India, Part 5: The Team, The Church

One of the biggest blessings of this mission trip to India had, in some respect, nothing to do with India itself. And that blessing is, as you probably surmised from the title of this post, getting to know and interacting, both individually and as a group, with all my fantastic teammates.

For the readers who don't know, my church, FCBC-LA, is kind of ridiculously huge, population-wise: well into the thousands. And huge congregations tend to naturally develop a lot of cliques and divisions, simply because after a certain point, it's just not practical for everyone to try to know everyone, much less be close with everyone. So you stumble upon some group of people whom you can relate with, whose company you find preferable, and you focus on those relationships. And thus, a clique of sorts is born. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I believe God wants us to have a few close brothers and sisters in Christ whom we can confide freely in and share our souls with, and certainly FCBC and several other churches rightfully promote these "deeper" relationships with small/cell groups, accountability partners, discipleship/mentoring, and other such modes. But then this grouping becomes further accentuated when on the larger scale of things, groups receive divisive labels like "Mandarin-speaking", "Cantonese congregation", "English-speaking adults", "young adults", "college group", "youth congregation", "children's"... Still, this is not in itself a bad thing. In fact, for such a highly populated church, these are very necessary and practical divisions in order to effectively minister to everyone. The problem arises when in people's minds, boundaries are drawn between these macro-groups because they can spend decades at this church and never see those boundaries crossed. There is little to no interaction between these different congregations separated by language and age, and so for all practical purposes it seems as if we are multiple churches in one place rather than simply one church. Now, by God's good grace this issue is not actually as bad as I may be making it sound, but it certainly has plenty of room for improvement.

This has been a recurring concern of mine for the past year or so, and therefore something that I believe God is putting on my heart. First, I had the opportunity to serve the Mandarin congregation in July 2009 by going with them on their summer retreat and working in childcare there. Then I remember a month after that there was this funny old Chinese-speaking lady that wanted to keep playing with my camera on the bus up to (and down from) College/Young Adult/Family Camp. Then this past March, a bunch of Chinese-speaking collegians and adults joined us on the Amor house-building trip to Mexico, and they were bunches of fun and excitement to work with! Through all these experiences, I've been gradually made conscious of "the other sides" of the church that I've mostly never really gotten to know in the former 19-some years that I've been here. (What a shame!) And then this India trip came and epitomized all these experiences.

Not gonna lie. It was kind of awkward looking around the room at our first India team meeting after the team had been finalized and realizing that I was the only collegian and furthermore the youngest one on the team. All other mission trips that I've been on have been with people whom I can call my peers: I went to the Navajo reservations in Arizona when I was a high school student with other high school students; I went on the house-building Amor trip to Mexico as a collegian with other collegians. But on this trip, out of a group of 15 people from FCBC, I was the sole representative of my age category. Instead of being with my peers, I was now with my peers' parents (Steph's dad, Ryan's dad (/Josh's uncle), Ethan's mom, Nathan's dad, Christiana's mom) and many of their peers (/my parents peers). We also had a couple of adults from the Chinese-speaking "side" with us. For sure, I was a bit intimidated. Everyone just seemed to be in a further stage of life than me, and I wasn't sure that I "fit" the team. But ultimately, I was confident of the call that I had to fulfill, so I stood firm in it and didn't allow any sort of social awkwardness, lonesomeness, or feeling of lack of belonging to deter me. And I'm so glad I did! I now believe that one of the very reasons that the Lord wanted me on this trip was to interact with people outside of my ordinary social "boundaries". In a church as big as FCBC, there were definitely some people on the team whom I didn't even know existed 7 months ago! But in a short time, I found that all these so-called "adults" on the team are such wacky and ridiculous yet passionate and heaven-minded people. After months of meeting and training together, I was comfortable with the group and eager to finally embark on this journey with them!

So there the 15 of us were from FCBC, and then by the time we got to the hotel in Hyderabad, India, we had rendezvoused with 14 other teammates from across America. (Among these 14 there were two collegians and even one high school student, but I was so over that by this time.) The group from FCBC was already pretty diverse, but throwing in the additional 14, we were even more so. Among the 29 of us we represented all of high school, college, middle-aged, old, Chinese, Mexican, African, Caucasian, Filipino, single, married, engaged, divorced, experienced, and first-time missionaries. It took a little while for everyone to get familiar with each other, but then we just melded in a really special way. There's just something about sharing a common salvation in Christ, being obedient enough to come halfway across the world to share that salvation, facing persecution and running away from certain opposition, and then getting back on your feet to readily do it all over again that brings people together.

I had the privilege of leading worship for the team a few times over the course of the trip. I've been a worship leader for five-some years now (depending on how you count/when you start counting) and I must confess that my personal worship when I lead is probably wrongly based largely on the quality (as far as I can imperfectly gauge) of the congregation's worship. And so occasionally, I do find a group "difficult" to worship with because they seem "difficult" to lead in worship because they don't seem like they're worshiping! To some degree, I feel a bit of responsibility for that and so find that discouraging, perhaps wrongly so, but honestly and bluntly, I do. But I have to say that with this India team, it was the exact opposite case. If ever I found a group that was "easy" to lead in worship, it was these guys! Every worship time alongside them was incredible! It was a gulp of heaven as our passionate praises gloriously rang out to exalt the Exalted One. A couple of times when I led I would invoke them to lift up words of personal praise prayers aloud. Usually when I have groups do this, there's one praise prayer followed by a lot of awkward silence, followed by more awkward, then another praise prayer, then back to awkward silence, etc. But with this group, there would be one praise right after another, right after another; they'd overlap each other and keep going on and on and on and on, recognizing the marvelous attributes of our God that are beyond count. Even in the darkest night, when we would receive bad news about Livingston and be concerned for the nationals and for our mission, they knew what they came for and they kept their eyes on the prize. They trusted the Lord, ceased striving, and surrendered themselves to His sovereign hand. Their confidence in His power and His plan was so evident in their poise, in their prayers, and in their worship. I felt like at any moment I could bust out in any worship song and they would quickly enjoin their hearts with mine in exalting our God. (And that actually happened once or twice just randomly and spontaneously when we were in the car driving somewhere! Definitely one of the most memorable worship experiences I've ever had! So awesome!) It was so encouraging and definitely spurred me and my faith onward in the moments of the trip that seemed outwardly perilous.

Singing praises of worship during one of our team meetings. (Photo credit: Clark Edmond.)

Working with this team gave me a deeper understanding of what it means to bear one another's burdens (Gal. 6:2), what it means to sharpen one another (Prov. 27:17), and what Paul means when he calls his fellow brothers and sisters of the church his hope, joy, crown, and glory (I Thes. 2:19-20). And this certainly helped to make us as useful and effective as possible during our time together on the mission field. So once again, I close this blog with a challenge to you for your edification. Can you say that you are experiencing this same sort of relationship with your church (both local and universal)?

I'd say for a few months earlier this year, in my evangelism life I had "gone solo" in my thinking. I saw God and me trying to impact the unbelievers whom I came into contact with at school. Of course, I was still going to church at the time. But for some reason during that period of time I became distant from the life of the church and was not sharing in this deep mutual fellowship that Paul so longs to have with the church in his epistles. And so after a while, I began to burn out; my joy was lacking without the love and unity with the church that makes our joy complete (Phil. 2:2). I fatally forgot that the church plays such a vital role in missions and evangelism! Too often we view them almost as opposites: "inreach versus outreach". But the Bibles instructs us otherwise. Jesus said, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:34-35 NASB, italics mine). And Paul wrote, "that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church" (Eph. 3:10 NASB, italics mine). Inreach and outreach, fellowship with the church and evangelism to the world are interconnected. One is incomplete without the other. But it starts with (loving your God, and then) loving your church, His church, His bride. And it's hard to love the church when you don't actually even know everyone in it. So yes (trying now to bring this full circle and come back to where I started at the beginning of this post), it may be practical to make certain groupings in the local church to promote the kind of deep fellowship, accountability, and brotherhood/sisterhood that I've been describing, but don't let those groupings become boundaries. Don't become complacent with the few good relationships that you have in the church and think that those are "good enough". In fact, don't ever become complacent, period. Always be striving to find creative ways to love the church, the whole church, as Christ loves the church. For it is through this love for each other, that God will make His name famous.

Thank you, India team! You guys are amazing!

India, Part 4: The Opposition

Now this is where things get kind of intense. Things were not so hunky dory as simply (but miraculously) going from village to village, preaching the gospel, and seeing people come to Christ all the time. There was very evident opposition set against us, and as I've had a few opportunities since returning from India to tell people everything that happened there from start to finish, these oppositions seem to characterize the trip. So, this post is dedicated to highlighting these -- so I've been calling them -- "oppositions".

On route to India, we stopped for a day in Singapore. We all went to eat at a crowded bazaar-like food gallery. During the hour there, one of our team members, Ann, starting not feeling well. She soon vomited. Some people stayed back with her while the rest of us went to visit some Hindu temples and pray against the demonic forces present in those places that were blinding the minds of the people burning incense and bowing down to idols there. In a short time, I started feeling queasy, and then I also vomited. Donald and Peter graciously volunteered to walk me back to the hotel to rest for the day. On the way there, Peter started feeling a little sick as well. Following our lead, Tyler, Irvin, Amy Lee, Katherine, Carson, John, Clark, and even our fearless FCBC team leader Donald also all began to feel sick! And we had not even set foot in India yet! Coming together at our team meeting, we had to come to the realization and conclusion that all of us, dropping like flies, could not have all been getting sick simply by coincidence. Satan was actively working against us, trying to discourage us and hinder God's work. But we chose not to be struck down, but to actively pray against whatever demonic forces in the spiritual realm were working against us and to press firmly onward in the power of Christ. The final plane ride to India was a difficult one for many of our nauseous stomachs, but by the time we finally arrived at our destination, everyone was (relatively) healthy and ready for the battle to get even more heated.

Peter and his barf bag. (Unfortunately, this actual picture was staged.) Photo credit: Amy Lee.

On our ministry days, our team of 29 Americans would travel in 5-6 separate cars to a hall where we would rendezvous with our national Christian Telugu translators. (From there, we would go off in groups of 2 Americans + 1-2 nationals (Christians; some even pastors!) + 1 driver (not necessarily Christian; they were paid help), then splitting off from there 15 different ways to minister to the villages for the day, and not seeing the rest of the team until we all rendezvoused back together at the end of the day.) The normal plan was to rendezvous back at the hall later to debrief on the day of ministry together. But after the very first day of ministry (Monday), our team leaders rushed us out of the rendezvous point and told us to get back to the hotel ASAP! After scrambling into our cars and driving off, enough word had spread down the grapevine for the collection of teammates in my car to piece together enough of what was happening: the local police had seen all of us Americans travelling together and meeting in one place, questioned our Indian leaders about our intentions, and showed displeasure that we were sharing the gospel with the villages. (FYI: sharing the gospel is not actually illegal in India, but Hinduism is the dominant religion there and the police and justice system is known to be corrupt in practice. So if they personally don't like what you're doing, generally you should watch out.) Apparently, as we were piecing this together, our drivers were doing the same in Telugu through their walkie-talkies across their caravan of cars while they were driving. (They didn't speak English. And remember, they're not necessarily Christian.) Suddenly, our drivers all pulled over on the side of the road. Without any attempt to explain to us what they were doing, they got out of their vehicles, congregated together, and seemed to begin arguing about something in their native language. After we had been sitting in those cars for about half an hour, anxious but prayerful, two of the drivers actually kicked us out of their cars and then drove away! After hearing that we were drawing the attention of the police, these guys wanted nothing to do with us and decided to ditch us on the side of the road! By God's grace, not all of our drivers abandoned us, and so we were able to squish everyone into our remaining cars and get everyone back to the hotel safely.

Stuffing tightly in our car. Photo credit: Newton Wong.

At the team meeting that night, Herbert and Amy Lee shared that in the village they visited, a Hindu reporter happened to be there and vigorously tried to question them about what they were doing there. Their translator prudently hurried Herbert and Amy back into the car and away from the village and the reporter. Unfortunately, that was not the last we would see of that...

But despite all the events of the day, we decided to continue moving forward with our ministry work in the villages, keeping our eyes firmly set on the prize and on the work that God sent us to accomplish in India. In practical response to the day's events, we changed our rendezvous point with the translators to somewhere that we hoped would be more subtle and more difficult for police to spot us. We also explored the option, in the event that it might be discerned wiser than sharing the Evangecube (gospel) outright, of sharing the Hope (HIV) Cube as an alternate means of ministering to the people and as a way of giving us a health and awareness platform for sharing the gospel.

Meeting with our translators at our new rendezvous point. Photo credit: Gina Edmond.

Dani sharing the Hope Cube. Photo credit: Gina Edmond.

So Tuesday morning, we went to our new rendezvous point. When our translators arrived, they shared some crazy "news" with us. The Hindu reporter that had encountered Herbert and Amy in the village the day before had printed a front-page article in the newspaper. In it, she "warned" the local Hindus about us Americans and even printing the names of all the Banjara villages that we were intending to visit. Therefore, we decided not to visit anymore Banjara villages. (The Banjara are the poorest people of India, so poor and downcast that they are not even part of a caste in the social ranking caste system of India. They were originally our target people group to minister to.) Luckily, there were many other villages left to visit and minister to, and so we got to learn about new social rankings and caste systems in these parts of India as we visited these villages and ministered to these peoples.

After this, things stayed relatively calm... for a while. Like, a day. As a team, we were able to visit many villages, minister to many people, and see God work in many different ways. Then Wednesday night, we received word that the police were intending to arrest our Indian national leader, Livingston. They were also demanding copies of all of our passports. After consulting local lawyer friends all night, our team leaders decided it was in our best interest (1) not to hand over our passports because of the corrupt nature of the police there, (2) to not go minister in the villages anymore for Livingston's sake, and (3) to change hotels to prevent complications in case the police wanted to come and confront us. So there we were, 6 A.M. Thursday morning and changing hotels within the hour; living by the spur of the moment as the Spirit led...

Several people have asked me since returning to the US if at any point during this ordeal I was scared. I can honestly say that I was not. I certainly credit a lot of my not being scared to all my very faithful and encouraging teammates, whom I intend to talk about in my next post. But mostly, it was the peace of being in God's will that didn't even leave room in my mind for the thought of being scared. I often thought back to the apostle Paul in the book of Acts and how he ran into opposition everywhere he went. Several Jews hated Paul and even pursued him from city to city, perpetually stirring up crowds against him. But Paul never cowered from his mission of sharing the gospel wherever the Lord allowed him to share day after day. And now, I think I understand a little more how Paul was able to do it. Being in the Lord's will and doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing, what you were made to do... feels... EXHILARATING! There is an unsurpassed joy that comes from obeying God's commands. And this joy just fuels you further to keep obeying despite every obstacle you may encounter along the way in a cycle that continues turning every day until we finally find ourselves in the very presence of everlasting Joy.

"If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full."

-John 15:10-11 NASB

(Thanks, Ethan, for writing the devo on this for Jr. High Camp!)

India, Part 3: Make Disciples (not just converts)

The second village that Kathi and I arrived at was called Allipur, and it was (spiritually) completely different from the first village. The second we stepped out of our vehicle, the local villagers immediately began flocking towards us. Kathi wanted to begin our ministry in the village by prayerwalking again, but that was almost not physically possible this time because we were surrounded by people who wanted to hear our message RIGHT AWAY! So far be it from us to keep them from it. I began to share the gospel with them. Midway through the presentation, I noticed a creepy-looking old lady who was squatting down and sharpening two hand scythes against each other while she listened. I was a bit frightened on the inside as she was pretty close to me and I imagined her snapping and suddenly charging towards me with those scythes like something out of a horror movie the moment I said something she didn't like. But, taking a deep breath and trusting in God whether he would have me live or die, I kept going, and when I asked at the end if anyone wanted to accept Christ, 8 or 9 people raised their hands, including that lady! One of men who accepted Christ was so excited that he told us he would go gather more people in the village to also hear the gospel! We would soon identity this man to be the "man of peace."

The "man of peace" is an evangelistic concept that I learned from working with e3, but it's actually a Biblical concept found in Luke 10:1-16. In this passage, Jesus gives specific, strategic instructions on how to do evangelism. Particularly, in verses 5-7, He says, "Whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace be to this house.' If a man of peace is there, your peace will rest on him; but if not, it will return to you. Stay in that house, eating and drinking what they give you; for the laborer is worthy of his wages. Do not keep moving from house to house" (NASB). Basically, the man of peace is a person of influence in his community who is open to the gospel. e3 realizes that it's not practical for us personally to try to share the gospel with every single person in these villages that we visit in the short time that we have there (some of these villages are almost as big as cities), but if we can find just this one person of influence and focus on ministering to him (rather than continually "moving from house to house"), then there will be a foothold for the gospel in that village, and the purifying fire of the gospel can continue to spread through him long after we short-term American missionaries have left.

So thanks to our eager man of peace, Kathi and I were able to share the gospel TWO MORE TIMES in that same village, and both times even MORE people came to accept Christ! It was extremely encouraging.

This year, e3 also began implementing a certain "POUCH study" (Participative, Obedient, Unpaid workers in Cell groups of House fellowships) for discipleship purposes since Jesus does not tell us in the Great Commission simply to make converts, but to make disciples, people devoted to following and growing in likeness to Jesus Himself. Basically, POUCH is a Bible study method in which a small group of people read (or listen to) a Bible passage together and then answer a series of six questions. The first five analyze what the passage is teaching and what you're going to take away from it. The last question is, "Who are you going to share this with next?" This is the key question of sorts because it allows the POUCH study to keep expanding and allows spiritual feeding to multiply. POUCH is not complete until everyone has been obedient and followed through on this last question. This method addresses the lack of qualified pastors available to teach the vast numbers of believers throughout the tons of villages out there. We pray that God might raise up pastors to shepherd all the believers in the villages, but until He does, POUCH allows the believers to be to some degree spiritually self-sufficient and to continue learning and growing without dependency on a pastor to come in and teach every week.

So on the third day of ministry in the villages, Kathi and I returned to Allipur and did a POUCH study with the man of peace and a few other men. One of the villagers kindly laid out a blanket for us to all sit down on her porch. Many of the villagers could not read, but e3 had provided us with these awesome "talking Bibles" that could recite (in their language, Telugu) any chapter of the Bible. So we played the passage about the feeding of the five thousand for them and began going through the POUCH questions with them. As far as I could tell (since they spoke in Telugu and my translator would continue to converse with them in Telugu and I only got the paraphrased version of what was going on through my translator every few minutes), they all gave pretty thoughtful and encouraging answers. Kathi noted to me that, while we continued to refer back to the passage in our English Bibles opened in front of us to answer the questions, all the local villagers had only heard the passage from the talking Bible once, and yet they remembered every detail and referred back to specific parts of the passage in their answers. These guys did not miss a beat, but they hung eagerly, hungrily, even desperately onto every word spoken from the Bible. If only we had this same hunger for the Word, our lives, our communities, our world would be so different!

So I'll close this post with that challenge to YOU. Yeah, that's right, YOU! Do you read your Bible eagerly, hungrily, desperately? Do you wrestle with every inspired word? Can you say as King David did about merely the first five books of the Bible (because that's all the Scripture that he had during his time) that you are one of those whose "delight is in the law of the LORD,/ And in His law he meditates day and night" (Psa. 1:2 NASB). I leave it to the excellent exposition of Charles Spurgeon on this verse to say the rest...

"And now mark his positive character. His delight is in the law of the Lord. He is not under the law as a curse and condemnation, but he is in it, and he delights to be in it as his rule of life; he delights, moreover, to meditate in it, to read it by day, and think upon it by night. He takes a text and carries it with him all day long; and in the night watches, when sleep forsakes his eyelids, he muses upon the Word of God. In the day of his prosperity he sings psalms out of the Word of God, and in the night of his affliction he comforts himself with promises out of the same book.

"The law of the Lord is the daily bread of the true believer. And yet, in David's day, how small was the volume of inspiration, for they had scarcely anything save the first five books of Moses! How much more, then, should we prize the whole written Word which it is our privilege to have in all our houses! But, alas, what ill treatment is given to this angel from heaven! We are not all Berean searchers of the Scriptures. How few among us can lay claim to the benediction of the text! Perhaps some of you can claim a sort of negative purity, because you do not walk in the way of the ungodly; but let me ask you -- Is your delight in the law of God? Do you study God's Word? Do you make it the man of your right hand -- your best companion and hourly guide? If not, this blessing belongeth not to you."

Source: http://www.searchgodsword.org/com/tod/view.cgi?book=ps&chapter=001&verse=002

India, Part 2: The First Village

Sorry for not posting all too frequently. I was counseling at FCBC's Jr. High Camp last week, and I hope to do a post on that soon because I witnessed some truly awesome things that God did there, but I'll try to keep things in order and post about one event at a time. And at the moment, there are at least three more India posts I have sketched up in my head, so on we go...

I got at least one "complaint" of sorts that my last post was disappointing because he really wanted to hear about what actually happened in India and, already being valiantly up to date with my life, he didn't actually learn anything new from reading that post. So I was going to dedicate this second post to all my fellow teammates on this trip, but that might be passive enough to draw another complaint, so I'll switch the order of the posts around and jump straight into what happened in the villages right now...

Going into this trip, I was prepared with the understanding that it would be a very straightforward and direct sharing of the gospel. I was very objective and checklist-minded, ready to mechanically draw a crowd with my guitar, preach the gospel using the Evangecube, and ask if anyone wanted to accept Christ. Easy as 1, 2, 3! Bam, bam, bam! I thought we were trying to get to as many villages as we could and bring the gospel to as many people as possible. (There are a LOT of villages and thus a LOT of people in India!) I thought I didn't have time to stop and get to know people and sympathize with their stories. I thought I'd leave that up to God and the power of the gospel. But God decided to leave it up to me, His chosen hands and feet.

Our team split up and went out two by two, plus a native Christian translator or two. I ended up being paired with a sweet older lady from Maryland named Kathi. She was actually one of the team co-leaders who works for e3, the global missions organization that we were partnering with. So when we were on route to the very first village that we visited to evangelize to and she said that the first thing we should do was just to walk around and pray, I didn't argue aloud, but I internally wondered if it was really necessary. Yet as we wandered around and attracted more than a few bewildered gazes from the village people, we came across several Hindu structures (e.g. altars, temples) and sensed the strong Hindu influence that was present.

Not the exact same one that Kathi and I saw, but one of the many Hindu structures that our team saw throughout the villages. Photo credit: Gina Edmond.

After a while, I did finally get to go down my checklist. As we found a sort of village center, I began playing a few worship songs with my guitar, and as I began to draw a curious crowd of locals my songs between interspersed with hopes and prayers that God would save these people before me. I was starting to get pumped, thinking to myself, "This it it! This is the reason that I came here! This is it! I'm going to share the gospel with these people and see salvations!" So I shared... and no one accepted Christ. Hinduism was too deeply rooted in their hardened hearts, and they could not accept the idea of there being only one, true God rather than their many, many gods. Interestingly enough, at least one man (and probably more) actually knew some parts of the Bible, and sang (by memory) a passage from the book of Psalms to us. They knew about God, my God, yet they could not accept Him as the only God. It was frustrating to me that these people seemed so close to salvation, and yet so far. This first village yielded three main reminders to me: (1) knowledge alone does save; (2) no matter how much or how little time you spend with a given person or people, sharing the gospel must always be relational; (3) not everyone is sent to reap; some sow, some water, some plow; yet all are necessary to result in harvest; we must trust in God's sovereign timing along this process to make Him famous.

OK, I'm really tired now, so I'll talk about the other villages later. Good night.

India, Part 1: The Call

This is the first of a series of posts about my recent mission trip to India. Each post will address a different aspect of the trip that I was blessed by and thus would like to share about. Not that missions are in any way all about me and how I am able to benefit from them, but when you really see God working and moving on the mission field, you cannot help but gain something: a certain awe and joy in your heart. And consequently, these are the things that then become the most natural to share. And so I write not to boast of how I've benefited from this trip, but to boast of the One who has benefited me in hopes that you might also reap the benefits that comes from marveling at His wonders.

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.