“You guys go to Asia for nine months? Oh, that’s perfect! I’ve done short term trips, but I want to give a more significant amount of time to missions.”
I could hardly believe what I was hearing from the college-age girl who approached our display table! From the moment we arrived at this young adult meeting to share about Campus Target, I thought this was a great group of people. But I had no idea how great! Sometimes it’s hard for young people to imagine themselves going halfway across the world, let alone going away for longer than 3 weeks.
I love challenging them to consider giving a year to missions because of the powerful ministry that can be done in that length of time, but I was amazed that the first girl who talked to me was already so willing! As other people came up to us, it got even better:
“Last summer I smuggled Bibles into Asia, and I’d love to go back there!”
“I can’t believe you’re here tonight. Just two days ago I was telling my friend I should do something like this while I’m young and single.”
“I was thinking about going on a mission trip for 2 weeks this August, but maybe I’ll come to Asia for 9 months instead!”
And they kept coming! By the time the night ended, we had talked with over 20 people, many of whom already love missions. It was so special for me to see such a large group of young people who were passionate about obeying Jesus and telling others about Him! A few people from that group are thinking about going to Asia this August, and we have many more contacts for the future.
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This was just one of several young adult groups that we visited to recruit for Campus Target last month. God has been answering our prayers for more workers to join the 2012-2013 team. In just the past three weeks we jumped from 7 applicants to 21 applicants!
And now our spring training event called MiniCamp is just two days away! Over 15 young adults will descend on little Lima, NY, for three days of awesome training and vision-casting to prepare a new team to go to Asia this August. Will you please pray for a few things?
1) For people who are still making the decision about going to Asia. This next 48 hours is a critical time, when a number of people who initially signed up feel afraid, or encounter opposition as they plan to attend MiniCamp. These are future laborers in Asia, and we don’t want anything to get in their way! Please pray that God will protect them from any opposition that will keep them from attending MiniCamp, and that He would bring peace to their hearts.
2) For MiniCamp itself. We have a lot of important events this weekend: teaching on support raising, encouraging them with faith for ministry in Asia, and even helping people who are still on the fence to decide if they should commit to this year’s Asia team. Please pray that the Lord will speak to people’s hearts, and that they will be filled with faith and boldness.
3) For our roles during MiniCamp. Ben will be teaching some of the training sessions – pray that he would communicate clearly and impart faith to the group. Buttercup will be leading a small team of new recruits for the weekend –pray that she would have specific words of encouragement for each member of her team as they take this big step in deciding to go to Asia. Thank you for standing with us! We’re excited to see this new team mobilized to reach the Asian campuses this year!