Hello World, Welcome to New York City

First I want to apologize for the large gap since the last post. Life has been particularly busy this past 2 weeks. Ministry has been great, and strangely enough we'll only be here for a little over a week more. Each week in New York City, we've focused on a different area of ministry. This past week our focus was international ministry. You may have heard us talk about the Queens borough of New York City being the most diverse place on the planet according to a recent census poll--well we've certainly experience the great diversity in our backyard here.

...on the campus of Columbia University

This week we went through training on how to do ministry with international students who are studying in the US. One thing that really excited me is the idea of the world literally coming here. Jesus desires for every tribe, tongue and nation to know Him, which is a high calling for us. We have many friends who are overseas helping to fulfill that calling even this summer. But reaching the international students who have come to our country makes so much sense when we actually live here! They have provided the money for the flight here, they are the ones who desire to learn our beliefs and culture, and many times they are never befriended by a Christian American during their time in the US. All of these reasons made our week of learning how to do international ministry very necessary and exciting.

On Monday of this week, I met a girl named Celia (that was her American name...I can't pronounce her Chinese name) who is an international student who came to study 1 1/2 ago from China. Celia was so sweet, and was so open to talking about her home country and the values and beliefs she was brought up with. She told be that in her country she had never learned that their was a spiritual part of life, and had no idea who God is or how to know Him. In fact, she has only one Christian friend in China, but Celia was confused by her beliefs because she didn't know who God was. It was amazing to see her openness to talking about Jesus and our belief that He is the only way to know God personally because of His sacrifice for us on the cross. Celia walked away saying that I had given her a lot to think about. Would you please pray that our conversation would be used in her life to bring her to know Jesus?

It's been awesome seeing our students stepping out to love people in the city. They've amazed us with how they're committed to meeting people where they're at and trusting God to make Himself known. Would you also pray for these 9 students to have endurance to finish well in this last week on campus before heading home? Here is a picture of these awesome students: