On a ten-week mission trip this past summer God taught me a lot about His desire to be glorified among the nations. As I learned from two young men on my trip who had a ministry with international students at the University of Arkansas, reaching the nations can start in the United States. Over 700,000 international students study in the United States, many from countries closed to the Gospel, yet according to some studies, up to 80% of them never are invited to an American home. On the plane ride home from our trip, God gave me the encouragement to focus my ministry to international students at DePauw. Besides building relationships though, we needed to start and end with prayer.

The DePauw Missions Challenge was a five-month, twenty person endeavor to pray that God would raise up missionaries, strengthen our persecuted brothers and sisters, save the unreached around the world, give us as individuals a passion for missions, and bring the international students to Christ through revival. Though we largely prayed individually and not all remembered to pray consistently, I do believe that God opened doors and answered prayers. Below is a summary I wrote in an e-mail at the Challenge’s conclusion.

God has opened many doors in the past five months. Bibles have been given to international students in their own language (at least two in Vietnamese, 12+ in Chinese, and others are in the works). A young Chinese believer was baptized at Cornerstone. DePauw Intervarsity was featured in the New York Times, an article that’s led to multiple gospel discussions. Two students have expressed interest in long-term medical missions. 5+ international students came to church for the first time in their life. The interfaith curry night grew to 30 people, many of whom heard the gospel for the first time (we hope to have a larger one in April). Many seeds were planted, and many tears shed. The other stories–prayers that affected the unreached and our persecuted brothers and sisters–we won’t likely hear until heaven. But God is good, and we’re blessed through our obedience.

The DePauw Missions Challenge was a blessing. I hope that events like this continue at DePauw and other universities, as they have since America’s founding (Read about the Haystack Prayer Meeting). In the end I am most comforted by God’s command and promise in Psalm 46:10.  Our God will be true to his word.

The Greek IV story was shared by Anthony Baratta Author Website: Author Email: Contact Author Author Bio: Anthony is a FIJI at DePauw university where he is an active member of the Greek InterVarsity chapter. More Stories by Anthony Baratta

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This post is tagged Fraternity, Missions