray for workers to join us? We would love to hear from you if you are up for some interceding, praying, and/or fasting on regular basis! For an article by Phil Zarns written for Relevant Magazine, click here: “24-Hour Velo ReportThe bike race was a success! We had opportunities to plant seeds of the Gospel into students’ lives, water seeds that had been planted in earlier years, mobilize Christian students to share their faith openly and serve others in Christ’s name. The weather was beautiful and even though our first bike broke after only six rounds in the race, God sent two young guys to our aid with a replacement bike. A few hours later they had remounted the decorated structure on the new bike and we were rolling again with our traveling Jesus message. We will now be praying and following up on the personal contacts we made during this event. Aberdeen ReportOver the last month thousands of students have arrived in Aberdeen to study at one of our two Universities. The first week of orientation for new students is called “Fresher’s Week”, which ran for two weeks this year as the two campuses began at different times. Radiate hosted several events during both Fresher’s Weeks to meet students and get reconnected with our current members. This year a mission team from Springfield, MO with New Life Church came to assist us with outreach. Students for ChristSFC ministries begin ministry on campus now. Most of them have their largest meetings this month as students 'check out' student groups. 1. Pray the the Christian students will find a group and commit to being a contributing member. Pray for the non-Christian students that they will find Christ and grow in the faith. 2. Pray for some of our workers who have been trying to get a group started that this year will be THE YEAR of their beginnings. 3. Thank you for your prayers as Anita is the retreat speaker for our ministry in Aberdeen, Scotland this weekend. Pray for Sarah Herman Malcolm who is the leader of this group called RADIATE. They are off to a wonderful beginning this year with up to 70 students attending their meetings, held in a Starbucks Coffee Shop! College of Student MinistryBRUSSELS, BELGIUM—CSM means interaction with student leaders, interns, pastors and scholars who are actively involved in campus ministry across Europe. We offer biblical training and practical instruction through various courses designed to give you the skills needed for campus ministry today. Through intense times of worship, prayer and play you get to grow and be equipped at the same time. You just can't beat the food, fellowship and fun that we have every August in Brussels... can't wait to see you there! Update from ScotlandRadiate values being a missions organization and not simply a fellowship organization. We have chosen to host more evangelistic outreaches than regular worship meetings. Because we are connected to a local church, we are able to provide a regular worship environment for our students. For the past 6 months we have been hosting Radiant Cafés. Each café is designed around a creative arts theme and uses the students' gifts and their friends as the springboard for talking about spiritual matters. They are encouraged to describe their art, play music and read their poetry. Our first step to showing the love of Christ to others is to show them we value them as people! As a result, many of these students have felt welcome and comfortable coming to our social events, our regular meetings and some have even started attending church. In just the last two months, two young ladies have accepted Christ as their Savior. College of Student Ministry—
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