Reaching Students for Christ he akonga ki nga akonga hei ara whakawhiti mo te Karaiti

Hamilton: 'Hamiltron: City of the Future'?

For the last ten years, since Andrew Shepherd, there have been no TSCF staff based in Hamilton. Over the years, some students have continued to meet with supportive visits from TSCF staff workers from Auckland. Having talked with other groups in Hamilton, they and TSCF feel there are more opportunities for more student ministry. TSCF hope to send Andrew and Li Lian and their daughter Monica next year. This will mean that TSCF will have staff on every major campus in New Zealand. Canvas met with Li to find out more:

Tell us a bit about your history with TSCF and New Zealand?

Maybe the question should be answered the way I have been taught in Maori class, like a mihi that shows our whanau and our connection to the land?

We grew up in Singapore and were both school teachers before we came to New Zealand. I came to study at Vic in 1991 and was OCF President. Andrew came in 1995 and it was at Vic and OCF that we met, even though we had come from the same church in Singapore! Andrew also became President of OCF.

After we married I was a TSCF staff worker and Andrew was the warden of Kia Mia hostel though our roles overlapped and we ministered together. After finishing with TSCF I went on to do my Masters at Vic and Andrew worked as a Librarian at Wellington Teachers College.

At some stage, Andrew became a Kiwi. Coming back to NZ and being able to spend almost seven weekends in all black this year has been almost a dream, really. In short, our connection with Te Whanganuia-Tara is strong but we come from Singapore.

We returned home to Singapore, and have been there for ten years. Our daughter, Monica, was born in 2000. We have both held a variety of positions. Andrew has been a Business Development Officer for Singapore Management University, a Senior Inspector of Schools and on the NZ Trade Board. I have written assignment books and taught English as a Second Language at the National University of Singapore. As a family we have ministered to students living in Oldham Hall hostel.

If your ties to Wellington are so strong, why go to Hamilton then?

It does seem odd to go to a place where we are amongst strangers. We take comfort that there are a fair few biblical narratives that are about people going on physical journeys and in our recent visit to Hamilton we have been warmly welcomed by TSCF supporters living there. Our hope is that we will make friends who over time will become our new whanau.Andrew is excited by the pioneering work required for Hamilton. He is keen to learn and develop experience and expertise in training and resourcing student leaders. We are excited by the opportunities to work with other Christians in Hamilton to reach students in the University of Waikato and the Waikato Institute of Technology. These campuses also have international students from Asia, the Middle East and as far as Africa. We seek your prayers as we work with students to develop strategies to bring Christ into their lives.

In my mind going to Hamilton is about trying to engage with the complexities of today’s student world—a world labelled: connected, post-church, green, digital, jaded and hurt. But students are more than labels; each life is precious to God. There are many students coming from rural areas to Hamilton, and a good number coming from Christian homes. We want to give every student the opportunity to grow in their faith in Jesus.

Te Kuiti, near Hamilton, was also the place where my friend and ex-Mintern Linda Caughley and her fiancée died in a car accident in June 1999. The suddenness of her death affected her friends, students and family greatly. As school teachers, their lives exemplified “true witness” as they tried to teach, pray for and care for their students and be part of the community. Life and its uncertainties means that it is easy to fluctuate between fear in a handful of dust or certainty in the grace of a loving God.

Perhaps who we are is found at this moment, the now. We are poised between the many uncertainties of starting a new work and home, and the certainty that God wants us there. How does this pan out in the nitty-gritty, messiness of life? We don’t know. Please pray with us. Perhaps a Ministry home, a bi-vocational calling, faculty based studies? At this exploratory stage these are ideas that we hope will further the aims of True Witness, Global Reach, Undivided Life and Deep Thought. With such conceptually complex aims, the temptation is to overly simplify them into techniques of being a Christian.

The legacy of TSCF and IFES to us personally has been just that courage to keep things complex, authentic and avoid the pat answers – a courage nurtured within a caring, prayerful and thinking Christian community, a community which includes all you readers out there, seeking to challenge a new generation of tertiary students.

Andrew and Li Lian Lim

What can I do? Please consider supporting Andrew and Li and the work in Hamilton by praying for them or supporting them financially. For more information please contact the office at tscf@tscf.org.nz.

Posted by Li Lian Lim on 14/12/2011