Adventures at OC '72!!!!!

OC '72: Spring Break March 8 - 13, 2009 "After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go. And he said to them, 'The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.'" Luke 10:1-2

This past week our Campus Crusade for Christ went to Orange County for spring break. All together about 95 students came, and we definitely saw God move in powerful ways. The theme of 'OC 72 came from Luke 10 in which Jesus sends out 72 disciples to go out "into every town and place where he himself was about to go." We went to the beach, the homeless shelters, the parks, the neighborhoods, and the universities. God showed up for us everywhere we went, and it was definitely a week that I will never forget. On the last day of the trip, we wall went to Knott's Berry Farm to get some well deserved rest and fun! It was good stuff here is a picture of our entire group below!




The most memorable experience I had at OC '72 this spring break was being able to go UC-Irvine on Wednesday. Even before I went on the trip, I was so eager to go on to campus. Many of friends who I went to Japan with this summer go to school there, so I really wanted to see them and do ministry with them on campus. Since we had to draw from a mystery box each day to decide where we would, our destination was totally up in the air. Our team was so eager to go on campus, but Monday and Tuesday we were sent to feed the homeless and minister on the beach the next day. Our teams prayed together that we would be able to get on campus because we knew that there was something special that God had for us there. When we went to draw from the mystery box on Wednesday, the last day of ministry, we were all so excited to finally get to go to UCI!!!!

As we prepared to go to campus, we prayed together about what God would want us to do there. We were assigned to set up a table on campus and write up some signs that would allow us to engage in conversation with students on the campus. Together our team decided to make a sign that said, "Need to Vent? No Judging here" On the other side of the sign, we would write, "We are here to listen." It would later turn out that the sign our team made would be pretty prophetic.

As we got onto campus, we had lunch with the director of Cru at UCI, and I got to meet up with one of my friends who was leading his Epic prayer group that day. After lunch, we set up the table together, and he was blown away by what the signs said. He told us that during the fall quarter, one of our friends named Colin had a vision for outreach on the campus. Colin envisioned a table on campus in the area where our table was at with a sign that read "We are here to listen." It was like an amazing prophetic confirmation that God truly wanted us to be on campus on this day!

From that point, our team split up. Half of the group stayed at the table to listen to students, and the other half of us went out to share on campus. My friend Jacki and I paired up and went to go share together. My friend Albert also came with us to help show us around the campus. Jacki was super excited to share that day, and I was as well, but I really wanted to make sure to soak in more prayer before we just went for it. So Albert, Jacki, and I started to prayer walk together. As we walked, we ran into a member of another member of our group named Jordan. Jordan was at his team with UCI prayer walking around campus. When Jordan ran into us, he asked if he could pray for us. We were definitely down for more prayer, so we said yes. As Jordan prayed, he was so on fire and filled with the Holy Spirit. I haven't been around him that much, but I know that he probably doesn't pray like he did too often. He was feeling it, and he imparted that excitement and passion onto us. There definitely was a lot of excitement because I was already super excited to be there. I kept telling Albert something big is going to happen today! We were feeding off each other's energy, and we were being fueled by the Holy Spirit!

We continued to prayer walk around campus, and Albert took us to the area where much of the spiritual battling took place. He took us to a huge rock formation in the middle campus where different religious groups would pray and where others would study or smoke pot. As we stood there, we looked into the distance to see who God was leading us to share with. I saw two different people sitting on benches ahead so we walked in their direction. As we approached the benches, Albert said that he was going to stay back and pray for us while we approached students to talk to. As we got closer to the benches, I didn't feel comfortable talking to the people that were sitting there, but I saw a guy sitting by himself on a bench a little ways down. I told Jacki we should go to him, so together we went up to him and approached him.

We introduced ourselves and asked if we could ask him some questions. He introduced himself as Kevin and said that he would be okay with answering some questions. We had a picture survey called a solarium with us. But even before we got to that, I already shared a little bit about my testimony because we found out he was studying to go into medicine and that was what I as doing before God called me to do something else. So we went through the picture survey and heard a little about his spiritual background. It turned out that Kevin was raised up with Buddhist beliefs, but recently he was becoming more and more interested in Christianity. He had talked about Christianity with his neighbor and had even begun reading the book of John.

After hearing some of his story and his interest in Christianity, I asked him if he had ever heard a clear presentation of the gospel before, and if he had not, if he would like to hear a clear presentation (it was really cool because this was one of the questions I had learned just earlier in the day from meeting with other leaders during our evangelism training time). He said that he had heard it some before but would love a clear presentation. From that point, we described to Kevin the good news that God loved him and had a plan for his life. However, the bad news was that we are sinners and are separated from God. But the good news is that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and rose again so that we could be with God. All we had to do was choose to become one of His children! He seemed pretty into the gospel message, and so we asked him if he had any questions.

From this point, he began leading the conversation the entire way, and it was truly a remarkable thing. He asked Jacki and I what we did when we struggled with doubts. From that point, Jacki and I were able to share some pretty powerful parts of our own testimony. You could definitely sense the Holy Spirit moving in our midst. I was even moved by hearing Jacki's story. I had never heard it before, and it really impacted me. You could tell that Kevin was pretty moved, and so the next question he asked was how to become a Christian! It was like he was totally setting up each question for us!

Kevin was really confused because he had heard conflicting messages. One of his friends said all he had to do was ask Jesus, but another friend had told him that he had to go through a process of conversion that included baptism. So we cleared up all the confusion for Kevin and told him all he had to do be saved was admit that he was a sinner, believe that Jesus died for his sins and rose again, and choose Him to be his Lord and Savior. From there, we asked Kevin if he would like to do this. At first, he said, "Yes, I would like to do that, but I want to wait for the perfect time." He said that it didn't feel right with finals coming up and everything. Upon hearing this Jacki responded by saying that wouldn't right now be the perfect time with finals coming up and everything? After thinking for a bit, Kevin responded by saying, "Ya you are right, let's do this!" We were so excited to hear this! Later, Jacki told me she almost began tearing up as Kevin decided he would like to follow Jesus.

I then asked Kevin if he would like to say a prayer himself to receive Jesus or repeat after me. He said that he we would like to repeat after me, so at that time, I led Kevin in praying to receive Jesus into his life! It was such an amazing moment. Kevin's countenance visibly changed upon finishing the prayer, and he said that he felt really great! We told him that angels in heaven were throwing a party for him in heaven, and that He was now a child of God and no one could ever take that away from him! It was such a powerful and awesome moment to relive and remember!

After recomposing himself, Kevin realized he was 20 minutes late to class! He assured us that he knew what the lecture was about though. We exchanged contact information with one another and gave him a Knowing God Personally booklet for him to look after. We promised to stay in contact with him and hook him up with others who could help answer his questions and grow in his faith! We prayed for him, and then he headed off to class!

Jacki and I jumped for joy and met up again with Albert to tell him what happened. He was so excited! He also had just run into Colin and told him about the crazy signs that fulfilled the vision he had in the fall! As we marveled about what God did that day, we began to see the crazy work that God was doing even before we approached Kevin. While we were sharing with our team later that night, we found out that one of our team members named Ben was praying in the area where we met Kevin. He prayed over the area and asked God to bring another child into His kingdom that day! God answered that prayer in a mighty way! Later, we also got to meet up with a friend named Tiffany who is a student at UCI. Tiffany has a passion for prayer and simple churches. When we met here, she introduced us to some of her friends who were doing open air worship earlier that day. We found out that they were worshipping at the exact same time we were talking to Kevin.

It was crazy to think that our friend Albert was praying for us as we spoke, Tiffany's friends were praying and worshipping, and one our other teams was prayer walking around UCI asking God for salvation for the students there! I definitely came to an understanding of what a group effort evangelism really is!