The Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University contacted us about hosting and conducting a "spiritual recollection" for their graduating classes of students; mostly male.
Their stated objective was to provide the students some sort of "psycho-spiritual activity to help students reflect on their role in the greater scheme of things". Please understand, for this institution to seek us out and give us complete freedom with how we conduct the event, is nothing short of a miracle.
Bambi and I have been praying for this university nearly every time we pass by the campus. This is a government-run school; and most of the faculty are not very open toward born-again Christians. Typically, for such an event, they would have conducted an activity in-house, possibly partnering with a Roman Catholic agency. But the Lord's church is becoming well-known in the city as a dynamic ministry of excellence and influence. They seem to have put their confidence in our team to speak into the lives of these students, and have given us carte blanche to evangelize the students during these 3 days and on our own home turf.
Today, we ministered to the first batch of 88 students. Tomorrow a different batch, and the next day yet another batch of students. Around 250 students total. They are all graduating seniors, who are soon to head-off to their respective on-the-job internship trainings with various companies around the country.
This entire group was all-male. They had an amazing time; and heard the gospel so clearly. Most of them were very open, with only one student who walked-out. We discovered he was from a religious cult, and reasoned that he felt guilty just being there. The rest however, got extremely blessed as they experienced God in a real and fresh way.
Bambi and I have an amazing team of committed, hard-working, Spirit-filled church volunteers that share our passion for lost souls and are giving their time and energies to make this outreach event successful.
From 8am-5pm, there was a non-stop diversity of learning activities and group discussions. We use video clips, ice-breakers, and team-building activities. Each station requires students to memorize and quote Scriptures. The church music and drama teams participated in leading worship, and acted-out some gripping and penetrating evangelistic skits that brought cold chills down everyone's spine. Numerous teenagers stood up to give testimony of how they came to Christ. I taught lessons on how the penalty of our sins has been settled by Jesus at the cross; and how to get rid of unhealthy emotional and spiritual baggages. There were times of asking and releasing forgiveness among the students. One student approached his professor and asked forgiveness. The message of Christ's salvation and hope for reconciliation had a great impact on the entire class.
It has been an awesome first day; as many lives were touched and changed.
Please keep up the good prayer work. It is effective! We ask that you continue covering all our church ministry volunteers. After the busy weekend of back-to-back church services and mission activities, Monday 6am, began with everyone already a bit tired, and some have started losing their voice. God's grace is available and sufficient to empower the team. We expect more great things to happen in the coming days..
