SummerSalt 2010: Lorne,

Victoria

SummerSalt ’10 team members:

B: Nick, Lincoln, Grady, Andrew, Joel, Tim, Josh, Billy, Abraham, Micky T.
F: Shawn, Evie, Heather, TahIia, Tiarn, Jenny, Jess.

Most days, Lorne, Victoria is a small, quiet beach town. Located about 1 hour west of Geelong, on the
Great Ocean Road, tourists love this spot as it caters to the beach and bush lovers alike. However, for 2
weeks in early summer, Lorne is invaded each year by thousands of school leavers (aka “schoolies”) who
are looking for something else: loud music, wild parties, and crazy memories. This was the setting for
16 students and missionaries from Newcastle Uni, Sydney Uni and UNSW to embark on their 2 week
mission. As you can imagine, it’s not easy trying to relate to schoolies, especially if you aren’t a schoolie
yourself, and even more so if you’re a
follower of Jesus. But you’d be surprised
how God can work as a team of like-hearted
disciples join together to bring the good
news of Jesus Christ to those who need it the
most. Thank you for partnering with us, as
the following stories are as much a result of
your ministry as they are ours!

The “Droppo”
Many of the schoolies came by our drop-in center (a
community center that the council let us use each night
from 9pm – 1am) once they heard we had free nachos.
Other’s came because of a personal invitation or
conversation from earlier in the day or out along the
street at night. It was really encouraging when we’d see
the same schoolies a few times over the week. This was
the case with Josh and Dickie. Shawn met Josh at a bbq
where he briefly spoke of his father dying just 3 weeks
prior. He didn’t really want to talk about it at the time,
but the next night at the Droppo, Josh was very
emotional and open about it as he shared for almost an
hour with Grady. His mate came along, Stewart, and
was very open in sharing with Josh (w/ Student Life)
about his life. It was encouraging for us to see that
schoolies saw us as a safe place to come and talk about conversation about his belief in God. Joel gave him a
the important things in life. In Dickie’s case, we first met Bible and said he seemed to understand the gospel, but
him on the street as Tim was playing music. A few wasn’t ready to make a decision to follow Christ.
nights later, he came to the Droppo and Joel had a long

Prayer
Prayer was the backbone of our
project. The first week, we listened
to a sermon by Charles Spurgeon,
which challenged us to make specific
requests to God, to sincerely desire
the answer to these prayers and to
believe that God has heard and has
answered our prayers. This shaped
the way we prayed over the 2 weeks.
A great example was the start of the
2nd week at the Droppo. It was our
first night open for the new crew of Life Changing Encounter
schoolies and no one was coming.
Our team seemed to be nervous and During one of our afternoon bbq’s, Micky T and myself got
insecure about this, so we prayed as into a spiritual conversation with a guy name Andrew (pic
a group. Nothing much happened below). The conversation started off with Andrew telling us
that night, but the following night, his background and the story of him and his grandfather.
we experienced one of the best Andrew is not a regular church goer, however he has a
nights at the Droppo, where close relationship with his grandfather, a committed Greek
everyone seemed to have at least 1 Orthodox believer. His grandfather passed away half a year
significant spiritual conversation ago and the night before his grandfather passed away,
(something we prayed for the night Andrew had a dream where his grandfather waved
before). Lincoln shared how he had goodbye to his whole family smiling. Some time later,
been praying that night, specifically Andrew nearly got into a car accident and he felt that his
for Nick to be able to share gospel grandfather in heaven protected him. When hearing this,
with someone and 30 seconds later, Micky T explained that he believed it was God himself who
someone came and asked Lincoln to saved Andrew. Micky T also said that God longed to have a
pray for Nick…as he was sharing the close relationship with Andrew just as he is close to his
Knowing God Personally booklet family. Micky T then shared the Knowing God Personally
(KGP) with someone! booklet with Andrew and at one point, asked Andrew if he
thought of himself as a sinner, Andrew replied, “I am a
sinner”. And then Micky T asked Andrew, “Do you put your
Divine Conversation trust in Jesus” he replied, “I trust in Jesus”. After hearing
this I ran to get Andrew a Bible and the conversation ended
Besides the bbq, another strategy in the and we exchanged contact details. Praise God and His
afternoon was to contact schoolies. One mighty work. –Abraham
afternoon, Tim and Tahlia had an amazing
conversation with Jackie, a girl they had
met the night before on the street. Jackie seemed open and interested in
God so they wanted to continue the conversation. When they met up, once
again, their conversation seemed to flow naturally about spiritual things, but
Tahlia was feeling God’s Spirit putting something in her heart to ask Jackie. A
week prior, Tahlia had been praying for schoolies and she saw 3 “random”
images”: a girl in a red hoodie, a yellow triangle, and the name Bianca. Tahlia
noticed Jackie was wearing a red hoodie and when she mentioned something
that resembled a yellow triangle, Tahlia asked the question, “Do you know
someone named Bianca?” Jackie said, “Yes, that’s my sister….why?” Tahlia
then went on describe the images she saw and Jackie couldn’t believe it and
it really got her attention.