It all started with prayer. Over a little table in the University of Houston student center, Hannah Chang and Elizabeth Barrera bowed their heads together, asking God to lead them to the right students.
Hannah, an InterVarsity USA student leader, had a burden for Latino students. Recently she learned that they comprised 32% of the student body, yet their InterVarsity student groups did not reflect this. She asked Elizabeth, a ministry coordinator from a nearby region, for advice on how to reach these students. Elizabeth suggested that first they prayer walk through the student center.
Their prayer walk led them to Edith and Milagros. After striking up a conversation, Hannah noticed that they were signing up for academic advising appointments. Hannah says that this small detail led to a conversation with a great outcome.
“The rest of our conversation ended up with them asking me questions about the best way to get advising appointments. In that moment, I realized that building trust does not just mean talking about the gospel. It means living out the gospel by meeting people where they are and seeing how we can do life together! At the end of our conversation, I invited them to have lunch with me the following Monday, and they both said yes. At the lunch, I asked if they would be willing to do a Bible study with me on Friday, and they said yes again!”
Hannah is an Asian American student who says she knew little about Latino culture before getting to know Edith and Milagros. She said she initially felt nervous to invite them to a Bible study, but she knew God was guiding her.
She has continued to meet and invite more Latino students to her Bible study. She says that crossing cultures does not have to be scary. Rather, she has found that the best way to learn about another culture is simply to make friends.
“As I continued to build relationships with Latino students, I continued to learn more about their families, their traditions, and their stories. Crossing cultures is hard, but we’re missing out on so much if we choose to only stay with our own ethnic groups. God has created different cultures and ethnicities, and He loves them all. Pursuing Christian fellowship across racial lines allows us to see parts of God that we don’t always see in our own.”
This week let’s praise God for the beautiful diverse church he has created and pray for students who are venturing out of their own culture to reach others.
Pray that students would become aware of the need for outreach to diverse groups and cultures on their campuses.
Pray that students would have the courage to step beyond their own cultural bubbles and pray that they would approach new cultures with a teachable spirit.
Pray for unreached student groups on campuses around the world. Pray that they would be open to friendships with IFES students who care about them.
Nowhere in the world are there more international students than in the USA. And among the 1 million students arriving at universities across the country, are those from some of the least reached countries in the world*: Yemen, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Djibouti – even North Korea. As you meet the following four international students, join with heaven in rejoicing that God is calling people from every nation to follow Him! And pray that there would be more stories of students coming to faith and being equipped to share Christ around the world.
Yang inspired by sacrifice
International student Yang was not a Christian. During the semester he was too busy with his PhD study to spend time exploring more. But he was curious. Over the winter vacation, Yang decided to sign up for Urbana, the InterVarsity student missions conference, to learn more about God.
It was during the prayer night at Urbana that something changed for Yang. He watched as Urbana participants spent an hour praying for the persecuted church. Yang was amazed to hear of the willingness of men and women to give up their lives for Jesus, and even to pray for those persecuting them! Their faith had a profound impact on him. He knew he needed to follow this Jesus too.
Sundeep finds the true light
Students from South Asia were excited to be invited to celebrate Diwali – the Hindu festival of lights – with their InterVarsity friends. Food, fireworks, cricket and singing filled the evening, and the students had the opportunity to share about their Diwali traditions. Then one Christian graduate, a former Hindu from India, shared his testimony of how he had found the true light in Jesus.
After the event, a volunteer invited one of the students, Sundeep, to church. Sundeep had picked up one of the free Bibles. After learning more about the gospel, Sundeep prayed to receive Jesus into his life!
Lily embraces evangelism
“I don’t understand why my Christian friends waited so long to tell me about Jesus!” Lily is a student from East Asia, and after giving her life to Jesus, became a student leader. She has a strong desire to return home to share the gospel among her people. She often reminds others that people are eager to learn about Jesus, and often it’s our timidity which delays their access to the gospel. Lily recently began a seeker Bible study with several students from her country who are curious about Jesus.
Salima discovers she can follow Jesus
Salima is from a country where followers of Jesus are heavily persecuted. A couple of years ago she connected with InterVarsity students and staff through the international group. Salima attended most of their discussions on the life of Jesus that semester and showed a hunger to know more.
Some months after that, one of the staff workers connected with Salima again. Salima explained that she had found a local church of immigrants from her home nation. She had even started hosting their prayer meetings in her home! With the support of many in that community, she was beginning to understand how a person from her country could follow Jesus.
Very recently, Salima started to follow Jesus. Her husband is still investigating the Christian faith.
Ling, a Christian international student from Asia, learned the value of storytelling in her InterVarsity/USA international student fellowship.
She read that God commanded the Israelites to ‘remember’ and constantly share their testimony of how God had delivered them. So Ling decided that each week through video calls she would share with her mother stories of how God was working in her life.
Before long Ling’s brother wanted to hear more about Jesus too. They met virtually each Friday and Ling shared stories of Jesus’ miracles and teaching. Then her sister joined their Bible discussions! Within three months, Ling’s mother, brother, and sister all decided to follow Jesus. Ling has continued discipling them through video calls.
These days are particularly challenging for international students who are away from their families and unable to fly home. But through technology, they can stay in contact with those back home – and even lead family members to know Jesus!
Let’s pray for them this week.
Thank God for Ling’s commitment to sharing stories of Jesus with her family through video calls, and praise God for His saving work in their lives.
Pray for international students in the USA struggling with anxiety and loneliness to find peace and comfort in Christ. Pray that they would feel well supported during this time.
With so much time being spent connecting with those back home, pray that Christian international students would be boldly sharing stories of Jesus with their family and friends.
This is not what I signed up for, Kelley thought. 24 years old and just two
years in to serving InterVarsity USA students, Kelley felt disappointed, weary,
disillusioned.
Being involved in the movement as a
student leader had felt relatively straight-forward. She knew the routine: evangelistic
events, weekly meetings, winter camps, summer missions. Repeat the same next
year. But since joining the staff team it had been so different. Messy. Discouraging.
Heavy. She’d lost count of the number
of students she knew who were struggling with their mental health. Some were
weighed down by a thick darkness. Some had eating disorders. Some were
self-harming. Some were suicidal. What’s
going on here, Lord?
Staff workers, not doctors
Kelley wasn’t an expert on mental
health. But students that she loved were struggling, so she decided to look
into it. Research, books and courses helped, but they didn’t make Kelley a trained
counsellor or psychiatrist. Many of these students needed professional help –
she knew that. Still, Kelley often found herself encountering students struggling
in the difficult in-between zone: perhaps at the beginning of their mental
health concerns, not yet sure if they needed or wanted help; perhaps on the 6-month
waiting list to see university counsellors. Every situation was unique and required
Kelley to be prayerfully discerning and observant, particularly in the early
stages of their interaction:
Is this student struggling because of their
circumstances? Is there an unseen issue that needs to be addressed? Is there a clinical
element as well? Is it serious? Are they just having a bad day? Would it be
sensible to seek professional help?
Though Kelley knew the responsibility
for a diagnosis lay with the doctor, helping students understand themselves would
enable them to get the help they needed more quickly.
The depths of sorrow
Month after month, Kelley
encountered more and more students who were struggling. Then one day, the
community woke up to the terrible news that one of their students had taken his
life. They were devastated. Why, God?
And yet even in the depths of their sorrow, God was at work. The students became
more open to talking: I’ve felt like that
too; I’m in the same place; I think I need help.
Generation Z
The high
rates of mental health problems she encountered on campus got Kelley thinking:
are we just more aware of mental health today, or are the number of cases
increasing? And if so, why? What is it about this generation, often referred to
as ‘generation z’, that perhaps is more prone to struggling in this way? She
reflected:
“Human connection is so lacking. I think social media has a lot to do with it because it fosters a sense of false identity which leads to feelings of separation and isolation. And it’s also the case today, at least in many western countries, that everything is catered to meet your needs. You can have your own social media platforms, your own Spotify playlist, your own personalised Starbucks drink. This creates a bubble with you at the centre, a life that revolves around your needs.
And of course, that’s depressing! It’s not real and it’s not fulfilling. So people try to numb it by doing more on social media, or Netflix, or whatever they need to dull the pain of being alone and isolated.
There are also issues of identity. No-one’s asking ‘who is God?’ anymore. Everyone is asking ‘who am I?’ The self-help books tell you not to worry, just be yourself. But how can you be yourself when you don’t know who you are? And how can you know who you are when you don’t know Christ?”
Robin Worrall – Unsplash
Praying for the 44
Raising
awareness and getting students talking was a good start. But Kelley longed to
see breakthrough. She wrote down the names of all the people she knew personally
who had depression. There were 44. Forty-four! Overwhelmed and sorrowful, Kelley
stuck up the names on her wall in the shape of a cross.
Jesus, I’m
putting these people on Your cross. Through Your blood, I pray for their
healing and rescue. Please restore them to a place of hope.
Not long
after that, Kelley started getting phone calls. The people she was praying for
would ring her and tell her how God was working in their lives. I was in my car and suddenly felt a
lightness, a hope, they’d report, not knowing she had been praying. For
others, the healing came through getting the professional help they needed. Some
found it through medication; others went to therapy and learned tools to manage
their mental health. It wasn’t always a quick fix, but many of them experienced
breakthroughs and healing over the course of a year and a half.
Today there
are just nine names left on Kelley’s wall.
A holistic approach
Often the recovery
of a student with mental health struggles will involve more than just prayer.
But it will never be less. Kelley’s story shows how God used professional
medical help along with the proactive ministry of staff and their persistent prayer
to help and heal many students. As IFES movements face the reality of ministering
to a generation particularly affected by mental health struggles, we must be
ready to take this holistic approach as we walk with students through the
darkness.
How to get support
If you’re a
student struggling with your mental health, we’d encourage you to seek medical help
from your university or doctor, or start by talking to your national movement
or a trusted friend.
Adam was a quiet freshman when staff worker Daniel first met
him. Adam was from a different college without any student ministry, so he came
along to IVCF Canada events at the University of Ottawa. After a year, Daniel
had an idea. He asked Adam if he’d consider planting a new group at his own college.
The group started out small, but gradually grew until it had
to split into two groups! Adam was left to run the first group and lead the
weekly Bible studies on his own, while Daniel helped another student lead the second
group. Adam reflects:
“As a leader I’ve had to grow quite a bit. I’m naturally a very quiet, introverted person but I’ve had to push myself out of my comfort zone and engage with the people who come along.”
Staff worker Daniel’s role of empowering students like Adam to
lead is crucial in this pioneering work. Daniel recently attended the IFES
Breaking New Ground gathering for young pioneers. He, and IFES movement staff
across the world, need your prayers for wisdom and vision to build up student
leaders in 2020.
Pray for the two new groups at Adam’s college to grow in numbers and maturity in the coming year. Pray for new leaders to be found.
In such a vast country, IVCF Canada staff are not able to be present in every university. They must raise up students to start and lead groups. Pray that they would be effective trainers and enablers.
Next week, students in Hawaii will be spending part of their spring break knee-deep in the rich soil of wetland taro patches. As part of their annual retreat, the students will spend a day helping in the fields in the beautiful Waipi’o Valley. Serving the local Hawaiian community and looking after the land are two of the values particularly important to InterVarsity USA’s native Hawaiian ministry.
As well as studying the Bible and listening to God’s Word, the group will spend time with the elders of the Hawaiian communities in Hilo, listening to them and learning about their past. Learning Hawaiian history helps the students embrace their identity as Hawaiians, while they grow in their faith as Christians. There is much pain in their history, yet also, in Christ, hope for restoration and healing.
The students want to help their friends see that you can be a Christian and be Hawaiian. They want to show that God cares about their culture, their communities and their land.
Join us in praying for them this week:
Pray that the students would be a blessing as they help in the fields and spend time with the local community.
Pray that the students would know how to live out their identity as Hawaiian Christians.
Pray that the ministry would grow this year as students experience the love of Christ.
Alee first met Sha K’ Paw on 20 June — World Refugee Day. He was one of the volunteers, helping out amidst the good-natured chaos of the face-painting, soccer tournament and fashion show. The annual event in Omaha, USA always attracted big crowds, and that year was no exception. Alee, an InterVarsity staff worker, had the responsibility of coordinating the team of volunteers.
They hadn’t had many high school student volunteers in the past, so the fact that these young people were volunteering stood out to her. She got talking to two of them — Sha and his friend, Sunkist — both Karen refugees from Myanmar. It turned out that they were planning on going to the University of Nebraska Omaha (UNO) that fall. Alee’s ears pricked up! She’d met Karen children before, but she’d never met Karen students going to college. They chatted away. And then she took a stab in the dark: “Are you two followers of Jesus?”
Sha K’ Paw
Sha K’ Paw was born in Myanmar, a country in South Asia marked by a long, devastating civil war. At the age of seven he moved to a refugee camp in Thailand, where he stayed for six years, without his parents. It was a simple life: every day Sha went to school, played with his friends and ate rice with mung bean soup. His dormitory was run by Christians who taught the children to read the Bible and pray every morning and evening.
At 12, Sha moved to the US with his aunt in search of a better life, and was suddenly plunged into a totally different world: the culture, the language, the people — everything was different. He writes:
“I had heard people tell stories about what ‘third countries’ (countries where the refugees settle) are like. I’d heard they have a lot of food, great education, freedom and opportunity. And when I got to the US, I found the stories were true: the country was full of great things. But there were struggles too. I no longer had to worry about my empty stomach, but I had to worry about eating too much. I no longer had to worry about war, but I couldn’t speak English, and I struggled with school and understanding the culture. I no longer had to live in fear, but I still worried about my future.
As a teenager, I looked back and I could see how God had led me safely through life. There had been moments in my life when I’d felt alone and abandoned — but God had been there with me. There had been moments when I’d wanted to quit — but God had strengthened me. Realising deeply how He had been a Father and Saviour to me all along, I accepted Him as my Lord and Saviour, without doubt or question. I was baptised on 5 March 2011, at the age of 15.”
An answer to prayer
As all staff workers know, meeting Christian high school students about to go to university is a golden opportunity. All you need to get is their number, and you can plug them straight into a fellowship group before they’ve even set foot on campus.
But Alee met Sha around the time that her InterVarsity staff team had been praying about reaching every corner of the campus. They’d been reflecting on the way that each person reached is connected to a network or people group. With those prayers in mind, Alee realised the opportunity in front of her. Release, not recruit. That was what InterVarsity student ministry was all about. These two young Christians could be added into an existing, thriving fellowship group at UNO. Or they could be empowered and equipped to start their own, reaching out to other Karen refugees. It was a no-brainer.
Mookatah
After meeting Alee at the World Refugee Day, Sha and a few of his friends were connected to the staff workers at UNO. They bonded over mookatah (Thai grill) and after arriving at UNO as freshers, started studying the Bible together. Sha and a few others were discipled, and it wasn’t long before they were leading the Bible studies themselves and telling their friends about Jesus: “My friends need to know that Jesus loves them; someone needs to help them know that, and I guess that person is me.”
Asian Christian Fellowship, UNO
The group grew, as more Karen students heard about the fellowship group and joined in. Sha reflects on that time of growth:
“I continued to grow little by little as I was learning and leading at the same time. A group of us also prayed about God’s mission on our campus and we saw growth over the past year. It was the investment of our staff workers in us that helped us grow, and of course the Holy Spirit who led us.”
God’s faithfulness for pilgrim people
Almost all of the Karen students are the first in their families to study in the US. Most, like Sha, grew up in refugee camps before moving to America. They arrived with little or no English. Their parents would have had even less. It was up to the children to help their parents adapt to the new culture, act as interpreters, go to the bank, read the mail. The pressures of being displaced are all-too familiar for these young people.
The group of around 25–30 refugee students at UNO have been studying the book of Exodus, learning from the story of God’s displaced people. Having seen the faithfulness of God in the Bible and in their own stories of suffering, the students want others to know Him too. Some of them have even started reaching out to other refugee communities around them. One student, Manger, said:
“I am encouraged by my experience as a former refugee and a first-generation college student. I experienced God’s love throughout my life and I want to share it with others. I want to see revival in my community — at church, at home and at school.”
It is amazing to see how a casual conversation at a community event a few years ago has grown into a thriving student ministry. But this story is as challenging as it is encouraging. Are we, like Alee, praying for opportunities to reach new corners of the campus? How many more unengaged networks could be reached this year if more of us adopted the release, not recruit mentality? Are we looking to share the faithfulness of God with those around us?
