It was February 2003, I had just spent the summer of my life with my mates mostly at the beach and Planetshakers Conference. The year before, I had finished school and was set to start Myotherapy (Physio equivalent for those with a less than 95 enter score) at an inner city university in Melbourne. At Planetshakers conference I received the Baptism in Holy Spirit and was feeling challenged to fast and prayer every Thursday during the year, so I did.
Here is a snap shop of some of the things that happened:
I had a vision in a prayer time of a girl I had never met who turned out to be in my tute group. When I met her I couldn’t believe it, I was like what is going on here! Turns out she was a back slidden Christian and I was able to help her out with questions she had which were holding her back.
I remember SMSing a friend with a word of knowledge who was studying at a country university. The word of knowledge was, “The guy you like now is not the guy, wait for the right guy.” I got an SMS back saying, “You’re probably right, the guy I like is a big pot smoker”. She ended up steering clear of that guy and is now getting married this month to a great guy.
Looking back I remember the amount of opportunities to share my faith with my tute group. In fact, I remember a break period of about 20 minutes where the whole tute group was openly discussing Christianity. I didn’t initiate the conversation but I sure spoke into it.
Would I choose to prayer and fast regularly if I had my time at uni again? Absolutely.
Raymond Mitchell, Victorian Universities Director