Going away with a group of friends for five days to attend a winter conference is a special opportunity to grow deeper in one’s relationship with God and fellow students, says Shirley Mesquita, who serves as a missionary with the International Students Ministry at the University of Sydney.
“Conferences are different from anything else. None of the events we do on campus have the same impact. Going together somewhere and joining together for a certain amount of time will always help you grow in your faith and your relationship with your friends,” she says.
The Brazilian-born missionary found it deeply encouraging to see so many people from different nations at Power to Change’s ISM Mid-Year Days Away in June. She also found it beautiful to see Christians and non-Christians together sharing life and listening to the talks.
Thanks to Shirley and her team, 16 non-Christians joined the 47 students who attended from UTS, the University of Sydney, Macquarie, and Monash University. “For the non-Christians, we told them it’s a Christian conference, but it’s a chance for them to make friends, explore another city together, and also have a chance to learn more about Christianity and reflect on life questions they might have in a Christian perspective,” she explains.
“For the Christians, we told them, ‘Here’s a chance for you to grow in your faith. By being in a Christian community for five days, we can focus on learning, reflecting, and praying together.’ It is also a chance for them to engage with non-Christian students and look for opportunities to share and develop relationships so we can continue working with them after the conference.”
The conference challenged attendees to reflect on three areas of their journey with God: their own identity with God, their relationship with God in relation to other people around them, their friends and family, and the effect of these relationships on the world.
“As I look at the broken world, how can I respond to that? Thinking holistically, how do I need to walk with God in all the areas of my life and how, as a Christian, this should impact those areas,” she says. “If I’m a friend and I walk with God, that should impact my friendships. if I walk with God,
that impacts my relationships with my mum and dad ”