Sixteen Moore College students are reflecting on mission in a country that a South African research institute has said is commonly known as "the crime capital of the world'.
During Moore College's annual mission week, 16 students served with Church on the Ridge, a three-year-old church plant in the town of Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.
Second-year student Dan Anderson says that in a country with 28,000 murders per year, he found people were open to discussing questions of life and death, more so than in Australia.
"People take questions and answers about life seriously," he says, reflecting on his conversations with students at the University of KwaZulu-Natal(UKZN).
"Questions like how to deal with fear; how to know and be in relationship with God; how to work out what is wrong with our cultures and societies.
"People might not agree with the Christian answers but there is a genuine discussion - and that means the genuine possibility of people hearing the gospel and following Jesus' call."
The group, led by Moore College faculty member the Rev Con Campbell, joined with Church on the Ridge to put on a jazz night, lead bible studies on the UKZN campus, hold a dialogue supper, visit an AIDS orphanage and put on a training night for South African ministry leaders.
Mr Campbell says that while Church on the Ridge is "a young church which looks up to the ministry they see in the Sydney Diocese", doing mission with the independent church plant was a learning experience on both sides.
"They look to us to model in different ways but it would be naïve to think we don't learn 10 times more from them," he says.
Church on the Ridge has a link with Sydney through St Philip's York Street rector, the Rev David Mansfield, who is on the church's board of reference (a group willing to give its approval to the church’s vision, beliefs and ministry).
While the echoes of apartheid are still audible, Dan adds that the country's complex political and social history has actually added a new dimension to church meeting.
"South African Christians are trying to find ways to take the reality of God's being reconciled to us, and express it to others," he says.
"The segregation of people under apartheid was a blow against a fundamental expression of the Christian gospel, so bringing people together from different racial backgrounds into one gathering of God's people is fraught with meaning."
Missions in review
Head of Moore College's missions department, the Rev Greg Anderson says the college has had positive reports from the 16 missions, which were held in the first week of April.
Since the students went back to their lectures last Wednesday, stories have filtered back from locations including Newcastle, Gunnedah, Darwin and Albury.
The college reports that 10 people committed their lives to Christ through Gunnedah Anglican in the mission week, which rector Scott Dunlop says is an "encouraging boost", while more than 30 have people signed up for the Alpha course at Mittagong Anglican Church since the mission week.
Sydney missions were in Miranda, Ashfield/Haberfield, Glenmore Park, Surry Hills, Earlwood, Ulladulla, Kingsford, South Sydney, Summer Hill and Gladesville.
Outreach activities were as diverse as their neighbourhoods, with students in Earlwood serving up Greek desserts, those in Redfern visiting local residents in The Block, while those in Gladesville went to the local nursing home and housing commission estate.
