One-hundred and sixteen students at Stevens Institute of Technology. 116! That is the total number of individual international students who joined our kickoff picnic and first two Friday dinners. These are mostly all non-believers from India, China, the Middle-East and Africa. It’s almost hard to believe! What is even more encouraging is we have shared the gospel with most of them and will continue to do so during our Friday Bible discussions and various other activities. And they know this! We do not bait-and-switch; we tell them we are here to serve them with fun, friendship and hospitality but to educate them about Christianity. And they keep coming. It’s truly incredible. 

The sheer numbers can be intimidating and overwhelming, but praise God we once again have a solid group of staff, volunteers and Christian international students who “get” the vision and are committed to it! In August we were able to kick things off with a leadership interest meeting with our Christian students right in our yard, we also hosted a prayer walk with our volunteers and passed out as many flyers as we could to students on campus. All this, combined with your prayers during our prayer calendar, has led to another year of averaging 60+ mostly non-believing students at our Friday dinners.

I have to once again remind us that this is unprecedented for the movement to draw these numbers consistently.  We are riding a wave of God’s grace that we pray will lead to a mighty revival. 

Finally, on Sunday 9/17, Jenn and I got to host the Muslim student “Stanley” I had mentioned before, his wife and their children. We had to “pay them back” for their hospitality two months ago when they fed us a delicious ethnic dinner over their home. Stanley asked for three Bibles recently – one in Farsi, one in the original languages of Hebrew and Greek and one study Bible with maps and references. I immediately ordered them for him. Pray for Stanley to see Christ for who he truly is, and pray for the salvation of his whole family! 

Pray also for the entire team of staff, Christian students and volunteers. Pray for our Mandarin breakout group. Pray for our once-monthly home groups. Pray for our field trips and other hospitality activities. Thank you so much for praying and for your partnership in the gospel!