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The following God Stories from "Down Under" were provided by Russ and Helen Bielenberg, an Emeritus ACCTS Staff couple who live and minister in Australia.
A. In 2001 we hosted an officer and his wife who were attending the Australian Defense College. At the opening cocktail party, the wife asked us if we knew of a Bible study. She was a Christian, but her husband was still uncertain. We began to travel across the city each week to do an inductive Bible study with them, using Mark's Gospel. One night the colonel asked, "How do you forgive someone you want to kill, if they are already dead?" I don't recall exactly what I said, but it enabled him to continue to study with us, and before the year was out he had made a commitment to Christ! As they returned home we gave him the contact information for the Military Christian Fellowship (MCF) in his country. At the 2009 Association of Military Christian Fellowships (AMCF) Council in Seoul, we asked after him, and were excited to learn that he had become president of his country's MCF. "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." (Romans 10:17)
 B. In 2002 we hosted an officer from Tonga who was at the Australian Defense College. There was a strong Christian group among the representatives of the Pacific nations that year, and we attended various activities with them. Sione was a strong leader within his MCF, having attended a Missionary Evangelism Observation program on Christian leadership in Korea. As we were planning the 2007 AMCF Pacific Conference, he introduced us to some Pacific nation officers who were attending a military conference in Brisbane. We met them at breakfast the morning their conference started, and explained about the upcoming conference, As a result, God inspired delegates from Palau and Micronesia to attend - the following year, the MCF of Palau was formed. "So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth." (1 Corinthians 3:7)
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