I have been looking forward to sharing the details and backstory for “Raymond” (pseudonym for protection) coming to Christ. As I have shared from previous prayer letters and updates, “Raymond” was a Hindu student strongly interested in the person of Jesus and heavily active in our ministry at Stevens Institute of Technology since the fall of 2022. He befriended several Christian international students, went to church with them, came to our Friday dinners and even had one-on-one Bible studies with me – but never quite made the jump to fully trust Christ.

Well fast forward a bit, and the Lord has done a work to convict “Raymond” to fully trust in Christ alone. Here is a bit of his backstory and journey for you:

“My family is Hindu. My mom is the one who does a lot of worship. And I can say that she continues to believe Jesus as an idol. My father on the other hand, having experienced a miracle of Jesus, believes Jesus as one of the gods who is powerful.[]

“There are so many Hindu gods. There’s a god for money, one for studies, one for power, another for food and so on. So, back then I never really had true “faith” in any of them. My faith was very much divided among all these idols as everybody did. I never really prayed or had much faith in any god. 

“In high school, my father experienced a scary health issue. He used to go unconscious and fall wherever he was. He was checked into a local Christian hospital under critical care.

“On day 1,  there was this Christian worker who prayed for my dad in-person. Not to any god but Jesus. Me and my mom just stood there confused. She did the same 2x a day for the next 4 to 5 days. Doctors could not figure out how to cure my dad. Around the 4th or 5th day I remember doctors are like “we observed no abnormality in the ECG. It’s perfectly normal!” All these 5 days in hospital, one thing that I noticed was consistent was the woman’s prayer. Like every day! Who does that? We are nothing to her. Yet she cared about us. My father prayed for Jesus along with the Christian worker. So did I and my mom. Even if they don’t admit it now, they know what happened. 

“And the worker gave a small 10 page summary version of the Bible in the Telugu language. Never saw her again. She introduced herself as “sister.” Not with her name. I realized she did all this for nothing but as a service in Jesus’s name. I started reading the Bible after my father’s recovery. I read a couple of chapters in Genesis and then I somehow stopped reading it as I couldn’t really understand. But, my interest to know what’s in it remained. 

“When I got to America for my Masters, I met friends through the international ministry who do Bible studies almost every day. Then I joined them and grew in my understanding of Christ. 

“I saw my life and me changing. But, what really pushed me to make a final decision was when I attended a 50-hour worship conference. This changed a lot because I learned how precious our human life is and the significance of Christ’s sacrifice for it. Of course, I knew Christ died for our sins, but this conference showed me the true meaning of it. I also learned how my life is in debt to his sacrifice and that I need to use my life and body as an instrument to show the rest of the world how good He is. Something inside me told me that day that this is the purpose of my life.”

Praise the Lord!! Raymond shared a prayer request. He wants to go fully public with his decision, but he doesn’t know how his parents will react. Will they speak ill of him? Disown him? Although they are loving, he fears how they will react, and he wants to tell them about his decision in a wise way that will quell any concerns. Pray for Raymond and how to go about this.

Please also pray for the new semester! Daily prayer 1/14 to 1/21 at 8:00 pm on Zoom. Contact me if you want to join. We then kick things off on 1/19 for our first meeting. If you are interested in visiting to see how you can volunteer or even just for encouragement, I can send you the calendar and we’d be happy to have you! Thank you for your partnership in the gospel!