Apprentices at the Australian National University

posted by Navigators on November 26th, 2024 in Blog | Discipleship

Canberra Labouring Community Update by the Swartzentrubers

In response to the crowds of people Jesus saw as he ministered, he told his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.” We have that same feeling as we look across the ANU campus and regularly pray for more labourers. JT and Laine are two unexpected answers to that prayer.

_{JT Herboldsheimer and Laine Roberts at their initial iEDGE training. Photo supplied.}

At the end of 2023, we decided to apply for an iEDGE team to join us at the ANU. iEDGE is a program of the US Navigators where teams of recent graduates or young staff are sent overseas to do a 2-year ministry apprenticeship. We hoped their input would increase our capacity for building relationships with new students and be a model for our believing students of labouring.

Normally, it takes a minimum of two years from applying to get a team on the ground. This timeline assumes that enough US graduates apply and are accepted to be sent as iEDGErs, the receiving country’s application is accepted, and the receiving countries and the iEDGErs both agree that the fit is good. Those are a lot of variables. So, we were surprised to hear from the director of the iEDGE program in early March asking if we would like to interview a potential team to come at the start of 2025.

Life had already been turned upside down with Levi’s accident and imminent surgery, and the idea of a team coming a year earlier than expected added to the unknowns we needed to consider. We decided to interview them, trusting that God was at work in the timing. Shortly thereafter, we interviewed Laine and then JT, thought that they would be good fits here and though they both had other parts of the world on their hearts initially, God graciously turned them to Australia and we all agreed to become a team!

We are excited by the unexpected provision of JT and Laine joining us as apprentices at the ANU at the start of January. The last hurdle for them is to reach full funding and they are roughly two thirds of the way there. Please pray with us that God would provide the contacts, appointments, and support to get them to 100% in November. Pray as well that God would be divinely appointing and preparing the people in whom they will invest as they labour with us in the harvest field.

_{Featured image: Photo of students by Alexis Brown, Unsplash.}