Thank you so much for praying in the new semester with our 40 Day Prayer Calendar! We really feel the reason we see any fruit at all is because of the prayers of the saints! We ended these 40 days on 9/23 which was “See You At The Pole” day, a national prayer initiative for students, teachers, locals to gather at a school and pray for that school, that state and the nation. In addition to our 40 Days and SYATP , we will also have our campus prayer walk on Sunday 11/1 where we invite all Christian students and all church volunteers to join us for prayer. If you would like to join, let me know!
Another praise was our Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival outreach on 9/25. For most major cultural holidays, we always make sure to have fun music, games and food from the culture. For the Mid-Autumn festival, we entrusted the night to the Chinese Christian Church of North Jersey. They did a phenomenal job with the food and games; and they also offered an evangelistic Bible discussion in Mandarin (as they do every week). Several dozen more Mandarin-speaking students joined us. It was so energizing! One of the participants was a Columbia alumnus named “ Alex” (pseudonym for security). He actually found our church first because of his interest in faith, but because he speaks Mandarin, I invited him and he came out! On our drive home, I reiterated the gospel; he is eager to continue joining. Another new participant was “Mickey” (pseudonym for security). She stayed in the English speaking groups, and then joined our home group the following week. Both “ Alex” and “Mickey” ended up signing up for ESL at our home church, just another layer of ministry in their lives. Pray for these two specifically !
As mentioned, we had our first monthly home group on October 2. Once a month instead of meeting on campus on Friday, we meet in the homes of staff, volunteers, student leaders. We had over 30 students in 5 locations ! Jenn and I had to turn ours into a restaurant-night-out because of a busy weekend. Praise God for our committed, generous volunteers across the area. Praise God for the seeds that were sown in these home groups and across all our ministry activities!
Finally – we wanted to remind you about our Thanksgiving outreach!! Every year we ask Christians to consider hosting at least 2 international students in their homes on Thanksgiving Day! There’s no pressure to evangelize or host a Bible study (we already do this all the time for our students!). We just need you to show some hospitality and fun to our students! If you’re interested, please check out the details and fill out the form (will send out separately!)! It would be great to see some of you take some students in ! Thanks so much for your partnership in the gospel! It’s a privilege to have you on the team.
