God's Work in the World of Students Today (1976)
IFES update delivered at Urbana 76by Chua Wee Hian
“They would phone one another and agree to study a set passage. Later, over the telephone, they would exchange insights gained. They would then pray for one another, thus sustaining one another in the midst of much bloodshed and struggle.”
The International Fellowship of Evangelical Students is primarily a missionary movement operating in the world of students. All 62 member movements of the IFES are committed to present and uplift the Lord Jesus Christ in campuses where he is not known or named.
Today we are pooling our resources and manpower to pioneer evangelical student witness in about 30 different countries, including Eastern Europe and some very difficult lands in the Islamic bloc. I would like to share with you some of the highlights of our missionary thrust.
Six months ago Leni Sison, a young Filipino worker, went to Mexico City. She had received a clear call from the Lord through participating at the Asian Student Missionary Convention in the Philippines to go and help the Mexican movement pioneer high school work in Mexico City. When she got there, her Mexican brothers and sisters in Christ welcomed her most warmly. Within a matter of weeks she was able to establish eight high-school groups in Mexico City.
In Mexico City there are half a million high-school students who do not know Jesus Christ personally. There is no Christian work done among this large group of students. Leni is there working with her Mexican colleagues and also with an IFES staff worker, Douglas Stewart, in establishing high-school groups in that particular city.
There is another interesting sidelight to Leni's ministry. She is backed up by prayers and by giving from students in Trinidad, Malaysia, Japan and Canada.
Missionary involvement has been expressed by students in different parts of the world. At the beginning of this year, Brazilian students began to work out new models of missionary service. A group of young medical doctors went into the interior of Goiás State to start a hospital, to be engaged in a ministry of loving service and healing; at the same time, they endeavor to share the eternal gospel of Jesus Christ to the neglected community in that area. So in the IFES, we seek to minister and preach the whole gospel to the whole man.
Literature plays a very vital role in student evangelism. It helps to break down prejudices and to introduce men and women to Jesus Christ. Students in the Philippines have distributed several thousand copies of The Jesus Book, a selection from the Gospels portraying the life of a dynamic, living Jesus Christ. The same approach has been adopted by many of our movements in Latin America. They have published a book called Jesus: the Model for the New Man and students are being invited to study the Gospels together and to rediscover the living Jesus Christ, not one trapped in the institutional garb of ecclesiastical traditions.
I suppose the greatest experiment of evangelism in the field of literature is that done by graduates in Hong Kong. They produce a monthly magazine in Chinese called Breakthrough.
It is the vision of Josephine So, a young lady who graduated from Wheaton College about ten years ago. When she was about to return to Hong Kong, she was told that she had cancer in her throat. Her prayer was that God would spare her life. She shared her vision with other Chinese graduates especially in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Four years ago they produced a magazine which could compete with the glossy magazines of Hong Kong.
This magazine is meeting the need of young people in the colony. Some 25,000 copies have been sold, mainly in secular newsstands and bookstores. Thus many unchurched young people learn about Jesus Christ through the evangelistic periodical. Some write or phone in to talk to counselors who try to explain to them who Jesus is. There is a full-time worker who can meet with these inquirers. Because of the impact of this magazine, a radio station in Hong Kong has given the editors free time to answer the questions and problems of young people in that bustling city. So God has used Breakthrough as a tool to capture the minds and hearts of these students.
God has also used Inter-Varsity Press in Britain and the States, and also Ediciones Certeza, the publishing arm of IFES in Latin America, to produce books for thinking Christians and Bible study guides for tools for pastors and church leaders, so that the Word of God can be expounded, taught and applied in our changing situations.
IFES movements are also committed to thorough evangelism. In my home country of Singapore, Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship has a membership of over 600. This fellowship is divided into 100 action groups that meet regularly for fellowship and also for evangelism. They sign a covenant committing themselves to the Lord and also to one another. The only time when they can be excused from attending a cell group or action group meeting is when they are fatally ill.
Because of this commitment to Jesus Christ and to one another, the groups have grown and multiplied. More than half the university enrollment have heard the gospel and the claims of Jesus Christ clearly presented.
In Africa I could show you many Christian Unions with large student memberships. In fact, the largest Christian Union of black students in Africa is at the University of Makere in Uganda. In spite of the unstable political and social situation of that country, this group is thriving. Hardly a week passes without a student committing his or her life to Jesus Christ.
The IFES also believes in church commitment and involvement. In my travels around the world, it is wonderful to meet pastors who received a clear call from God while they were students in an Inter-Varsity chapter. I have met many missionaries serving in different fields telling me how God met with them at Urbana or at a Christian fellowship meeting. Involvement in the life and activities of the chapter had exposed them to needs around the world.
There is much for which to praise God in terms of growth and advance in all the continents. Doors are still open to preach the gospel to students in lands like Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh, but we do encounter certain problems and obstacles.
We had to withdraw a team of staff workers because of the civil war in Lebanon. A few students were killed in the strife. In spite of the war, the students were able to have Bible studies. At one time, all links to the outside world were cut off. The students, however, had access to telephones and they developed an ingenious method of "telephonic" Bible studies. They would phone one another and agree to study a set passage. Later, over the telephone, they would exchange insights gained. They would then pray for one another, thus sustaining one another in the midst of much bloodshed and struggle.
Early in 1976 Muslim leaders from various countries in the Middle East and North Africa met in Pakistan. They recommended to their own governments that all Christian missions and enterprises be asked peacefully to withdraw from Islamic lands. It seems that the door to open missionary witness to these countries could be closing; the curtains are about to fall. But God has not closed these doors.
Some of the papers in England and the United States are carrying advertisements put out by the governments of the Middle East and North Africa for engineers, doctors, university lecturers and for those who can teach English. The IFES would like to challenge some of you to buy up these opportunities, by going to these countries as teachers, as educators, as professional men and women. The salary is very high, yes, even higher than in the United States of America.
Go, then, and work; earn these huge salaries and give half of your income to the Lord's work. At the same time, help us, give us a hand to build up Christian groups in these nations.
We would also urge you to assist us in our work in Europe. At Urbana 73 I mentioned Italy. Some of you might remember an incident that I related concerning my visit to the University of Rome in October 1973. As I walked through that ancient university with an enrollment of 100,000 students, I asked a colleague of mine, "How many Christians are there in this university who are witnessing to Jesus Christ?" She said to me, "As far as I know, Wee Hian, only one." One out of 100,000 students!
Thank God there are several more students who are now witnessing to Christ. We need to pray that more people would go to study in Italian universities and also universities of Belgium and Greece so that we can establish vital Christian fellowships in these countries.
We recommend that you not go out alone. Go in twos or threes as teams; go out in fellowship with IFES and be certain that you are faithfully backed up by prayer support and by the concern of other Christians.
Finally, you might ask, what can we do to be active partners in the ministry of IFES? First, pray. We can only advance when we are on our knees. How I thank God each day for some letters that I receive in my office in Harrow, England. Some are letters from retired missionaries who are in their 80s assuring me they pray for us every day. Thank God for those mighty prayer warriors. May it please God to increase their tribe, not only of the older friends but the younger ones as well!
Second, we need financial support. We thank God that 65% of our income comes from students. We pray that students will continue to give sacrificially and regularly to help us assist our staff and our member movements to advance and grow.
Third, I hope that some of you with cross-cultural gifts will consider going to places like Greece, Belgium, Italy, the Middle East, the Islamic world and parts of French-speaking Africa where vast spiritual needs still exist.
In Eire (southern Ireland) where Americans are particularly welcomed, there are unique opportunities to befriend Irish students and to lead them to a personal commitment to Jesus Christ.
As Christian Fellowships are started or strengthened in these countries, as movements are built up and as Christian students are brought into spiritual maturity and equipped to go out to win their contemporaries to Jesus Christ, we—all of us together—in the family of IFES can declare his glory and praise among the nations.
Unless otherwise noted, all materials on the urbana.org web site are Copyright InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA. All rights reserved.
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