Anyways, I wanted to finish posting it before I posted my Report that I sent to my supporters because of obvious spoilers. lol. But you guys have been praying for me too, so I want to give you the update too. The following is the (very long) email that took me a long time to type. lol It basically summarizes the six weeks.
"Hey!
It has just finished. I got back to Ottawa Friday night after a really long day of travelling and one of the very first things I wanted to do was to just thank all of you for the hours of prayer and supporting me so that I could go on this trip and help change lives in East Asia.
There is so much I could say and I'd be more then happy to tell you more at some point, but for the sake of time and to keep this short-ish I will mainly give generalizations and one or two specific stories. [It ended up being really long... xP but there's still so much more that happened.] Also, all names will be changed and all places either not mentioned specifically or changed. The pictures show a bit of what life was like in East Asia.
So, first was the flight from Ottawa to Vancouver. My first flight ever. It was pretty good, I watched a movie, ate, slept, read, etc. Then arrival. I get greeted by a couple other super excited people! "Welcome to Vancouver! EAP 2011!" or something like that and immediately get to meet like 15 or 20 people, get on a bus and drive away and continue meeting the rest of the students from across Canada that felt called to East Asia. We went to a Bible College a couple hours from Vancouver and there we got to spend four days getting to know everyone, getting amazing training from C4C staff, worshiped, prayed a lot for everything that would happen including the goals for this year's project, got to find out where we were going and who was on our 'family' for the project (the people we would be spending a large amount of time with in the city we went to), had Bible studies, had a lot of stuff happen. It was really awesome.
Then the day came. We all went to the airport and said our goodbyes on the bus. The 50 or so people going were split into 5 different families and for the same reasons of prolonging the ministry in Asia and protecting the students we had to ignore the other families while in the airport and on the plane. It was a long flight 11 hours or something. We flew around by Alaska and crossed the Ocean there. Russia has some crazy mountains.
We landed in the capital. Got our bags, had Burger King for lunch (much to my dismay. I wanted Asian food. xP), met a Long Term staff member who is working there now, got on a bus and drove away. Our city was about an hour or two away, so it wasn't that bad, but because of time changes and stuff we all slept a bit on the bus. There were eight students, one intern and two staff couples and their two babies in our family. I really got to bond with them over family diners, fun time, just hanging out after a long day, playing Frisbee, etc. and I really feel like they are my brothers and sisters now, which we are in Jesus.
Ya, so, we were actually in a city where the ministry hadn't been established yet. For us this meant that we were starting with very little background information and nothing permanent had been set up yet. We actually didn't even have signed contracts with a school when we arrived. Without a contract we didn't have classes on campus and we didn't live in student dorms. We actually lived in a hotel placed in the center of the city. It was nice (especially now that I realize that if we were in dorms we'd end up at only one end of the city). About class: we still had it. God placed a Christian teacher in this city and the long term staff had already connected with her. She agreed to help us out by teaching us for a couple hours 3 or 4 times each week, until we got a contract signed. We met at McDonald's each day and she connected some of us with her students. She really had a heart for the great commission and reaching her students with the gospel. We never ended up getting a contract, but she stayed with us the whole time and we were really thankful for her and everything she did for us. She was a great encouragement to us. Seeing how on fire she was for following Jesus even in Asia.
So for the first part of our ministry work because it was a new city we were also scoping out the area, gathering information and getting adjusted. At the same time we started with the ministry by walking up to students to find out if they could speak some English, learn a bit about them and get their contact information so that we could call them back later. This was Phase 1 ministry.
For me personally, Phase 1 was a slow start. I was going out by my own strength and not making much or any progress. I was also having bad attitudes towards doing ministry work and I wasn't really connecting with God by having solid quiet times of prayer and listening to Him. Nearing the end of Phase 1, one of my brothers really helped me out. He told me more about quiet time, his own personal struggles in ministry and how relying on the Holy Spirit for everything really is the only way we can do anything. The last day before we were going to move onto Phase 2 I was feeling really bad again. I felt that I had not done enough and at the same time felt useless. After class that day was quiet time. I ended up looking over John 14. While on project we had Inductive Bible studies of John 13-17, one chapter each week. So I started to analyze the chapter, looking for repeating words, seeing key ideas, just looking for what God had placed in this chapter. While doing this my attitude really changed. God's word really pumped me up for going out and doing His work.
So we went to a cafeteria, me and one other guy. I was at about 14 contacts of the 25 we 'should have made.' Well, my partner said that he would not be doing any of the talking unless I was completely speechless. He basically made me go alone. However, I prayed for the spirit to fill me and to guide us to a bunch of English speaking students. What happened? God led us to 8 students in an hour and a half. Even though I couldn't do it, God could. There is no way I actually expected to get all those contacts in the two hours before Phase 2 started. Praise the Lord. By stepping out in faith and relying on the Spirit, God provided and got the job done.
So, we met back at the hotel and had 'business time', a time where we plan the next couple days, have a training lesson, pray, good stuff like that. Then Phase 2 started. We didn't have phone cards or anything, but we had 5 cell phones for the staff and intern, so we used those phones to make appointments for the day ahead. We would do this each day and if they were busy when we called (although they would pick up even if they had class) we could schedule them later that week. We would often have between 3 to 5 meetings with our national friends each day. Usually we would eat a meal, go to a coffee shop, walk around or just hang out for about an hour or so. Generally we'd get to know them better and get into some spiritual topics. I don't think this ever stopped us, but the point of phase two was to gauge how spiritually interested they were and (just in case) see if they had any connections to the government before really sharing the gospel.
We got to know a bunch of the students and really become friends. We'd always encourage our friends to bring their friends to the meetings and God really used that a number of times to bring people into contact with us. By the second meeting with a student, we'd try to get a transition to a gospel presentation. This often went through the topic of holidays, or books, or weekends, sometimes just "I was wondering, do you believe in God?", but in any case the gospel was spread and many students were very interested and prayed to receive Christ. After ever single spiritual conversation I'd just be so happy. Seeing their eyes light up as the truth is told to ears who have never heard it. Seeing people genuinely interested in talking more about God. Seeing lives transformed.
One time though, me and one of the staff members on our family met up with this second year student, who I will call Tall. His English wasn't the best, but after meeting with him, we went to his dorm to talk. We ended up on the topic of difficulties in the world. He said he believed in himself and that people can solve the problems in the world. The problem is that humans make mistakes, people fall short of perfection. *Gospel presentation*. We used a booklet that had both an English and 'East Asian' translation of various Bible verses and showed that Christianity is not just 'a western thing'. We shared a lot with him, but because his English wasn't the best, he said that he couldn't explain to us what he thought about the points in the booklet. He said that his mother used to tell him about God and that he could believe that God existed. We gave him a couple websites written in 'East Asian' that explained more about the gospel and who Jesus is, but we had to leave. He was going to the capital city the following week and was going to stay there for a year. He said he would practice English very hard so that he would be able to communicate with us.
Walking back to our hotel I was overcome with this feeling. Tears kept pouring out of my eyes and the more I thought about him the more I cried. That was the last time we got to see him. There's so much more that we could have done. He could have been saved. He could have received Jesus into his life and claim the forgiveness of sin, love of God, and the personal relationship offered by Jesus' death on the cross. I guess God showed me a bit of what He feels for the students in East Asia. Students who don't even acknowledge His existence possibly because they have just never heard about Him, and there are millions of these students in Asia. I had been praying that God would reveal to me how He sees people and I think that He revealed part of it to me in this situation. I just needed to trust in God's plan for Tall's life. The seed was planted by his mother years ago, we got to water it, and somewhere down the road God will use someone else in his life to continue growing him and bringing him back to Himself.
Phase 3 was sharing the gospel with spiritually interested students. Really, all the phases overlapped. If a contact moved from one phase to another, you wouldn't just stop talking to them until the next phase started, you would continue helping them grow towards knowing God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
One thing I learned this summer was that God's plans are always the best. I saw that whenever my planning failed, God had a better plan for that time. One day I had a Phase 2 appointment set up. About 15 minutes passed and my friend didn't show up, so we decided to do some Phase 1 work. We went around and met a couple more guys, one named New. A week later we met up with him and two of his friends, Rabbit and Wilson. The conversation led into spiritual topics. Just talking about East Asia and how people don't help someone if they are hit by traffic because of all the hospital bills or how others will look at them, I felt that I should share the parable of the Good Samaritan with them and from there we were into a spiritual conversation. My partner shared a drawing of two cliffs and the uncrossable separation between them. Next he drew us (literally the 5 of us, Rabbit with a bow in her hair, me tall and with glasses, etc.) on one side. Next the characteristics defining the humans on the first cliff (imperfect, sometimes loving, sometimes good, mistakes, sin, etc.) and the other side, God (holy, perfect, unconditional love, etc.). He then explained that there is nothing we can do to cross this gap (an analogy of swimming to Canada from Asia was often used to explain this point). Next, talking about Jesus and what he has done, a cross was drawn in the middle, bridging the gap and sin was crossed out on the human side. Rabbit was very interested. Later that night we passed her contact info to one of our sisters. Next week the three of us met up with those three again and they brought three more friends. The two girls (Rabbit and our sister) went to a different table (we met at KFC each time) and she shared the gospel using the 'Have you heard of the four spiritual laws?' bilingual English / East Asian booklet and her East Asian language skills. We kept distracting the other five and had a somewhat spiritual conversation while the Rabbit was listening about the gospel and praying to receive Christ. When we were all done, Rabbit was so excited she came up to us and told us that she was our sister now! She was really excited to share with her parents and friends back home during an upcoming holiday. None of that would have happened if the first guy had shown up, if we had just done nothing for that hour, or if we had just done anything other than Phase 1 work, but God led us to New and brought Rabbit to our meeting.
Phase 4 was about follow-up with new Christians and going through some discipleship materials with them. I got to see one guy come to know Christ this summer, but I definitely wouldn't have guessed at first that we would have shared the gospel with him. Actually, I met him, let's call him Moped, on the day of rest before phase 2 began. I was struggling to take a day of rest in faith because of my 14 contacts, but in the end I just gave up the day and asked that God would still be with me and empowering me. I really saw that God is always at work, whether or not we are. So that night we were playing Frisbee by some student dorms and Moped came and played with us for a bit. I got his information. Without doing anything, God got me a contact. While I was resting, God was still working. The thing was that his English wasn't great, so I didn't call him for a while. I went through my 'better' English contacts and ended up calling him and going with a staff member. We talked for a bit with him and his friend. I think he said that his parents were somewhat Buddhist. We got into the gospel, but we went through it really slowly, letting them catch each word and fully understand what we were saying. He was really happy about it and was actually pushing his friend to believe in God too. We gave them time to think through this and we gave them the websites. The next week we met up again and this time we shared the booklet with them and he was ready to pray and receive Christ into his life. My partner had to go to another meeting, but I stayed and went through the back of the booklet and I tried setting up a time to meet again. He was actually going to be gone a long time. It was Monday, but he was leaving on Wednesday to go home for the long weekend and wouldn't be back until Wednesday. We couldn't meet on Tuesday. Each day I'd think about him and pray for him. When he finally got back we met up. This was on the last Thursday before we left the city on Sunday to go to Debriefing in the capital city. We met with the two of them again and his friend had some questions about the two circles with the chairs in them in the booklet from the week before. The one with yourself on the chair and Christ outside the circle (a non-Christian who has not asked Jesus to come into their life) and the circle with Christ on the chair and self at the foot of the chair (a life with Jesus in control and self submitting to him). He thought he was neither. He actually thought his life was more like the first, but with Christ somewhere in his life. He wasn't willing to surrender control right now though. He said he needed to believe in himself right now. Anyways, me and Moped started going into the first discipleship follow-up lesson. It was mainly about how when you receive Christ into your life He is now in you, you have eternal life and there is nothing that can separate you from Him, no one that can separate you from His love. He really got this point and the whole children of God thing made him really smile too. I gave him a notebook with the booklet's material hand-written in it and some verses. I'm so glad that I got to see Moped connect and I really want to keep him in my prayers and see him grow. I also want to see him speak God's truth into his friend's life. They asked me to give them English names when they found out that their friend had one. I decided to name them after two of the apostles, two that were brothers. I named them brothers because they will be brothers once his friend is reborn into Christ's family.
While on the trip I missed church a bit. We had a couple hours together on Saturdays to listen to a sermon from an ipod, have communion together, listen to personal testimonies, praise God (without singing) and focus on the God's word. It was pretty great though. God revealed to me more about my own testimony when it was my turn to share. I just couldn't wait to sing tomorrow in a congregation with a bunch of people when I got home. xP It really reminds us that praise and worship is not all about the music, but about God and what He has done and showing our appreciation. A student who had a Christian grandmother asked us what worship was. Although music is the first thing that comes to my head, it is by far the only thing. There are so many ways we got to worship on this trip.
Ya, what else can I say? We ate a lot of greasy food, baked goods, and Korean BBQ. We went to some parks, karaoke, some shopping, and McDonald's. We rode on small buses to get around the university city and took a taxi to town. We had two birthdays while we were there. There was one on one discipleing from the staff members. We had a lot of prayer walks and prayer time. We had a block of guy/girl time each week. We eventually got an international phone plan, but I only called home once. It was an amazing time and I really learned the importance of prayer and being always in God's presence; I learned the importance of good quiet time; I learned that taking steps of faith is always rewarded; I learned a bit of East Asian; I learned again that a church is not a building; I learned about accepting others as they are because they are a unique creation and loved in God's eyes; I learned a lot. I'm going to miss my friends, but I got their email addresses so I should be able to stay in contact at least a bit.
Last week we boarded a bus and went back to the capital. We stayed in a hotel with all the other families and had a lot of time for reflection, sharing, thinking about the future, preparing for reverse culture shock as well as a lot of other things. We also got the statistics for all the things we were praying for. This year in East Asia there were 47 students and 6 staff members. We were praying for 400 gospel presentations, 100 people praying to receive Christ and ten thousand dollars to support the great commission in East Asia. We ended up talking to about 1950 different groups of students, we had about 1500 spiritual conversations, shared the gospel 463 times, sharing again 109 times and we saw 101 new brothers and sisters come to know Jesus as their personal savior. Praise the Lord. Also from just the 50 of us 8200$ were donated to East Asia, considering we are all students or staff members that's quite a bit. We also got to start discipleing about two thirds of the new Christians, went through the Spirit filled life booklet, and shared the Jesus film a number of times.
There's so many people in Asia who haven't heard the gospel, but thanks to you and many others, many students have now heard for the first time, many have heard for a second time and some have already started a relationship with God. We need to continue praying for these things that have happened. Praying that every seed that was planted would begin to grow and be watered. Praying that each new Christian brother and sister would be actively involved in a community, growing in their faith and love for God. Praying that they won't be persecuted for their faith and that they will remain life-long labourers for Jesus. Since we never got a contract to get into a school, there is a chance that we won't have a long term team there next year. Pray that the friends we made would be followed up with and that even without us there that they could be spiritually multiplying in Asia. Also pray for the future missions in Asia. This year we were praying that within two years that of the 50 of us that went on project, that 20 of us would return on a longer term trip for a year or two or do a trip in Canada to help out other campuses. We were also praying that in four years that ten of us would become staff members. In the end though, we want to see the national students be in charge of reaching out to other students in East Asia, so pray for them too. There are actually starting to be a bunch of people going to Central Asia from East Asia and a prayer that we have is that by 2020 East Asia would be the largest missionary sending area. People from Canada can't go to Central Asia easily, but if they are from East Asia it is much easier. By supporting us, we support them and in turn they reach out to another part of the world that we can't go to.
I wanted to let you know now that I am definitely considering returning next year on project as I have seen so many things happen in the hearts of students there and I grew so much. I also want to be doing more at Carleton this year and really need to rely more on the Holy Spirit's empowerment. Also, in two weeks I am leaving Ottawa to go to Northern Quebec to work as a camp counsellor in Native communities. So, keep me in your prayers and if you didn't know already you can follow what is happening in my life by stalking my blog: Incomplete Composition on blogspot. (www.incompletecomposition.blogspot.com) I post almost everyday. While I was gone I wrote a page each day and intend to type them all up before I leave. They should be good in filling in the blanks that I left out and seeing into some very basic things that I thought during the trip.
About East Asia: There is a very large population. Atheism, believing in science or one's self are very common. The rich are very rich and the poor are very poor. University students are a small, but influential group of people from all over the country that will be put in positions of power, often in international positions. There is a large problem with orphans or abandoned children (we actually got to serve at an orphanage a couple times during our stay). The people are thirsty to hear more about God and the gospel. The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few. Keep praying for a spiritual revival in East Asia.
Anyways, I want to thank you again for everything and ya, I hope I can go again in the future.
Dylan"
So, ya. I now have 10 minutes left, so just be praying for Northern Quebec and my time there. When I get back I'm singing at a wedding, off for a week, gone to Toronto for a week for a VBS, back for a week, frosh facilitator at orientation for a week, then school starts.
Okay. Got to go.
Ttyl.
D.Fa
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