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Friday, November 21, 2014
Monday, October 13, 2014
God prepares hearts for divine appointments
As Lexie (name changed) was leaving campus, her path crossed with two Cru staff serving at her school in East Asia. That day Lexie was down,
struggling with school, and just wanted to go home. Fortunately, God
had been preparing her heart for this moment. Lexie is a rarity in East
Asia: she speaks English, knows a Christian, and was interested in
learning more about Jesus.
While talking with Lexie about spiritual things, she admitted- "I have evil in me...I don't deserve Jesus."
These two staff members walked through the gospel with her, explaining that Jesus loves her just as she is, and he died for her. She did not have to do anything to deserve Jesus, He gives himself freely to those who invite Him in as savior.
Lexie was overwhelmed by this good news, the grace that God gives us through Jesus. God had been preparing her for this moment, and opened her eyes to see her need to accept Christ into her life.
Our God is sovereign and works in mighty ways to bring people all over the world into a relationship with himself. Lexie now understands how great grace is, and she wants others to be able to hear about Christ's love for them. Lexie is a huge answer to pray for this staff team in East Asia who have been praying for someone to be an ambassador for Christ on her campus!
While talking with Lexie about spiritual things, she admitted- "I have evil in me...I don't deserve Jesus."
These two staff members walked through the gospel with her, explaining that Jesus loves her just as she is, and he died for her. She did not have to do anything to deserve Jesus, He gives himself freely to those who invite Him in as savior.
Lexie was overwhelmed by this good news, the grace that God gives us through Jesus. God had been preparing her for this moment, and opened her eyes to see her need to accept Christ into her life.
Our God is sovereign and works in mighty ways to bring people all over the world into a relationship with himself. Lexie now understands how great grace is, and she wants others to be able to hear about Christ's love for them. Lexie is a huge answer to pray for this staff team in East Asia who have been praying for someone to be an ambassador for Christ on her campus!
Friday, September 26, 2014
Expedition: Ukraine
Last week, our Expedition Cru team arrived in Lviv, Ukraine via an overnight train from Budapest. The Expedition team is made up of 5 recent college grads, who will spend the next 10 months in Eastern Europe. Each month they will travel to a new city, in a new country. They will seek out believers in churches and on college campuses who want to their fellow countrymen for Christ. They will train and equip these believers, who will launch spiritual movements. Then, it's on to a new city.
Jordan, the team leader writes this about their first few days in Ukraine:
"We got in a van with a Lviv Cru staff member to head to Ivano-Frankivsk, our first ministry city in western Ukraine. For parts of the journey we were on the worst roads I have ever been on! The rest of Sunday was spent securing an apartment and getting settled in.
Monday morning, we gathered to pray and then we went to meet with an area youth director. He had invited three other men. They all have a heart to reach international students with the Gospel, so that those who are studying here will return home and impact their cultures and friends. These are primarily Islamic, Hindi, Buddhist and Atheistic students.
Tuesday, two of my teammates met with Baffour, a student from Ghana. Baffour has started to organize a Christian student movement on campus, and is also already sharing is faith on his own. He types John 3:16 on thin slips of paper, cuts them apart, and then shares his faith with others by explaining the Gospel and then giving out the slips of paper. Baffour was ecstatic when we showed him the evangelistic tools that Cru Ukraine uses to share their faith. He will likely be another key volunteer as he is so eager to learn.
In two days, we already may have met two key volunteers. God is working mightily and this is just the start. Pray for endurance, discernment and to be Spirit-led as we move forward."
No doubt you've seen Ukraine in the news lately. But we are trusting God to use our steps of faith in the country to launch and grow movements of people who follow Jesus, and want to share him with others.
Jordan, the team leader writes this about their first few days in Ukraine:
"We got in a van with a Lviv Cru staff member to head to Ivano-Frankivsk, our first ministry city in western Ukraine. For parts of the journey we were on the worst roads I have ever been on! The rest of Sunday was spent securing an apartment and getting settled in.
Monday morning, we gathered to pray and then we went to meet with an area youth director. He had invited three other men. They all have a heart to reach international students with the Gospel, so that those who are studying here will return home and impact their cultures and friends. These are primarily Islamic, Hindi, Buddhist and Atheistic students.
Tuesday, two of my teammates met with Baffour, a student from Ghana. Baffour has started to organize a Christian student movement on campus, and is also already sharing is faith on his own. He types John 3:16 on thin slips of paper, cuts them apart, and then shares his faith with others by explaining the Gospel and then giving out the slips of paper. Baffour was ecstatic when we showed him the evangelistic tools that Cru Ukraine uses to share their faith. He will likely be another key volunteer as he is so eager to learn.
In two days, we already may have met two key volunteers. God is working mightily and this is just the start. Pray for endurance, discernment and to be Spirit-led as we move forward."
No doubt you've seen Ukraine in the news lately. But we are trusting God to use our steps of faith in the country to launch and grow movements of people who follow Jesus, and want to share him with others.
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Reflecting on a Summer in 4J
I've heard it takes one day to recover for every hour of time change you experience when traveling. Returning home from the Middle East meant 8 hours of jet lag recovery, which I think was pretty accurate.
After 6 weeks overseas, I feel like it's taken another 6 weeks to get back to a sense of "normal." But here we are, a few days away from the kickoff of another school year, and I realize I haven't spent much time blogging about the summer I had in the land we in Cru call "4th Journey."
This is the 4th country I’ve had the privilege to travel to in the last 2 years, and what I continue to find in every city I visit is that people are searching for purpose and hope in their lives. They are searching for something to put their trust in. Most put their trust in their government, or themselves, or their religion, or their family.
There are many stories I could share with you about students that we met and conversations that were had. I will tell you one story, about a man I will call "E." Our mission team met E early in the summer. Some of the guys on the team noticed that E had a tattoo in his arm that is from a video game, and decided to strike up a conversation with him. The guys talked about video games, and also got into several spiritual conversations about what E believes. One day, Troy, a student from a school in Wisconsin, had some free time. He decided to call up E and see what he was up to.
E was free and wanted to meet up! Troy knew that we only had a few days left in our city before we left for America. He decided to take a chance and be honest with E and share his life story with him. In the past, Troy had a serious drug problem, and nothing in his life made him happy. Troy explained that when he found out who Jesus was and what he had done for Him on the cross, he realized that everything he was searching for could be found in Christ. The hope and joy and purpose he was looking for could be found through a relationship with God. E was amazed; he never heard anything like that before!
E also had a history with drugs and was searching for joy and purpose in his life. E and Troy walked to E's house, and along the way, Troy explained the Gospel to him. E said he had a desire to follow Jesus, and asked Christ to come into his life right then and there. A few days later, E was able to meet the long-term team of missionaries in our city, and go to church for the first time in his life.
I hope that in the coming months and years, as I stay in touch with the long-term team in our city, that I will hear stories of how God uses E to reach his city and country with the Gospel.
What a powerful story of God’s work. It was encouraging to see our students take steps of faith and share their beliefs- but also to build bridges with people who believe something different than what they believe. Building these bridges because we love others as God has loved us, was our goal this summer, and should be our goal in and every day no matter where we are.
Our team had spent the summer prayer and fasting for God to work. Towards the end, our students were starting to realize that even though we were praying for big things, we might not see God bring someone to faith in Christ while we were in country. We had many conversations about the purpose of our trip: to plant seeds of the Gospel and to wait expectantly for God to grow them. We are not in control of the growth. We cannot reason someone into believing in Jesus; If we can "convince" someone into believing, someone else can "convince" them out of it. I think we all understood in a new light the "definition" of successful witnessing: stepping out in faith in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results to God. We really understood this concept in a new way this summer. After talking through this, we saw E make a decision, which was like the cherry on top of an already awesome summer!
After 6 weeks overseas, I feel like it's taken another 6 weeks to get back to a sense of "normal." But here we are, a few days away from the kickoff of another school year, and I realize I haven't spent much time blogging about the summer I had in the land we in Cru call "4th Journey."
This is the 4th country I’ve had the privilege to travel to in the last 2 years, and what I continue to find in every city I visit is that people are searching for purpose and hope in their lives. They are searching for something to put their trust in. Most put their trust in their government, or themselves, or their religion, or their family.
There are many stories I could share with you about students that we met and conversations that were had. I will tell you one story, about a man I will call "E." Our mission team met E early in the summer. Some of the guys on the team noticed that E had a tattoo in his arm that is from a video game, and decided to strike up a conversation with him. The guys talked about video games, and also got into several spiritual conversations about what E believes. One day, Troy, a student from a school in Wisconsin, had some free time. He decided to call up E and see what he was up to.
E was free and wanted to meet up! Troy knew that we only had a few days left in our city before we left for America. He decided to take a chance and be honest with E and share his life story with him. In the past, Troy had a serious drug problem, and nothing in his life made him happy. Troy explained that when he found out who Jesus was and what he had done for Him on the cross, he realized that everything he was searching for could be found in Christ. The hope and joy and purpose he was looking for could be found through a relationship with God. E was amazed; he never heard anything like that before!
E also had a history with drugs and was searching for joy and purpose in his life. E and Troy walked to E's house, and along the way, Troy explained the Gospel to him. E said he had a desire to follow Jesus, and asked Christ to come into his life right then and there. A few days later, E was able to meet the long-term team of missionaries in our city, and go to church for the first time in his life.
I hope that in the coming months and years, as I stay in touch with the long-term team in our city, that I will hear stories of how God uses E to reach his city and country with the Gospel.
What a powerful story of God’s work. It was encouraging to see our students take steps of faith and share their beliefs- but also to build bridges with people who believe something different than what they believe. Building these bridges because we love others as God has loved us, was our goal this summer, and should be our goal in and every day no matter where we are.
Our team had spent the summer prayer and fasting for God to work. Towards the end, our students were starting to realize that even though we were praying for big things, we might not see God bring someone to faith in Christ while we were in country. We had many conversations about the purpose of our trip: to plant seeds of the Gospel and to wait expectantly for God to grow them. We are not in control of the growth. We cannot reason someone into believing in Jesus; If we can "convince" someone into believing, someone else can "convince" them out of it. I think we all understood in a new light the "definition" of successful witnessing: stepping out in faith in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results to God. We really understood this concept in a new way this summer. After talking through this, we saw E make a decision, which was like the cherry on top of an already awesome summer!
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Final week in 4J
It's hard to believe this is our last week in the land of "4th Journey"! This week we will have final goodbyes with our friends as well as a final picnic where we will introduce students that we've met who are truly seeking God to the staff team that is here full time. At the end of this week our team will head to the capital city in our country for a few days of debrief and touring, then it's back home
It's been a crazy summer full of fun memories, sweet stories of seeing God work on campus, and deep growth happening in our lives. The students on our team are incredible - they are so passionate about seeing the Gospel impact this land where there are so few believers and where hearts are hardened towards the free gift of grace. We are trusting that while we may not see any visible fruit from our summer here, God is pursuing hearts of people here. We know that he is sovereign and he cares about this country - even more than we do.
It's been a crazy summer full of fun memories, sweet stories of seeing God work on campus, and deep growth happening in our lives. The students on our team are incredible - they are so passionate about seeing the Gospel impact this land where there are so few believers and where hearts are hardened towards the free gift of grace. We are trusting that while we may not see any visible fruit from our summer here, God is pursuing hearts of people here. We know that he is sovereign and he cares about this country - even more than we do.
Wednesday, June 04, 2014
Second update from 4th Journey
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We have had a great first couple weeks on campus here in 4th Journey. By the end of week 1, our team was able to meet hundreds of people, and had spiritual conversations with 79 people. With 32 other students, we were able to do a full Gospel presentation. We were also able to re-meet 4 students for a second appointment. We have started counting these individuals with pasta to give us a visual representation of the influence we are having here.
We also have written down every person's name that we've counted thus far so we can pray for them daily. We are definitely seeing the need to cover our work in prayer, that the Lord would bless our efforts and somehow break through the spiritual walls that people have constructed in this place.
We're learning a lot about the culture and language. For a vast majority of the people we've talked with, we are the first followers of Jesus they have ever met. Despite this, there are lots of lies they have been brought up to believe about the Bible, Jesus and the trinity. Please pray for God to open hearts and minds of people we talk to - there are so many obstacles to people understanding. We know it could take many months, maybe even years, for these students we've met to come to believe in Jesus and his work on the cross- if they do at all. But, this hasn't stopped us from pursuing people, because you never know who you might meet and how God might have prepared them to hear about Him.
The team is doing well and most of our students can't get enough of meeting with their new friends. Even though we have a small team of 8 male students and 5 female students (plus me and 3 staff), it is evident that the Lord brought the right students here. They are so passionate about living lives that honor the Lord and making new friends with the hope of sharing Christ with them. They encourage ME daily!
We're learning a lot about the culture and language. For a vast majority of the people we've talked with, we are the first followers of Jesus they have ever met. Despite this, there are lots of lies they have been brought up to believe about the Bible, Jesus and the trinity. Please pray for God to open hearts and minds of people we talk to - there are so many obstacles to people understanding. We know it could take many months, maybe even years, for these students we've met to come to believe in Jesus and his work on the cross- if they do at all. But, this hasn't stopped us from pursuing people, because you never know who you might meet and how God might have prepared them to hear about Him.
The team is doing well and most of our students can't get enough of meeting with their new friends. Even though we have a small team of 8 male students and 5 female students (plus me and 3 staff), it is evident that the Lord brought the right students here. They are so passionate about living lives that honor the Lord and making new friends with the hope of sharing Christ with them. They encourage ME daily!
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Week 1: Ben Yaptim
Our first few days on campus have flown by, and we're seeing God provide some unique opportunities to share the gospel with Middle Eastern college students. Over the first 2 days, our team had spiritual conversations with 30 people, and presented the gospel to 20 more people. We weren't sure what to expect but we are thankful for each of these people we've been able to connect with. We also have bibles that are printed in our country, in the local language, which is a huge resource for us. We hope to go through our entire box of 20 new testaments over the course of our time here.
I'm enjoying learning about the culture here and trying my hand at the language. Along with that comes many embarrassing and awkward moments, but luckily both sides have just been able to laugh them off.
One thing that's surprised me is how many people think that we are German. There is actually a decent number of Germans here, and while most of us on the team are of German descent, I guess I assumed it would be obvious that we are all Americans. Today I was mistaken for a Middle Eastern, (which I thought was hilarious).
I have dubbed this week "ben yaptim!" week - which means "I did it!" As I order food on my own, navigate the bus routes and subway lines, and find my way around campus I am excited to learn I can exist in a foreign place. It's a feeling I've felt a few times before, but also different now as I lead the team and help others live in a new place.
Today I was able to sit down and talk with 9 different women on campus, which was really fun - especially because I was with Hayley, a girl on my team who is a student at USD. We met two women whose names mean "Secret" and "Melody" in their language; they were especially fun to meet with. Please pray that we'd be able to meet up with them again in the coming weeks.
I hope to share some photos this weekend, so stay tuned for another update :)
I'm enjoying learning about the culture here and trying my hand at the language. Along with that comes many embarrassing and awkward moments, but luckily both sides have just been able to laugh them off.
I have dubbed this week "ben yaptim!" week - which means "I did it!" As I order food on my own, navigate the bus routes and subway lines, and find my way around campus I am excited to learn I can exist in a foreign place. It's a feeling I've felt a few times before, but also different now as I lead the team and help others live in a new place.
Today I was able to sit down and talk with 9 different women on campus, which was really fun - especially because I was with Hayley, a girl on my team who is a student at USD. We met two women whose names mean "Secret" and "Melody" in their language; they were especially fun to meet with. Please pray that we'd be able to meet up with them again in the coming weeks.
I hope to share some photos this weekend, so stay tuned for another update :)