cool stuff on campus

Last week we had a team of students, mostly high school juniors, from Australia work with us at English Hour on Campus. They did a great job but there's one story that stands out.

One of the girls was talking with a guy that has been coming around for almost 3 months. He's a student in our English classes, and also came to our summer English Camp. I noticed at one point the girl had her Bible in her hand (which is unusual for English Hour) and later noticed a few people gathered around praying for him (also not the norm). Later the girl from the team shared some of their conversation with me (probably because I asked).

This guy knew about Jesus and had even made a decision recently at Church, but was really struggling with what he really believed, the Buddhism he grew up with or this Christianity he was hearing about. But he then said that he knew God had spoken to him and although he had prayed, given gifts, and burned inscense to Buddha, Buddha had never spoken to him. Which is why that day he said, despite his struggle to believe, he wanted to follow Jesus. That's why those people were gathered around, praying for him in the middle of campus.

To add to the coolness of that story, I was out on campus with the team praying the day before this happened. While praying near the campus idol I remember praying the following:

God I thank you that unlike man made gods, you're a God who speaks, listens, and reaches out to people.

That's exactly what he had been doing for my friend.

God desires for people to know him and have relationship with him far more than I do. Its nice to be reminded that God works through us, beyond us, and sometimes in spite of us.

Finally....the first blog

Well, this is my first blog about the Thailand Project and its way over due. Things are going well here in Bangkok. After a few months of working, processing, assessing, praying, and ocassionally scratching our heads, our "role" here has become more clear. Basically it has 2 facets. The first is to help establish a campus ministry based out of a great local church (Thai Church) near campus. Specifically we want to help train new leadership and help them develop a strategic, missional approach to engaging college students with the gospel. Recently, the pastor of the Thai Church has released one of his staff to focus primarily on campus ministry. This was a huge step in establishing a long-term, Thai led ministry to students in Bangkok. The next step, which is currently in process, is to gather a team of students and young adults from the church and lay out the vision for reaching students and how they are vitally important.

The second facet is building friendships and connecting with students who aren't Christians yet. Its kind of a mix of personal ministry and vocational ministry. The primary outlet for that has been teaching English. We just finished teaching our first month of English Classes at our house. Since students have final exams scattered all over the month of October, we will begin our next session in November. Our weekly English Hour on Campus has been going well. We have a great core of students who have been coming each week, and several new students have joined us recently. We've even had the opportunity to hang out with a couple of students outside of class and English Hour. That may not sound like a big deal, but as a couple of old white people, it's a big deal. Its an indication that friendships are being built, friendships that will help us to share Christ in a very natural way.

Pray with us that we will continue to connect with students who need to know Christ. Pray for open hearts and divine opportunities. Also pray that God would assemble a great team of students and leaders to launch this campus ministry.

My plan is to blog once a week, so check back for updates.