Tom Lin

Every new life in Jesus is a miracle, but when all of our human work and witness fail and fall short and yet God still chooses to bring someone new into the Kingdom, we appreciate the miracle 10X more. In the past 2 weeks, we’ve seen over 20 miracles, students making 1st time decisions to follow Jesus! Thanks to all of you who have been praying for our regional goal of seeing 70 conversions.

The first series of miracles happened at Grinnell College in mid-November, when a freshman Chinese student (Li is his pseudonym) could not deny the miraculuous power of Christ after a series of bizarre events. The events involved him getting an urgent message to call his friend, which ended up saving his friend from a suicidal death, and a bunch of emails from God (see my friend Jon Hietbrink’s blog for the miraculous story’s details).

Throughout this saga, IV Staffworker Tim Lin was persistent in having spiritual conversations with Li, and as her questions and excuses for denying Christ’s reality decreased, her readiness to receive Christ increased until Nov. 12th, when she committed her life to following Jesus!

The most recent miracle happened at our Black Campus Fellowship (”Harambee”) at Washington University in St. Louis. Harambee hosts a gospel choir concert annually, and this year it was on Nov. 17th. The event typically includes a gospel invitation and the whole semester is spent preparing for it. So when one of the lead singers became hoarse and unable to sing on the previous night, and when mishaps led to poor publicity and fear of a low turnout for the concert, we worried about how successful the concert was going to be. But our Harambee IV staff, Ashley and Thomas, presented the gospel at the concert and God did his miraculous thing again… Over 30 students responded to their invitation to commit their life to Christ, with many of them committing their life to Christ for the very first time!

Cherry is a Chinese international students at Kansas University. She comes from a Buddhist background and after participating in IV for a few years, struggled with possibility of becoming a Christian. “Why do I have to give up Buddhism?” she asked. It would also mean possibly turning her back on her family. This month, she finally asked her mom for permission, and her mom blessed her wishes. She met with Len, her IV staff, said “YES” to Jesus and committed her life to Christ!

Finally, George is a Chinese international student at Wash U. About 9 months ago, after local IV staff Janet met with him regularly for 3 years, he confessed some belief in Jesus, but did NOT want to submit to Christ’s leadership in his life. But on Nov. 17th, he made the decision to fully submit to Jesus’ leadership in his life!

These miracles are certainly fuel for our staff and so encouraging. Please continue to pray for more!