The final stretch is upon us. Two months to go before I’m on a plane. I have applied to work here long term. It’s not a 100% sure thing yet but I will be looking at ways to get me back over here after I return home.
We are getting back into going out on campus now that everyone has returned from spring festival with their families. Strider and I have been out a lot sharing with people as well as following up on people that we have connected with before but had made no decision.
We met a guy the other day who had a very thick accent but had a reasonable understanding of English. He is very confident and outgoing. After eating a quick meal we went to play some ping pong. During ping pong Strider asked him about what he believed. This conversation was very quickly interrupted by another ping pong player who over heard and wanted to add what they thought. So we didn’t get anywhere that night.
We arranged to meet him again a few days later. And while playing ping pong we asked what he thought about believing in God. We talked about the bad things that we have done and the how Jesus made it possible to have a relationship with God and the bad things could be forgiven. He accepted and we prayed for him at the ping pong courts. His response (in broken English): “I feel peace.” We weren’t sure how much he understood except by the power of Jesus and how He is awesome.
A week later I went out to meet him with Paul in the hopes of connecting them together so he could learn about Jesus and study The Book in his own language. We sat down at dinner and they both connected really well. Paul basically shared the message again and filled in all the blanks that my English to the native language translation couldn’t. Our friend decided to follow Jesus! we all prayed together and celebrated by drinking a can of soda. After this, we all found a spot to sit down on some stairs inside a building on campus. For 1 and a half hours Paul and my new brother read some of the Bible. He was extremely focused and very hungry to learn.
All I can think about him is 30, 60, and 100 fold. Lift him up. He grabbed a hold of the baton and is running. I look forward to seeing what will be done through him in the next few years.