Special Guest’s Reflection
Adam Bryant, the General Manager of CCCVaT’s School Support Services visited and reports:
“I have witnessed both Christine’s and Angus’ servant hearts in action, pouring love and care into a community where connection thrives. The Bus Stop Café is a place where people gather, laugh, and feel valued. The children race through the door with joy, eager to join activities that point them toward God and fill their hearts with hope. There’s a beautiful rhythm—faith first, fun alongside, and food to follow. Each encounter becomes more than just an after-school moment; it’s an opportunity for spiritual seeds to be planted, friendships to grow, and lives to be encouraged in a warm and welcoming space.”
Ministry report
August was a solid month with 565 attendances at Bus Stop Cafe. That is an average of 51 primary school children and their parents per day coming to learn The Lord’s Prayer (and get a chocolate milk). We had an average of 14 Bonus Questions per day. That means children choosing to do an extra question to further engage with the teaching material (and get a marshmallow). We had an average of 12 people staying back per day after 3:45. This is lingering for friendship, dancing, playing Uno & Lego, sewing, chatting and sharing pizza. We have given away three “Little Miracles” TShirts this month for students who successfully recited The Lord’s Prayer from memory. So we are teaching Corio children about Jesus and drawing folks forward in the Lord.
Visiting with AMT
Christine and I spoke at a Missions Awareness Evening hosted by AMT (Australians on Mission Together). It was so much fun meeting the folks from Ringwood Community Church and others who are passionate about sharing the gospel. Some new friends joined our prayer team. Sorry the picture is not so great.
Planning a Garden Overhaul
Now for the part of the blog I’m most excited about. Here I want to answer the following questions:
1. How did we decide to get cracking on a garden overhaul?
2. What will the next few steps be?
3. How does this fit into a bigger picture?
4. What is the significance of the garden overhaul?
I want to share this journey more deeply because I believe someone may benefit from our struggle to love God and love our neighbours.
1. How did we decide to get started?
If you know me, you’ll know getting started is not a problem as I have a “Let’s get on with it” attitude. So I need to slow down and ensure that we are doing “the God thing, not just the good thing.” To get to the point of knowing that we’re doing God’s will, we went through a process of seeing the need for an improved garden and seeing the potential value it could bring to the community.
We weighed this up with our vision to bless the community before they come to church. We asked our two prayer teams to pray, talked with all the stake holders, watched the community’s use of the area and spoke with an outside consultant and then forgot about it. “Forgetting about it” takes all the heat out of making the decision. This means I’ve scoped all the variables but I’m here to do God’s will, not man’s will, so I let go completely of the issue and ‘let God be God’.
Oftentimes, with me, the idea goes away because I have so many good ideas, I need to sift them this way. I am so glad that God has saved me from so many of my ‘good ideas’. But the idea to improve the garden has come back. Various promptings have surfaced from the Holy Spirit, from circumstances, from my prayer team.
2. What are the next few steps?
To begin with, we’ve bought a picnic table and put it in the garden and secured it down. We were given the money for this, just $250. Next we’ve applied for a grant from the City of Greater Geelong to buy another table and a bench seat, but this won’t eventuate until mid December, if at all.
Next we are scheduling a Working Bee for the second week of the school holidays and we’ll invite the families attending Bus Stop Cafe to get involved. Here we will remove the old edging, weed mat, rocks and old plants, till and add new soil and manure and mulch. We will ask our supporters to chip in to help fund this, but not ask Christian Brethren Trust as they have just supplied a new fence.
3. How does this fit into the bigger picture?
This is the beginning of a longer process to welcome the local school community into the church front garden. A larger plan will be drawn up that will include more seating, shade cloth, games, plants and paths. Then we will develop the site gradually as we have the funds, the energy and not to make a big splash all at once, thus reducing the likelihood of vandalism.
You might be questioning the wisdom of planting in spring as usually you plant in winter so plants can deepen their roots before the warmer months. However we will be planting indigenous grasses which are ideally suited to the area and we will hand water them over summer as we will be there a lot running the outreach and we live close by.
4. What is the significance of this work?
Simply put, this is a manifestation of our heart to bless the community before they come into the building, before they become Christians. This is significant because it hasn’t happened here before. We tend to focus on what happens on the inside of the building, but God has given us a burgeoning school community right at our doorstep which we can serve. This is a switch of resources to what is going on outside. Let’s bless them in Jesus’ name.
Prayer needs
Finally, please pray for new, stable volunteers and board members. Also please pray for revival among the families who attend BSC and for other Christian groups to adopt this model of outreach in their unique locations around Australia.
Would you like to donate to help develop the garden?
Please give a gift :
Account Name: Little Miracles Community Inc.
BSB: 633 000
ACC: 205 402 357
Thank you!