My MTS Journey – Rebekah Hudson
How did you hear about MTS and what brought you to attend a recruitment event (and which one)?
I first heard about MTS from my brother Dan. He’d attended the Defence Force Academy in Canberra, and had been going along to MTS events, back when it was called ‘Club Five’. I think I may have dragged my friend along to an MTS day conference in Brisbane, but the real change for me came when I attended an MTS Challenge weekend in Melbourne, back in 2005. I was supposed to be going with my brother and sister-in-law and their kids, but they all got sick, so I went by myself. Fortunately I’d had a brief association with a couple of other girls that were attending, so it was slightly less daunting for an interstate girl with at least some degree of social anxiety!
Did the MTS recruitment event help you in your decision making to embark on an apprenticeship/life in ministry?
That MTS Challenge quite literally changed the course of my life. It sounds like a ridiculously big statement, but up until then I’d been planning to being a theological degree at SMBC the following year – I’d even been accepted. Despite my brother’s encouragement that an apprenticeship would be great value, I’d decided that I was way too old, and should get moving on formal theological training (I was 25 at the time). Over the course of the weekend I realised that I wasn’t ‘too old’, and got an insight into how valuable the hands-on training would be. It also ultimately led to me meeting my now-husband, but that’s a whole different story.
Where did you do an apprenticeship, who was your trainer and what were the key things you learnt from your apprenticeship?
I did my apprenticeship at RMIT, under the directorship of Steve Williams, with Heather Reid as my trainer. There are so many things that I learnt from my apprenticeship, it’s really hard to distil them down into a list of key things! To add some more context to my own personal journey to the apprenticeship, I’d only started going to a ‘decent’ church in the six months prior to starting. Other than that I’d done some Moore correspondence subjects to give me a bit more of a theological foundation. I think sitting under Steve Williams’ teaching was a major learning area for me. I don’t think I’ve ever had so many light bulb moments. Our staff meetings were also amazing training opportunities, pushing us to think a lot more deeply and theologically.
I also learnt so very much about practical ministry. I’d been meeting up with a couple of girls to read the bible together prior to the apprenticeship with no training or personal experience of ever having seen it modelled (so, probably very badly!), but the opportunities to come alongside girls, read the bible and pray with them, challenge them from God’s word and see them change and grow were encouraging and gave me so much more confidence in the God’s ability to shape and change people.
Has your apprenticeship experienced helped you in ministry life?
I enjoyed my apprenticeship so much that I stayed on for another 2 years as a category A staff worker, then we had our first child. Since then I’ve had the opportunity to help out in our local church with some opportunities to teach and encourage women, read the bible with some women, and occasionally deliver an evangelistic talk. I think that the sense of confidence I that I gained from seeing God working powerfully through student’s lives in my RMIT days has given me so much more of a trust in God’s power to keep working in the hearts of those around me, despite what can sometimes feel like the mundanity of raising small children. I know that he is at work, and I am still excited to have the opportunity to continue to be a part of that work, in the context that I find myself in now.
What have you done since your ministry apprenticeship and what are you up to now?
Since my apprenticeship I’ve been involved in helping out with women’s ministry in the local churches that we’ve been involved in, and some one-to-one discipleship relationships. Currently I’m helping to run a fairly evangelistic playgroup and trying to be a good witness to those around us in our local community, and a godly mum to our four kids. My husband is finishing up a PhD in the next couple of months, so we’re excited to see where God takes us after that.