These past two weeks have been crazy! I had three sisters come into the family and I celebrated Thanksgiving twice! Once with my team and another with all our Asian brothers and sisters.
Week 1:
Lucy and I were sitting in a small cafe talking about who we should contact to meet for lunch the next day, when I came across a name on my contacts: Mia. I hadn’t contacted her in a long time. I first met her at English corner, but when I tried to contact her afterwards, she never responded. I felt I should call her for lunch, so I did. She answered, and we set a time for lunch! When we met her the next day, we ate at our favorite dumpling place on campus. Lucy and I got to know her a little more, and we asked if she wanted to hear the story of Jesus after lunch. She agreed, and invited us over to her dorm. She was so sweet and hospitable! We had a little language barrier when we first talked to her, but as soon as we started sharing the Gospel with her, she understood completely! When we asked her if she wanted to follow Jesus, her response was, “I think I should have a try.”
That same weekend we went over Mia’s dorm again for lunch and she brought a friend! You know what that means…..SHARING! Her friend asked me if I could give her a new English name, so I asked God what her name should be, and then Victoria came to mind. She liked it and kept the name. After we ate Mia’s amazing food she asked us if we could show her some good worship music. During the time we played the music, I decided to ask her friend if she had heard the story of Jesus. When she said no, I asked Mia if she wanted to share with her friend. She shared in their language for the first part, and then Lucy and I joined in and shared the rest. When we finished sharing, we asked her if she wanted to believe. Her response was: “I think I will give it a try.”
Week 2:
Thanksgiving week! Our team went to a hot springs on Tuesday, and Wednesday we prepared for the Thanksgiving party on Thursday.
On Friday, Lucy and I were so stuffed and tired from the Thanksgiving party that our language class at 8 am that day was exhausting. We came home, ate lunch, and started to plan for our weekend. We tried asking people to meet with us that day, but everyone was too busy. We only had plans to go to a drum circle that night at 7 pm. We decided to go to campus and meet someone new. When we got to campus at 4, we walked around and prayed about what to do. We both felt like God was telling us to wait, and that he would bring someone to us. We sat down at a small park in the campus and waited. A girl started walking towards us. She said hello and asked if she could join us. Of course! My spirit lept with joy as we talked to this girl named Kelly. She had wanted to practice her English with us and had gotten the courage to do it. We invited her to dinner and she decided to take us to this wonderful restaurant on campus that had the best duck I’ve ever tasted! We asked her if we could share the Gospel with her after dinner and she agreed! So here’s what happened: we went back to the park and shared with her, we talked about some deep questions about the universe, she kept getting phone calls but ignored them because she wanted to keep talking to us, and during the talk she said,”I think you’ve persuaded me.” But it wasn’t us that did the persuading, it was God changing her heart. She accepted God that night, and we had so much fun playing drums with her afterwards. God was moving the whole time!
P.S. God helped Lucy and me make our goal of having a group of girls to train by the end of October!