Truth is who You are

I just spent the past 5 days in Kitwe, Zambia at Copperbelt University. We went to campus every day and got to share the Gospel, the spirit filled life, and just get to know some of the Zambian students. I have come away with many new facebook friends and e-mail addresses of students who want to keep in touch.

The very first day we got to campus I was blown away by how open the Zambian students were to talking about faith. In the U.S. I frequently come across the attitude that what you believe is for you and what I believe is for me and we shouldn't talk about it. In Zambia the students are the exact opposite. They are very eager to hear about what we believe. We would go through the dorms and knock and doors and without fail every one would open their door and instantly invite us to sit in their room. I had so many wonderful conversations this way. (Side Note: At the university the students live 4 to a room, with two twin beds...so two per twin bed. That really put into perspective the complaining we do in the states about having to share our rooms)

We met students who were not sure about their salvation or about the Christian life, so on a few occasions I was very fortunate to be a part of sharing the Gospel with them, and I even got to see two people dedicate their lives to Christ and accept him as their Savior! As of Sunday we had seen 10 people come to Christ, and I know more have done so in the past 2 days. It has been unreal and my passion for sharing the Gospel has exploded in the past few days.

We also met some students who were "born-again" Christians, but had been experiencing "backsliding" in their faiths. This provided an opportunity to share our own experiences of not walking consistently in our faiths and how to remedy that. It often meant sharing that there was no sin that God could not forgive and that if we bring our sins to him he is faithful and just to forgive us. We also would share how they could be empowered by the Holy Spirit to continue walking daily and not only turning from our sin, but also letting our life demonstrate the fruits of the spirit. Several of the students seemed to really need to hear what we said and were very glad we met with them.

Over the 5 days I have met some amazing Zambians who already have wonderful walks with Christ. One in particular is Eddy. We met him on our first day when we were sharing our faiths with some of his friends. He walked into the room in the middle of the conversation, but soon chimed in with perfect answers that the other students had asked. We ended up staying in that room for about 2.5 hours and really got to share what the bible says about things like homosexuality, politics, and changing the world. The next day we met up with Eddy again, and he took us to a room next-door of 3 of his friends who all bought into and preached the prosperity gospel. The prosperity gospel very very similar to the true gospel, except they tend to believe that if you have enough faith you will be blessed with things such as material possessions or health. We talked with them for a good 3 hours going back and forth with different scriptures and eventually ended with the conclusion that we understood each view point, but disagreed on the interpretation of scripture. It was at times very frustrating to know the truth and not have someone agree with you about it, but at the end of the conversation we were able to agree that we all had Jesus Christ's death on the cross as the payment for our sins, and we all were pursuing knowing God the best we could, with what he would reveal to us. We all prayed for wisdom in reading the word and for guidance with the rest of our trip. So what had been a very frustrating conversation ended on a pretty positive note (not to the extent we had hoped, but positive nonetheless).

Today was our last day on campus, and we went to meet up with a guy we met on our first day named Tom, who had told us that he was not sure why God would or should let him into heaven. We shared the gospel with him the first day, and he said that he had already accepted Christ, but lacked assurance. So we planned on following up with him today and going through some scripture to assure him that he could not lose his salvation if he truly had asked Christ to be his savior. We got to the room and the plans changed, one of his roomates, Criford (spelling?), and he was a believer who was very solid in his faith and knowledge of the word. He told us all about a mission trip he was going on to Malawi. He also praised the work we were doing in Zambia and got so excited to hear about all the wonderful things God had been doing through us. He was extremely encouraging to us and I think it was clear that God intended to use that time to rejuvenate our spirits. We have been spending 7-8 hours on campus each day (except Sunday, because Church goes from 10:30am to 1:00pm) and it has been exhausting and at times very discouraging. The discouragement mainly came from meeting people who were misled in their beliefs, and our efforts were with out results. In Zambia there are a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses who have sort of similar beliefs to Christianity except for heaven and hell, that Jesus is God and they also have their own translation to the bible. I never had a positive conversation with a Jehovah's Witness on campus. So basically Criford's encouragement was more needed than I realized.

One of these days I am going to post about all the differences between Zambia and America, because there are many, but I am about out of time on the internet so I will just post what God has been doing at CBU. Thanks for reading and please continue to pray for the new brothers and sisters in Christ and that their walks would grow with the fellowship of other believers on campus.