Campus outreach report August 2011

I just want to give thanks for a few things that happening in my life for the past two weeks.

Firstly I want to thank God for my Buddhist friend. I have been sharing the gospel with him in the past 3 years. Finally one day he asked me whether I can lend him a Chinese/English bible so that he can read it himself. Praise the Lord! And he is actually reading it, starting from Genesis, Exodus and a few gospel books. Not only that, he asked me questions about the faith in Christianity. I can see that from his heart he is seeking for the truth. Please keep him in prayer as I continue to share my experience in Christ with him. Some of the questions he asks are difficult to answer. However, 1 Peter 3:15 said 'always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have'.

Secondly, I want to thank God for giving me boldness and courage to pray for people who has physical illness. Last week, Shaun and I are posting posters for healing encounter, an outreach event.we met Rachel, who is limping because of a ski accident. At first we are hesitant to approach her but the holy spirit prompts us so we do it anyway. Although we didn't see the results at once, it builds up our faith so that next time we can pray for more people. The same situation happens again when Rachel and me are promoting healing encounter this week. We met Matt, a local student who are walking in crutches. I quickly approached him and offered to pray for his leg, which he agreed. In the bible conference this year, Ps Peter Mchugh said 'every attempt is a success'. We haven't seen any visible results yet but these experiences cause us to become one step closer to what God intends for us to be. One thing that I learn is sharing testimony (in this context, healing testimony) is very effective to reach out to people. They might not want to listen to your event promotion, but when I share my story everyone listen intently. It is always a good idea to prepare a few different types of testimony to share.

Thirdly, I want to give thanks for prayer walk group that I involved in the Monash Clayton neighborhood. We have been praying every week in front of different houses near the university since last semester. Last week while we are praying on the street, we met Chris, a senior man who shared his story with us. He told us he's very ill and not sure who much longer he could live. Possibly a Catholic, he worked his whole life to support his family and now he realized he might be spend much more time with his children, who no longer lived with him. We offered to pray for his illness and his family and gave him a hug in the end. Chris was deeply touched by our action and till this day I believe God has sent us to show him that he still loved him and cared for him. There is indeed no greater things than the love of God.

That's for me at the time being. I shall update on what happens at healing encounter today (2/9/11) next week. Surely God is going to do something great and heal many people.

Charlie Lam
Clayton Science/Arts life group, Hope Melbourne Waverley Centre