Day 5: Plentiful

So, it turns out (for those of you who didn't know), that God sometimes does the best things when you feel the weakest. It makes it abundantly clear to all involved that he is the one doing the work; our role and blessing is to be a tool in his hand.

Today was pretty hard on me. I feel discouraged, empty and a bit out of place. I also feel loved, blessed and excited about what God is doing through us here. It's an odd dichotomy, but maybe that's what ministry is; feeling weak and being used mightily.

We went today to la Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (UANL or "La Uni"). La Uni has 175,000 students (yea, i said that). They are spread across 7 campuses, but the majority attend the main campus (the others are major-specific, like the medical school) in San Nicolas, a part of Monterrey. This campus is gigantic, y'all; it holds 13 facultades (departments), each of which is so large it has its own mascot (owls, bears, elephants, unicorns, beavers...) that expresses something about the character of its students. Students at La Uni are not required to take an English exam like the students at El Tec, so dramatically fewer students know or want to speak English.

We grouped up based on language proficiency and evangelism experience. I was in a team with Craig and Mallory, which was absolutely delightful. We prayed and dove into campus, we talked to a couple of guys in a row with whom it was just plain difficult to get into the gospel. We shook it off, prayed for them and then talked through the gospel with a mecatronica student (i don't know what major that is either) who was not very interested and a philosophy student who was very interested, but unsure of what he believed. We left Alejandro (philosophy) with a solid understanding of the gospel and a challenge to ask God if He exists and see what happens. As we left, all of his friends who had been keeping their distance crowded around him to ask what the gringos had been talking about (quien sabe, maybe he walked them through the gospel too!). By this point, my brain was very tired of speaking Spanish and my heart was very tired of trying to do small talk and lead conversations. We were walking up a staircase when we heard a voice behind us speaking English, so we turned around and followed the voice and met Ingrid - an incredibly friendly girl from San Antonio who lives in Monterrey now. Mallory jumped right into making a connection with her and she showed us around her facultad and introduced us to all her friends as they passed. She had to leave before to long for a test, and we had to go to lunch, but we're planning to meet up with her Friday.

We walked to our meeting point, and ran into Kaylen and Monica just in time to join on the tail end of them leading a young man to know Christ; which was a beautiful moment guys - I don't know how to express it fully. When we compared notes, we found out that there had been 4 other salvations that morning! That's an amazing thing for us. We usually see people get connected to the church and start following Christ after a few months, but it's been rare for us to find fruit that ripe.

Our afternoon was marked by a strange encounter with campus security. We asked un chavo on campus if we could talk with him about God and life and stuff, but he said he had a test he had to go to. Uncharacteristically, I felt the impulse to pray for him and asked him if we could. After we prayed, we gave him our information and started to walk away. As we walked past, a security guard called to us and said (en español): "Hey, come here... what are you guys doing here?" after which ensued a conversation started with me trying to make sure we weren't in trouble and ended with the gospel. This guard - Raul - showed us pictures of his grandchildren and then his prayer book. He took us to talk with a couple of students he knew (though they didn't have enough time) we talked through what it meant to really be a Christian. As Mallory described it, we were each "checking to make sure the other actually understood the gospel." We left to meet back up with the group after encouraging Raul to get involved in a church and giving him our church's info.

While standing around waiting for the team to assemble, Julio saw someone he knew and waved him over to talk with us. Within 2 minutes, Julio got us started into the gospel. I was struggling with the Spanish, but he jumped in and started preaching some fantastic gospel to the guy. It was amazing to see passion and truth flowing in Spanish as he led his friend through the gospel and he gave his heart to Jesus. 

Needless to say, we were all pretty beat after the day, so we went back to the hotel and started organizing our contacts for the church to do follow-up on. We had giant pizzas and practiced more dancing, then had a worship night and jam session.

I really struggled with the gospel today. My words were awkward and choppy and sometimes just didn't make any sense. I could see the people I was talking to getting confused or bored. But God worked so mightily today. It was humbling and beautiful. He is so, so good friends. If you haven't talked through the gospel lately, even with another believer, I really recommend it. It's good for the soul.

Please pray that we would be able to make strong connections and that people would be able to get connected to the church here...