Andrew and Zolt Baptised as we end out 2014!

What an amazing year in 2014! And what a weekend! We had our First Annual Christmas Banquet, Awards and Talent Show last night, and this morning said an emotional farewell to nine missionaries that came with us a year ago to start the Sydney International Christian Church! They have gone home to LA for Christmas to apply for their student visas and to return as soon as possible.

To finish off our weekend, at 11PM we baptized Andrew, a Sydney University student, that the Lord graciously allowed me to meet six months ago!

In the past few weeks, we had Yamin Leyton Godoy and his “Mum” Eugenia move-in from the Santiago (Chile) Church, and an end of year retreat on Cockatoo Island of the middle of Sydney Harbor! Then Zolt, another great Australian college student, was baptized just three days ago, who was met by Pete Wade on the basketball court!

So after a 10 ½ months since our Inaugural Service, God has grown the church from the original 12 missionaries to exactly 30 disciples – through 22 additions! Praise God that we now have a significant Student Ministry on three campuses, a Sports Ministry, a Music Ministry and a Business Ministry!

Everyone is very excited about our theme for next year – “Extreme 2015!” Lord willing, we will be having an extreme Sports Ministry with sky diving, bungee jumping, surfing and deep sea fishing! We have hired a weekly studio for our musicians to start an band! We are going on Extreme Retreats throughout the year: Extreme Luxury for the Marrieds and Extreme (Climbing) Heights for the Singles, as well as a Father and Son Retreat and a Mother and Daughter Retreat! Please pray for us, as we are holding our First Chinese Service on Chinese New Year in February 2015 with our young prophet Dean “The Machine” Lam preaching his first full sermon – switching between Mandarin, Cantonese and English!

Merry Christmas to all from the Sydney Saints!