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2007.08 Summer Adventure

You can never know what God is going to bring down your path; you only need to be ready to respond with a Godly perspective. This summer was filled with excitement, challenge, tragedy, and provision. A terrible accident like a forest fire can be devastating. It doesn’t seem like much good can come from anything like this, but we just had to trust God for each of our next steps. We were evacuated from the premises two times. The first evacuation was voluntary because there was a lot of smoke and we wanted to be safe. We waited in a church for a couple of days and then the city claimed that the fire was under control. We moved back in the following day thinking that everything was okay, but to our surprise the fire had jumped over the backfire that was used to contain it. Amazingly no one was hurt and none of the buildings went up in smoke. The fire came within 200 yards of our place: craziness!

Patrice was challenged to help out with a group of student women for the first time this summer. It was a little intimidating for her, but she rose to the challenge. The staff woman she was helping was pregnant and excited to be a new mom. After some complications she found out that she had lost the child. This was an incredibly difficult experience for her and her husband to endure, so they left the project to mourn with their family. This was a really difficult time for us to go through as we had become close with the family and even stayed together when we were evacuated. But in the midst of this tragedy, Patrice was again challenged to minister to these women solo. To say the least, it was a great time for Patrice to trust the Lord to use her despite her weaknesses and feelings of inadequacy.

I was privileged to be able to dig into 4 men's lives and be a sounding board to what I believed that God wanted to bring out in them. It’s easy to hear good things about ourselves, but when we have our weaknesses pointed out, even in love, it’s a learning process to turn those things over to the Lord so He can refine us. These men grew in areas of pride, overcoming fear, trust and identity in Christ alone. Praise be to God.

National Conference:
Reunion, Re-affirming, Heart tugging, Blessed!

After escaping the fire zone, we traveled off to Fort Collins, CO. There we participated in the National Conference for Campus Crusade for Christ. We spent 12 days meeting, being encouraged by old friends, and having the opportunity to see where God is leading us as a ministry. I have found it easy to be very egocentric in ministry at times and just focus on what God is doing through me, but God tugged on my heart to show me that I need the entire Body. I was especially moved when they stopped one of our sessions to pray for the missionaries from South Korea that were being held hostage by the Taliban. At that point no one had been executed and we as body were crying out to God for their lives. It was powerful to engage God for another part of the world. Later on in the conference, the leaders from the JESUS film ministry celebrated the 1,000th language translation. It was a huge milestone to celebrate and a blessing to hear of the ways God is using the film to enable many to hear the Gospel for the first time in their own language. It was really special for us to hear what God is doing through the film and to know that we played a part together in making those 1,000 translations. Praise God for He is good! And His love does endure forever.

Personal Note:

God has really revealed to me during this summer my need for more grace with my family. I find at times that I am very quick to judge, quick to correct, quick to blame rather than offering understanding, compassion and grace. This has been troubling to me as I have processed this with Patrice and other friends. I am offering this insight into my life as I desire to grow unto His character, but I know that I cannot do this alone. It troubles me because I do desire to reflect God’s love and character to my family, those closest to me. I don’t want to find myself trying to share the love of Christ with others yet fail in my own personal life, with those who know me most deeply. Please pray that His grace would abound in all areas of my life.

2007.11.Fear Not

I am challenged as I read through Acts. In Acts 4 the apostles Peter and John are persecuted for proclaiming the truth of Jesus and then let go. After they are released they return to the body and pray for boldness to speak His words and they ask God to heal and perform signs and wonders through Jesus. And after they prayed these things the earth was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and they began to speak the word of God with boldness. They prayed for more boldness with the full knowledge that speaking and performing signs in the name of Jesus Christ could bring on more persecution and even death to their lives.

This passage has challenged me greatly because I do not often pray for boldness to speak of God. I become content with praying for protection or asking God to just keep us safe where we are. This obviously isn’t the greatest attitude if we are trying to take new ground for Jesus Christ. My director has challenged us to really focus on what we are trying to accomplish here at the University of Oregon. We could be satisfied with just gathering those who are believers and not be bothered about those who need to hear the Gospel.

Fortunately God has called us to go and make disciples of all nations. It has become clear that we need to encourage one another to pray and speak with boldness no matter the consequences. It has been good to ask God for boldness and seek what we have asked for together.

One student, Jayson, has been a part of our Asian-American ministry Epic for three years now. He is not the most outgoing of men but God has given him a heart and excitement for those students who don’t know Him. The Vietnamese Student Association is known for having a rowdy bunch. Jayson and I were a little nervous about presenting our purpose to the group but we knew that it is a significant place that we could reach out to lost Asian Americans. We prayed that God would give us favor as we spoke with the students and that God would lead us to students who might be searching for Him. We presented our ministry and gave opportunities for those who wanted to hear more about Christ. We praised God for the response we received and the chance to offer Jesus to them. I am encouraged to minister with Jayson and see him grow in His trust of the Lord in situations where God must show His power in Jayson’s weaknesses.

I believe God wants us to continue to trust Him for new ground. It is easy for us to be discouraged, but we must look to Christ who does not change and look to Him for our strength. Thank you for your prayers and support that enable us to minister for Christ’s name sake,

2007.06 In light of tragedy

During the wake of the tragedy at Virginia Tech, a lot of students on campus have been questioning why God would allow something like this to happen. When people can’t see answers, they often reject the notion of a loving God. In light of this tragedy, God allowed us to try and answer this question. “Todd was shot” was our campaign to provide some intrigue in order to allow people to hear the message of how Jesus can change a person’s life and give them hope in light of tragic circumstances. Todd, the speaker, was shot by his cousin when they were playing with his father’s guns when he was 12 or 13 years old. He became a quadriplegic. That was almost 20 years ago. Todd shared how his hope in God has allowed him to persevere and thrive despite his difficult new lifestyle. This event provided many conversations and opportunities to share our faith. It was a tremendous time to allow our students to share their faith and to give many students the opportunity to be exposed to the message of Christ and to respond to Him.
Our Summer
We will be in Lake Tahoe from June 3rd through July 13th. As some of you may remember that I, Andrew, had the opportunity to go on several summer mission trips with CCC as a student. These times were huge as a part of my growth in the Lord and trusting Him to share my faith with the many lost people in our country and the world. It is our hope that we will help foster this type of life change in the students we will be ministering to and with.

Our next stop will be in Colorado from July 15th through the 26th. This is our national conference where staff from different ministries gather to be refreshed, trained and ministered to. I am looking forward to hearing what God is doing in our organization and ways that we can learn from one another.

2007.03 Power of prayer

God proves His power with answering our prayers in our students lives. It has been an incredible couple of months to trust God for these students’ growth and life change in His kingdom.
This past weekend was no exception. I traveled with a group of 8 Asian American students down to San Jose where they encountered God. A part of the exhaustion from traveling opened us up spiritually to what God wanted to do in us. God compelled me to pray for brokenness in the students hearts. Many of the students seemed to be apathetic toward God, but it was during this time that God was painted a fresh and a renewing in their hearts was taking place.

One student, Andy Son (pictured in photo on other side of this letter), has a scar on his face. He got it from celebrating his 21st birthday only a week before the trip. He had gotten so drunk that he blacked out and couldn’t remember what had happened to him. He woke up the next morning with his face all red. And yet he came to our EPIC conference wanting to know what it was about.

One neat characteristics of the Asian-American community is that there are people that desire to hang out with one another simply because they are Asian-American. Andy Son had been friends with several guys involved in Epic for a while, but he had never wanted to engage with them spiritually. He was very honest that he was agnostic and stated that he knew that there had to be something more to life than the life he was living. He often found himself empty and unfulfilled.

We prayed that God would break down every argument that Andy had against God and that He would be drawn to him. At first it seemed that a lot of the content of the speakers at the conference wasn’t very relevant to non-believers, but God hadn’t forgotten about Andy, and the last three talks were very much filled with grace and a teaching of the love that God has for those who will believe in Him. It was after the second talk that Andy surrendered his life to God. It was beautiful to see God specifically work in Andy’s life and answer our prayers.

I continue to praise God for the opportunity that we have to serve Him at the University of Oregon. Sometimes I can be down because I don’t always see the results (conversions to Christ or life change in my disciples), but this past month God has revealed His faithfulness to me. My ministry and identity is found in Christ alone and I thank you so much for the ability to serve with you in this worthwhile effort.

2006.11 God's faithfulness

He answers our prayers.

We have seen an explosion of God working on our campus. Last year we spent hours praying for God to move at UofO. A new residence hall was built called the Living Learning Center. Last year it was an inconvenience to walk around the construction area and to not know what was going on. We prayed for those that would move into these halls and for them to respond and hear His truths. We praise the Lord because many students are hearing the message of Christ. In a hypersensitive collegiate culture we must be careful in how we approach people to share the message of Christ. Even so, many have responded to meeting with us and have wanted to hear His story. We praise God for the many opportunities to testify of Christ. So far we have seen 6 people place their trust in Christ and we are waiting for more.

He answers Peter’s prayers.

I had been sick the previous day and I was not feeling like myself. I did however get some rest and the next morning I recalled a verse, Isaiah 40:31. “Those that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up on wings as eagles.” I came on campus and arrived at the bottom of the student union. I started to contact people to get together for discipleship appointments when Peter approached me and started to talk with me about his sociology class and its difficulty. We continued to talk and he shared about his spiritual background and the hurt of his parents’ divorce. I shared with him the hope of the Heavenly Father and how he never leaves us and never forsakes us. Peter had gone to a church growing up but he never understood that he could be in a relationship with God. He often prayed that he would be close to God but didn’t know how. Upon explaining Christ’s saving message Peter received him then and there. It was awesome to see God work despite my sickness. As we continue to go over the foundations of Christianity, pray that Peter would understand his worth in Christ alone.

2006.08 Refreshed in Orlando

Knowledge is one thing, but using it for God’s glory is another. I can’t wait to see what God will do with the new structure I have learned about over the summer. It seems that God has done a lot this summer. Let me share some of it with you.

The first part of the summer took us to Florida. I was able to refresh my thoughts with classes to help me understand truths of the Bible and how to effectively communicate them. The greatest truth I learned was to identify our fallen condition (sin tendency) in passages of Scripture and in pointing out our sinfulness exposes our need for Christ. The professors were great at teaching truths from scripture and applying it to ministry as many of them have several years of ministry experience.

One encouraging event that happened over the summer was with one of the students that I highlighted in our last prayer letter-Scott. He was a sophomore and was going on a summer project to Lake Tahoe. He called me in the middle of the summer and was very thankful for the time I had spent with him and teaching him to share his faith. From what He told me, his perspective on sharing the Gospel had changed from being an inconvenience, to sharing something of significance. It was amazing to hear the excitement in his voice of how he continued to share the Gospel with people and to love others. Praise God that His message is so relevant despite this world’s pessimism toward Him. Several times this summer people asked me what I enjoy about what I do. I often thought of Scott and replied that I get to invest my life into men who need direction in their lives. Whether I am helping them with a small issue or leading them to Christ, it is all worth while. I also think about Terence, who was also highlighted in our last letter. He was a senior last year and won’t be back this year, but there are so many things that I am reminded of. The way he talked. The deep questions he had about how Christian culture ran things. I always enjoyed his deep thinking. It will be a tough challenge to know who or how many people I should invest my time in, but I pray that God would guide me and lead me to those who not only want to grow up to be leaders, but who want to live their lives for Christ.

This summer was a great time to be refreshed and to have new focus for this year. I pray that God would carry us though this year trusting in Him for His purposes and not our own. I praise God that He alone can accomplish life change in these students, not just some new strategy or new way of doing things. I praise the Lord that He will continue to do His work in our lives and on the UO campus.

2006.06 reflections

I contacted a student, named Andrew, during the fall term, who filled out a survey about his thoughts on spirituality. He was a typical freshman, trying to figure out life and wanting to know what role God might have in his life. As we talked more he revealed his homosexual lifestyle. He wanted to know if he could stay homosexual and be a Christian at the same time. I told him that it was clear that the God of the Bible was against this sin, but it was no different than any other sin (i.e. gossip, drunkenness, stealing). It didn’t seem to matter what I reasoned, Andrew had a counter for everything. Our conversation turned into more of a discourse on the difficulty of being gay in our society and how he felt it was unfair. He thanked me for our discussion and appreciated me sharing my thoughts with him.

After that meeting, I pondered a lot different words I could have said or how I could have challenged his thinking more. My heart just prayed for Andrew to desire God more than he loves his lifestyle. I tried to get together with him several times throughout the year but every attempt failed. I would run into him on campus but each instance was only a brief “hello” in passing. He never seemed to have time.

I still think of Andrew every once in awhile, and today I ran into him again. Today was different. He said he wanted to talk because he had been thinking about God a lot lately. He asked the same question- if he could still be a homosexual and be a Christian. He had some of the same arguments of why God should allow him to keep his lifestyle. I told him Christ’s words, "Whoever saves his life in this life will lose it and whoever loses his life for my sake will save it." We talked a lot more, but it seemed that Andrew still wasn’t willing to give up his lifestyle for Christ.

I share this story with you because it encourages me. I know it is not one of conversion, but of a struggle for someone whom God dearly loves. I was not expecting to see Andrew again this term, let alone have an in-depth conversation with him. God reminded me that He is still working on this campus and is pursuing students, even students that I have given up on. God is pursuing Andrew’s heart greatly. I believe that is why he wants to be able to reconcile his lifestyle with one filled with Christ. Please pray for this man to experience the full love and acceptance of God. That he would be used by God to reach out to the gay/lesbian community. Pray that Andrew would desire God more than what he can find in his present lifestyle.

here we are at the top of Eugene