from April 5, 2015 prayer update

Easter is not the highest profile Christian holiday, but it is the most important. On Good Friday we celebrated Christ’s substitutionary death for us on the cross. Today, Easter, we celebrate Christ’s resurrection from the dead. Please don’t let the world rob you of the richness of this deeply significant day by focusing on silly distractions like bunnies and candy eggs.

If Christ did in fact die for our sins and rise from the grave, the implications are profound. We have the hope of forgiveness, reconciliation with an offended God, power to live life well and for the glory of God, and eternal hope for the future. Good news indeed. News that needs to be clearly and unashamedly shared with others.

There are more than 40 million first generation immigrants in the U.S. Included among them are 856 thousand Asian international students (331 thousand from China, 146 thousand from India, 81 thousand from Saudi Arabia)? Saudi Arabia is one of the most closed countries on the planet. A very difficult place to make inroads with the gospel. And yet there are no limitations placed on what you can share with Saudis studying in the U.S. There are growing and wonderful opportunities to impact the nations, even the least reached globally, right in our backyard. We are the largest immigrant nation in the world. God is bring the nations to us!

A couple of years back I had the privilege to serve as an English conversation partner for six months for a young Muslim man from Saudi Arabia. He is now an undergraduate at a university in San Francisco. This semester I have been meeting regularly with a UT student (Xuebin) from a small community in central China. He is an all-but-dissertation PhD student in geography. He recently introduced me to one of his friends (Yatong), a visiting professor at UT. He is dean of the department of electronic and information engineering at Hebei University in Tianjin, China (one of the world’s largest cities), but he is here in Austin for a year. I am now serving as an English conversation partner for him. Both men are atheists, but are remarkably open to conversations we have had about Christianity. In fact Xuebin will be visiting a good evangelical church for Easter today. I am praying that both men (and their wives) will come to know Christ, and that I can play a part in that process.

How about you? Who are you bringing the good news of Easter to. I would love to hear your stories. We all know lost people where we live, work, and play. That is a natural place to start. Take a few small steps and allow God to surprise you by what He does. Who knows, He may even lead you to engage the nations, perhaps starting with opportunities that He has brought right to our doorstep.