Andy Tan's financial support raising 2025

This is my 9th year at Credo (and my 8th working for AFES - my employer). I started as a volunteer in 2016, and then became a part-time AFES staff in 2017. I started working full-time from 2018.

I have a number of responsibilities:

• I'm a staff supporter for the student commmittee at Credo.
• I oversee the Science faculty students at Credo, which includes pastoral care and running faculty-based socials and missions.
• I lead multiple Bible studies every week, and I train student leaders to do the same.
• I give Bible talks / sermons a number of times each semester on campus and sometimes at camps. Outside of Credo, I occasionally help with the preaching at local churches.
• I regularly do personal evangelism with students, including reading the Bible 1-1 and through English practice with international students.
• I have a professional background in tech, so I look after the Credo tech infrastructure, including the web hosting, email, file storage, student database, etc. I also help our student Tech team develop & maintain our website.

Good question! Credo does not charge our students money for serving them. So for me to do this as a job, I have to rely on the financial support of friends and churches that support my ministry through AFES. Money given to my AFES account gets directed towards my salary.

I work 5 days from Monday to Friday (excluding occasional preaching outside of Credo). However, I am currently only paid for 4.5 days of work.

In 2025, a full-time AFES category-C staff is paid $85.2k per year + super. However, I need to raise $111.7k to cover ministry expenses (eg. camps and conferences, equipment, etc.), superannuation, long-service leave and other costs.

But since I'm only getting paid for 4.5 days, my current salary is $76.7k + super.

Another great question! There are many reasons for this:

• AFES adjusts staff remuneration every year around October to align with the national Consumer Price Index (CPI). This is to make sure that staff can be paid a salary that meet average Australian living standards. Eg. In 2025, to get paid for 4.5 days work, I had to raise an additional $4521 compared to 2024.
• Previous supporters occasionally drop off due to a variety of reasons (eg. lost of employment, unpaid leave, etc).
• I've always had a number of one-off givers. These are non-regular, so they don't always give again.
• My Science students don't always get jobs straight after uni graduation. Many end up doing further study elsewhere after they leave Credo. Hence, I cannot rely on grads to keep my ministry supported.