My Missions Testimony! — Fearfully & Wonderfully Jo

After I came back from East Asia, my church in Ohio (Columbus Chinese Christian Church) gave me the chance to share my experience with the English congregation! And now, in honor of GOVEMBER, a Cru initiative in the month of November to emphasize the importance of obeying God’s command to GO out and make disciples, I am posting this here to encourage you guys to consider how you can play a role in Gods’ Great Commission!

As spoken on Sunday, August 19th:

Hi everyone! My name is Jolene and I am an incoming sophomore at the University of Texas. And I’m so excited to be able to share with you a missions opportunity I had this past summer.

Over the past month and a half, I had the opportunity to go to East Asia with my campus ministry, to love and serve the college students there. I went with the prayer that God would use me and work through me to show His great love and mercy to His lost sheep. However, what I came to find was that simultaneously, He was working IN me in ways I had never anticipated.

In Deuteronomy 10:12 it says “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,” I think this verse best represents my trip– all the things I experienced and all the lessons I learned. And I’m bout to tell you why!

God’s calling for me to go on this mission trip seemed to come unexpectedly. So unexpectedly, that I struggled to find the reason why I felt God wanted me to go. After much prayer and discernment, God revealed to me that it was because of the deep-seated bitterness that I held towards the people of East Asia. I had gone there many times on family trips and had always interpreted our cultural differences as rudeness on their part. But I knew that by doing so, I was not carrying out God’s command to love all people. So I went to challenge myself to love those who I found difficult to love.

Fast forward to June, when my team and I arrived in East Asia.

Since evangelism is illegal in the country, we went there as “foreign exchange students,” to learn language and culture. A typical day consisted of training in the morning, class in the afternoon, and during lunch and dinner, we would go “fishing.” “Fishing” is when we would approach local students in the dining halls, introduce ourselves, and create friendships. Through these meals and through follow-up hangouts, we would try to bring up spiritual conversations and hopefully, gospel presentations.

I had imagined thousands of possible scenarios, but nothing came close to the warm welcome and embraces I received from the local students. Honestly, I thought it would be extremely difficult for me to let go of past judgments and love the people. But God made it so easy and opened my eyes to see the kindness and goodness that existed in these students’ hearts. I expected many many rejections. After all, we were strangers to them. But instead, I was met with so much enthusiasm. The students smiled so big when we asked if we could sit with them and were genuinely interested in getting to know us, asking us so many questions, eyes wide and curious whenever we engaged in conversation. Whenever we went out, they never let us pay, insisting that it was their pleasure to pay for us.

Another thing that surprised me about them was their willingness to engage in spiritual conversation and their hunger for the gospel. Since it’s a closed country, I felt a little scared to even bring up the subject of God, but I soon found that I had nothing to be afraid of. For many students, we were the first exposure they had to the gospel, and many others had only read about God from a textbook. So the fact that we were people who actually followed and loved this God amazed them and they took advantage of the opportunity to ask us all the questions they never could get the answers to. Whenever we would ask, “Would you like to hear the story of Jesus?” their eyes just lit up and they vigorously nodded their heads, eager to hear this story. During the gospel presentation, I could visibly see God working in their hearts. They were so attentive and asked me questions that really made  me think about who my God is. For me, it was so eye opening because as someone who grew up in a Christian household, I had forgotten this awe that should come after hearing the gospel. Because it’s a story that is amazing and tragic all at the same time, and Jesus’ incredible sacrifice on the cross should make us go, “Wow, this almost sounds too good to be true!”

And evidently, God is moving in East Asia. Over the course of our time there, my team witnessed 13 students pray to receive Christ. Thirteen!! And it’s incredible to see how real it all is. I think for all of us on the team, we struggled to believe if these prayers were really genuine because it happened so fast. It took them so little time to decide that this was what they wanted. And they were so confident in their decision. That’s how I knew that this could only be the work of God. Only the power of His great love could possibly change these students’ hearts. Nothing we could say can do that.

But it wasn’t all smooth sailing. This was the first time I had spent an extended period of time solely focused on the work of God, without any distractions. And I think that in itself comes with its own set of challenges. You have a lot more time to reflect on your emotions and feelings, giving Satan more opportunities to mess with your mind. During the trip, I constantly struggled with feelings of self doubt and guilt. Self doubt came after unfruitful conversations, when I really questioned my ability to share the gospel. Guilt came when I was confronted by my intentions in creating relationships with the students. Was I entering the relationship just to see a prayer to receive Christ? Or was I entering the relationship because I genuinely wanted to love them? God is so good though, because He reminded me that His definition of success is not that I bring lots of people to Christ. But it’s that I took this step of faith in even coming to East Asia. Every time I took a step of faith in initiating conversations, I was already successful in God’s eyes. And I don’t have to beat myself up about having these negative feelings, because God doesn’t, so why should I?

This trip also put a lot of things into perspective for me. Because it is a closed country, we had to speak in code while talking to teammates. So for example, God would be Dad, praying would be rapping, and Jesus would be JC. It was a really cool experience and it made me feel like a cool spy but after some time, I began to miss being able to say “God” and “Jesus.” I realized how blessed I was, to live in a country where I can proclaim His name. And it made those words so much sweeter than they already are. In East Asia, bibles are also hard to obtain, again because it is a closed country. So when we gave our friends who prayed to receive Christ these bibles, they were speechless. I had the opportunity to gift a bible to one of my new friends and it was such a precious moment for me. When she received it, her face was full of joy, and she called it a “sweet book” in her language. And that really struck me, because yeah, it is a sweet book! And it’s something I take for granted, like oh look it’s just another book. But these students held this book like it was treasure, and that’s honestly the way we should all hold the bible.

I think above all, I really learned to love God more. At the beginning of the trip, we were told that we would fall more in love with God. And honestly, I thought it was super cheesy and even cringed. But it’s so true. On this trip, I saw so many prayers answered, some within a matter of minutes. And I witnessed just how powerful His transforming love is, how it can completely win over the most stubborn of hearts and how His joy overflows as a testament to how real He is.

And that’s why I think missions is so important and so necessary in every Christian’s walk. Yes, God commands us to make disciples and love His people, but we are called to love the Lord first and foremost. And that’s something that’s so easy to forget when we get so caught up in outreaching. But I think missions is a place where you’re really reminded to love the Lord, and it becomes such an intimate moment. God reveals Himself to you in so many ways. Being a Christian my whole life, I thought I’d seen it all, but I didn’t even know the half of it. So, I encourage all of you, if you feel even a little tugging that you think might be God calling you to missions, please don’t ignore it. It’s such a privilege to be able to be a part of God’s work. He doesn’t need us, yet He chooses to allow us to partake in His good and perfect work. So I encourage you to pray about it. Listen to what God is telling you. But if you don’t feel called to missions just yet, that's ok too! You don’t necessarily have to go to another country for it to be missions. It can start with where you are now. Allow God’s overflowing joy and love to speak through you wherever you are. Because it can do that. Many people just need to see that overflowing joy on your face to believe that God is real.

I’m going to leave you guys with the same verse. Deuteronomy 10:12– “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,”

My prayer is that no matter where you are in life right now, you remember to love and serve the Lord, and that through serving the Lord, your love for the Him only grows. Because honestly, the fact that we have a God who loves us so much is the sweetest miracle.

~jo