The Lord has truly do
ne amazing things in the past 6 weeks through our summer project in East Asia. Since the country that we were in is closed to missionaries, our official reason to be there was language study. We attended and lived at the #3 University of the province hoping to start a new ministry there. More than 30,000 students attend this university and our group of 11 were the only Americans there. This celebrity-like status tremendously helped us in our ministry because students were very interested in being friends with us and that gave us ample opportunity to share our faith.
Each day I would spend the morning in language class and then go to the cafeteria for lunch. Because I was unfamiliar with the food and wanted to make friends that I could eventually share Jesus with, I would approach a girl and ask her to help me get my food. Then I would ask her to if we could eat lunch together. While getting to know each other over lunch I would try to bring up some sort of spiritual topic to see if she might be interested in hearing more about Jesus at a later date. If she seemed interested, I would get her phone number and meet her another day to share more. Once I felt that a student was genuinely interested, I would bring out a copy of the 4 spiritual laws in English and their language. We would read through it and then I gave them the chance to place their faith in Christ. At the end of the summer two of the girls I shared with placed their faith in Christ, and in total for our team, we saw 14 students begin relationships with Jesus!
Let me tell you about Molly. I met her the last week we were on campus and when she found out that I was a Christian, she boldly told me that she wanted to know how to become a Christian. This was very unusual for an East Asian student to express so much spiritual interest the first time to meet; so I arranged to meet her another day at the Kentucky Fried Chicken across the street from campus. As I began to make small talk with Molly and her friend, Molly interrupted and asked “How can I be a Christian?” I was in awe at how God had been working in her heart to bring her to this point. So we went over the gospel and how she could pray to receive Christ. She was so sweet and sincere as she asked me if it was ok to pray in public. I told her that it was ok as long as she did it silently (for security reasons). So she folded her hands, bowed her head and prayed right there in the KFC while her friend and I sat by her side. Praise God for our new sister in Christ!
ne amazing things in the past 6 weeks through our summer project in East Asia. Since the country that we were in is closed to missionaries, our official reason to be there was language study. We attended and lived at the #3 University of the province hoping to start a new ministry there. More than 30,000 students attend this university and our group of 11 were the only Americans there. This celebrity-like status tremendously helped us in our ministry because students were very interested in being friends with us and that gave us ample opportunity to share our faith.Each day I would spend the morning in language class and then go to the cafeteria for lunch. Because I was unfamiliar with the food and wanted to make friends that I could eventually share Jesus with, I would approach a girl and ask her to help me get my food. Then I would ask her to if we could eat lunch together. While getting to know each other over lunch I would try to bring up some sort of spiritual topic to see if she might be interested in hearing more about Jesus at a later date. If she seemed interested, I would get her phone number and meet her another day to share more. Once I felt that a student was genuinely interested, I would bring out a copy of the 4 spiritual laws in English and their language. We would read through it and then I gave them the chance to place their faith in Christ. At the end of the summer two of the girls I shared with placed their faith in Christ, and in total for our team, we saw 14 students begin relationships with Jesus!
Let me tell you about Molly. I met her the last week we were on campus and when she found out that I was a Christian, she boldly told me that she wanted to know how to become a Christian. This was very unusual for an East Asian student to express so much spiritual interest the first time to meet; so I arranged to meet her another day at the Kentucky Fried Chicken across the street from campus. As I began to make small talk with Molly and her friend, Molly interrupted and asked “How can I be a Christian?” I was in awe at how God had been working in her heart to bring her to this point. So we went over the gospel and how she could pray to receive Christ. She was so sweet and sincere as she asked me if it was ok to pray in public. I told her that it was ok as long as she did it silently (for security reasons). So she folded her hands, bowed her head and prayed right there in the KFC while her friend and I sat by her side. Praise God for our new sister in Christ!
After finishing 5 weeks in our country we traveled to Busan, South Korea to attend CM2007, a worldwide student missions conference. Though tired from my time in East Asia, this conference was energizing and visionary in thinking about world missions. More than 17,000 students and staff attended from over 129 different countries. One of my most memorable moments of the conference was worshipping with students from Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, and South Africa (the African students sure can dance!)
Each day we heard from speakers who compelled us to reach the 6,000 unreached campuses in the hopes of winning the campus today so that we may win the world tomorrow! After spending 5 weeks in a closed country, worshipping out loud and hearing the vision of why I do what I do was wonderful. If you are interested in more of what happened at CM2007, the sessions were video cast on the web and you can see them at http://soon.kccc.org/Main/program/2007_vod/cmvod_eng.html. or at the videos posted on my main page. Thank you for praying and partnering with me in ministry!
0 comments:
Post a Comment