The Association for Christian Education of Blacktown Ltd

Plenty of children’s bibles make a large jump from Acts to Revelation, with only a few pages at best devoted to the writings of the apostles. God's Very Special Letters is an answer to that: https://sydneyanglicans.net/news/helping-kids-engage-with-the-epistles/55467

Concert pianist Yirui Weng grew up an atheist, but found Christian faith after hearing Vivaldi's Gloria.

For Yirui music had always expressed a kind of longing - but when she was in her twenties, that longing felt like a question, and she didn't have the answer.

"That's when I realised my question about life was bigger than that music itself," she says.

She was coming to the end of her university studies, and on the outside, everything looked fine. She was studying music, she had goals. But something was missing.

"Music had always been my language, but sometimes, when I couldn't find deeper meaning in what I was doing, when music felt like only technique or performance, I felt empty," she says.

Yirui grew up in Hangzhou, China. Her parents were teachers, and religion played little part in their lives.

"My mother went to temple to pray for us, but she always told me that you need to believe in yourself, not something else," she says.

She was a quiet, shy child, but when she played the piano, she felt as if she was in communion with the composer of the piece.

She moved to Italy to pursue her musical studies, and in walking past churches, she began to feel curious about the people sitting in silence inside.

In her final year of studies, she took a course in sacred music. "[It] carried an inexplicable feeling of holiness, as if time stood still," she says. "It was a feeling I'd never had before."

Through her studies, she came across the composer Antonio Vivaldi's piece, Gloria.

"[Playing it], I felt a sense of nakedness as if being exposed in broad daylight," she says.

And then she began to wonder about the composer's words.

"Who is the Son of the father? Why is he called the Lamb of God? Why is he able to take away the sins of the world?"

These questions led her to a Chinese priest in Milan, and she began to take classes in Christian teaching. In 2023, Yirui was baptised, and she now wants to be known as Eleanora to reflect her new life.

"The day after I woke up feeling very grateful. I felt accepted. I felt loved."

Now she feels the existence of music is a testimony to the existence of God.

"I believe through music people can find a kind of supernatural peace and presence of beauty. This for me is the presence of God," she says.

🎧Heart and Soul https://bbc.in/4l0RkYd

Five hundred years ago this month, February 1526, printing presses in Germany churned out the first print run of the first edition of William Tyndale’s English translation of the New Testament.

Ten years later Tyndale would be killed because he dared to produce it. Tyndale's determination to translate the New Testament from the Greek text into the common language of English helped move the Bible from being available only in universities and monasteries in England to being accessible to ordinary Christian people. As Mark Thompson writes in this engaging piece, "Tyndale was an instrument in God's hand to make his word available to English speaking people around the globe." Praise God!

Read Now:
https://moore.edu.au/resources/william-tyndale-translator-and-martyr/

https://iscast.org/opinion/why-mathematics-made-me-curious-about-god/

How amazing to witness how Austin's faith gave him extraordinary strength to reach help for his family...

A student at Mundaring Christian College, Austin (pictured right) was with his mum, brother and sister in WA's south west when their kayak was swept out to sea.

He swam for nearly four hours in rough seas to get to shore. Determined to get help and save his family he told reporters that prayer, Christian songs and happy thoughts kept him going.

After finally reaching reaching land, he ran a further 2km to get help.

Thanks to his bravery and the efforts of rescuers, Austin's family were found, alive, well after dark, 14km off shore, still clinging to their paddle board!

Austin said, “I don’t think it was me who did it. It was God the whole time.

“I kept praying and praying, and I said to God, ‘I’ll get baptised, I’ll get baptised.’”

He says he "had a lot of guilt in his heart" not knowing if he made it quickly enough for his family to be saved.

Applebee said he then went to church that Sunday. “I didn't think I was a hero - I just did what I did,” he told the BBC.

May God always grant you His strength Austin 🙏

Christian schools seek to be free to provide an environment for students to apply flexible learning approaches according to their needs.

To continue our mission, our schools need:
- Focus on flourishing - that Christian education is holistic and brings positive outcomes according to world class research
- Freedom for faith - that our schools can employ Christian staff and manage schools effectively
- Fairness in Funding - that all schools both public and private are affordable and accessible

'I thought I was a bad parent': Thousands struggle with 'school can't' Thousands of Australian parents are struggling with children who cannot go to school. A new podcast and e-book have been released to help support them.

Congratulations to Christian school graduate and Aussie high jump champion Nicola Olyslagers on taking gold at the 2025 Tokyo World Athletics Championships!

After her victory, she said, "I was waiting for hours between the attempts, it was a joy because the light was inside of me, and I knew that if Jesus was enough for me when I was last, He’s enough when I’m first.

“And every time that I was jumping. It was just worship. I was like, let’s go. And so even if waiting and out there in the rain, I have such a joy because I know these moments are forever, the gold medal was the added bonus.”

Thankyou for sharing God's light, Nicola!