The right team at the right time

Queenscliff VIC has had a long history of beach mission with SU Australia dating back to 1947. The Scripture Union Family Mission (SUFM) was a staple in the community each summer until 2021 due to the pandemic. But through answered prayer, it returned this past summer stronger than ever!

Abby has directed the Queenscliff Theos (a beach mission aimed at late teens and young adults) for the last three years. During this time, the team has noticed a recurring theme: they were attracting more kids than teenagers to their program.

“We experienced the flow-on effects of [previously] having a SUFM in the town. We would go through the caravan park [and tell them] sorry there’s no kids program this year, which was met with visible disappointment from the town.

“We’d say no to more kids than we said yes to teenagers joining our program,” Abby admits.

“We’d been really praying that a SUFM would come back, probably [for] a good year. Before the mission, a few of us spent a couple of days in fasting and prayer.”

Then one day, Abby was in church and struck up a conversation with a visitor. When Abby learned that she had been part of a SUFM team in the past, she decided to take a leap of faith.

Abby asked if she would consider starting up a SUFM in Queenscliff and was surprised by a positive response!

From there the SUFM team grew at an unbelievable rate.

“We were expecting a small pilot program. We were taken aback as we just kept getting more and more messages saying ‘We have more team members!’

“We have 27 team members now out of literally nowhere.”

“People were asking ‘how can we pray for your mission this year?’ And I remember saying I’m not sure that there’s going to be that many primary schoolers in Queenscliff to meet with the size of the team, but if God’s got his hands on this – if he has a team that big – then we trust and pray that he will bring a program that big as well.

“And he did. I think that there were very, very few moments, if any, that it felt like there were surplus leaders.

“It seemed like it was just the right team for that summer.”

Just as the persistent widow in Luke 18 was heard because of her continued pleas, so too does God hear our persistent prayers. We may not always know exactly how God will respond, but we can trust that he will bring the right answer to our prayers at the right time.

Thank you for praying for SU ministries like the Queenscliff Theos and SUFM teams, who have shared the Good News of Jesus with countless children and young people. To find out more about how you can join a team in your area, head to su.org.au/get-involved.