But before I post about anything on the trip itself, I'd love to share how I ended up going on this trip in the first place. Many people have wondered such as this trip wasn't really targeted towards attracting college students. I might not have always given the most complete and cohesive answer to people who've asked me, so here goes now...
Throughout my first year of college, God developed a great heart for evangelism on me. But the seeds for this were sown even before the school year started. In fact, during my senior year in high school, a certain Hi Koi counselor remarked to me how easy it was for Christians to go to college and stay in a comfortable Christian "bubble" the entire time. What she meant by this is that it's so easy to go to class and never have to be acknowledged or noticed or talk to the people next to you. So you can join a fellowship and it's so easy to only ever talk to and hang out with those people. But God wants us to be amongst the world, not blocked off from it! As I was reflecting on my high school years the summer after graduation, I felt that I had been very much in this Christian bubble. I was involved in a myriad of church activities that ate up most of my time, and what free time I had left for school after academics went towards Christian Club. I was the face of my high school Christian Club. But that didn't mean anything to the people outside the Christian Club who needed Christ the most. In this bubble, I lacked opportunities (or lacked the sight to see opportunities) to meet and furthermore share my faith with non-Christians. So going into college, I made it a goal to join some sort of campus club that was specifically not Christian. That ended up being a taiko group: Yukai Daiko.
Around the same time, I did also join a Christian campus ministry: Titus. Apart from the very sound Biblical teaching, I also joined this ministry because it was evident that God's work was continually being done in each of the members. Though they were few in number compared to most other campus ministries, they were prominent and their personal testimonies were powerful to me. As I spent time with them over a few months, I saw that each person lived in genuine pursuit of godliness, with discipline, and in obedience to the Great Commission to make disciples. They were constantly bringing in reports of people whom God graciously allowed them to share the gospel with and whom they were praying for and following up with. Their day-to-day lives were truly gospel-driven, and this inspired to live the same way and to passionately seek salvations in Yukai.
But besides these "long-term relational evangelisms", so I coin them, Titus also regularly went out in groups for "cold-turkey" evangelism throughout campus. Although we've all probably seen something like that at some point (e.g. "street evangelists") and maybe even hold some false stereotypes about it, actually doing it was something fairly new to me, and so I was definitely timid and uncomfortable with it at first. I wondered how effective it actually was. Would people actually be open to some random guys going up to them and asking to share the gospel with them? But as I continued to go out on these evangelism expeditions, I was surprised at how friendly people were and at how many were actually totally open to hearing the gospel. These people were genuinely interested in hearing what we had to say and in conversing with us about it, asking questions, sharing their experiences and thoughts. In some cases they would be so drawn to the gospel that they would then come out to our Bible study, and after a healthy period of continuing to search and learn, they would knowingly, comprehensively submit to Christ as their Savior and Lord! It brought the Biblical truth of Matthew 9:37 before my eyes that indeed "the harvest is plentiful". Also, I came to a clearer understanding of the Parable of the Sower (Matt. 13:1-23). There is good soil out there: people who will accept Christ if someone simply goes and preaches the gospel to them! We need to be persistent sowers and keep on throwing seed out there! Yes, sometimes we will preach the gospel and it will hit roads and rocky places and thorns, but we live to see the gospel hit that good soil, take root, grow, bear fruit, and multiply. The gospel is the power of God (Rom. 1:16), and it is amazing that the message that can save is able to come forth from our lips. People just need to GO! The harvest is plentiful... "but the workers are few. Therefore, beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest" (vv. 37-38).
So, when I was at church prayer meeting that one fateful Wednesday evening the following summer, it was on the agenda to pray for the India team, which was leaving within the following week. The India team was present, so team leader Donald shared a little about what they would be doing in India. That was the very first time I had heard anything about this India team. When I heard that they would be going to primitive, unreached villages and doing straight-up, hut-to-hut evangelism, without any other sort of platform, completely as the Spirit leads, I thought that was SO COOL! Missions could not be more pure than that, relying solely on the guidance of the Holy Spirit and on the power of the gospel to save souls outrightly. For the most part, I knew at that point that I wanted to go on this mission trip the next summer. When the team returned from India later that summer, they reported that God opened doors for them to preach the gospel to THOUSANDS and to save HUNDREDS. (They gave exact numbers.) I was blown away, praising God for the great work and expansion of His Kingdom that He was doing in India, and I absolutely could not wait to go on these front lines of raw spiritual battle in India. As I prayed about it, I only became more and more eager, and in this way the Lord confirmed that He was indeed calling me to go to India.
No comments:
Post a Comment