Reaping the Harvest

God is moving in these islands, stirring up the hearts of students and revealing to them their need and desire for Him!

Just in this past week, 3 students- THREE- have accepted Christ into their hearts.

While maybe this number does not seem significant compared to countries like China where thousands of people are actually becoming Christians daily, in a place like Hawaii, 3 students in one week is unheard of.

Tuesday morning we began the day with a time of prayer on campus at the UH Ampitheatre. We felt the conviction that “we do not have because we do not ask,” so we asked God for the faith to pray big prayers. We dreamed of the day when the entire ampitheatre would be filled to capacity with students desiring to pray and worship God. We prayed for God's Spirit to overwhelm the campus like lava overflowing from a volcano. We prayed for miracles.

That evening at our Cru weekly meeting, CRUcial, we got one.

Julian, one of our freshman guys made a decision to follow Christ.

He has attended our Monday freshman small group every week, but we were never really sure why. He had no interest in Christianity, would come late, text on his phone throughout the study, eat some snacks, then leave. But he kept coming back. And we took that as a sign of something good, though we couldn't tell what. Tuesday night at CRUcial, during the time of worship, I noticed Julian standing up and singing. The Lord squeezed my heart and I felt that we needed to be praying for him, so I asked a couple of our freshmen small group student leaders to pray for him with me. Later during worship, one of our student leaders went over to Julian and began talking with him. I found out later that he, noticing that Julian seemed very moved by the worship, had basically asked what he was feeling and what he believed. A couple minutes later I hear my name called and see the student beckoning me over.

“Julian would like to receive Christ into his heart,” he said.

“Excuse me WHAT?” I said.

“Julian would like to accept Christ into his heart,” he repeated.

“Are you sure?” I asked Julian. This was the kid whom, after I'd gone through the Gospel with him, had told me straight up “Yeah I understand but it doesn't apply to my life,” so I admit that I was a bit incredulous.

But Julian looked me straight in the eyes and said “Yes!”

“Oh! Um...ok then!” I exclaimed.

After explaining to him what exactly it meant and that all he had to do was pray with us, we prayed and Julian accepted Christ. Afterward we asked him how he felt.

“I feel all tingly,” he said. “I feel like I'm about to cry- it's like there's this huge weight that got taken off me.”

Two days later, a Japanese student, Yuki, also decided to accept Christ's love and freedom.

A day later, one of our interns and another student had the opportunity to lead another guy to the Lord.

After Julian accepted Christ, I was thinking how amazing it was when God spoke to me and said, “Kimi, why are you so surprised? Why are you so surprised when I answer your prayers?”

Valid question. If I believe what the Bible says, that if we ask, we shall receive, that we may ask anything in Jesus' name and it will be granted to us, that we are promised to do even greater things than Jesus himself in the power of the Holy Spirit...why am I surprised when a student decides to accept Christ? Why am I surprised at stories of redemption when I know that our God is the Redeemer? 

May we have the faith to pray big prayers every day!  

Over 100 students attended our weekly meeting last Tuesday