This funny thing happens around here when a foreigner is invited to an event – he usually gets overwhelmed by local people. Take this Halloween party we were invited to a week ago. The foreign language club of our university was putting it on, and they wanted some Americans to come and explain it to them. I can’t say I’m much of a Halloween fan (or an expert on it, for that matter), but, always looking for a chance to make new friends, our team jumped at the chance. So, after a quick Wikipedia check on the history of the holiday, we were on our way.

It was crazy. There were at least 120 students to us 8 foreigners. Every student had a mask (which makes picking friends out of the crowd quite a challenge), and they were constantly asking questions, offering food, or wanting a picture with us. My little introverted self was overwhelmed in about 20 minutes. 🙂

But you know, I’m really glad we went. The party was on our satellite campus, which has almost no foreigner presence, and many weeks I hear people say they’ve seen us on campus. As we raise our profile there, I’m excited by all the new friends we’ve been able to meet. Very often our girls seem to be making new friends who are interested in reading Bible and hearing about God, and we guys have many friends there as well. It’s exciting time to be working at our university!

You please lift up two things for our team in the coming days?

1) Fruitful work. Now that we’re into a pretty normal schedule, we’ve been able to share the Gospel with many friends. Now we want that good seed to meet good soil (Matthew 13), and for our friends to make a decision to follow God. Would you please ask that He raise up laborers from among our friends to reach this generation of college students?

2) My team’s relationship with God. As we work, I never want us to get too focused our job, and miss that our relationship with Him is the most important thing. We will never have greater intimacy with Him because of our hard work, but only from our growing relationship with Him.

Thank you so much for your support and for lifting up the team! I’m in a wonderful time of life, and I feel like God is speaking to me all the time. I hope you’re doing well, and I’ll be in touch again soon!

Ben