Chairperson of SU Council

Colossians 3:16-17 says “Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” 

These verses from Colossians are such a lovely picture of what the work of SU is like when we meet together through camps, school retreats, meeting with chaplains, getting alongside volunteers and yet sometimes it can be hard to follow that command of giving thanks, especially when we are faced with challenges and difficulties. We do face challenges and difficulties as an organisation and as individuals but let us put them aside for a moment knowing that they are covered by the sovereignty of our Father in heaven and let us give thanks.

We give thanks to God for Gareth and Sharon and for their ministry among us over the last nine years, we are grateful for their tireless hard work in every aspect of Ovoca Manor, for Sharon’s creativity and passion for excellence in developing and promoting our resources and Gareth’s leadership and development of SU’s ministry as National Leader. We send them, along with Levi and Jethro onto their next adventure with God’s richest blessing, that He would be a lamp to their feet and a light to their path always.

We are thankful to God for the ‘Timelanders’ resource, encouraging children to find out the truths from the Bible for themselves. We are thankful for the launch of ‘The Way of Saint James’ in collaboration with the Jesus Film project. We are grateful for our Internship, for Heaven and Lisa, for our Youth Development team and their desire to see all who they interact with, be able to read and know the Bible for themselves. We are thankful for a fully booked Ovoca Manor and for our many volunteers who give of their time and their gifts so that children, young people and families might come to know Jesus as their Saviour and grow in their faith and trust in Him. Mostly and above all, we give thanks to God our Father for Jesus, and that through believing in him we can have life in all it fullness and not because of anything we have done ourselves but through his death and resurrection, and we give thanks to God for his word, the Bible, it is how He speaks to us of his love. We are thankful for how it is our guiding light as we as an organisation seek to walk in his way in the year ahead.

Actually, when we stop and think, it is not so hard to give thanks to God for all that he has done.

Thank you for your continued prayer for and support of our ministry.

Alison