It has been way too long! I've become terrible at updating my xanga! Much has happened in my life since March. This article only summarizes some of it. God is good....

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Changed to Change the World

Walking out of the airport on the evening of Wednesday June 11, 2008, I was overcome by a series of conflicting emotions. Lurking at the back of my mind, casting a shadow over my excitement at being home, was the memory of the events of the past few months. I hadn’t planned on traveling home after my missionary year, but visa complications arising out of the decision to take a year off from school to be a campus missionary had forced me to.

As much as I mentally acknowledged that God was in control of the situation, fear often times plagued me. In the two months I would spend at home, God would not only reveal to me the cowardice inherent in my fears, but would ultimately humble me with the realization that the visa had never been the issue! God had brought me home only because He had a country and a continent to change. In spite of myself, He would use me in a way I couldn’t ever have imagined.  

I didn’t have to wait too long to find this out. Barely a week into my stay at home in Swaziland I was given the opportunity to share my testimony and preach at my local church. As I took stock of the spiritual condition of the church at large in Swaziland, God placed a burden on my heart that I couldn’t shake off. Consequently, about a week later I called for a meeting with a committed few to prayerfully brainstorm about how we could solve the spiritual problem facing Seventh-day Adventist youth in Swaziland.

It so happened that that very day, at the very place where we were having our brainstorming meeting, the youth executive committee of the Swaziland Conference was also meeting. God had provided the opportunity and as I shared my burden with the committee, it warmed my heart to know that God had given them the same burden. The fruits of this providential meeting would be realized later in the summer.  

Meanwhile, the time had come for me to travel to Zambia. The miracle that God worked in Zambia actually goes back to May 2008, when Dr. Samuel Koranteng-Pipim, Pastor Steven Conway and Dr. Sula Mazimba led out in a two week mission trip to Zambia. In conjunction with local student leaders, the mission team conducted a week of prayer and an evangelistic Bible lecture series, along medical and orphan outreach programs in Lusaka. The results were little short of phenomenal; God blessed the efforts in an incredible way.

I had this in mind as I arrived in Zambia, and I wanted to follow up on the May mission trip. That opportunity came on Tuesday July 13 when I sat down for an evaluation meeting with the key student leaders in Lusaka. As we shared our reflections, it became evident that God had used the trip in May to ignite a fire in many of their hearts: they had been inspired to radical dedication to God and His service. I felt compelled to ask, “How do we spread this spirit to all Seventh-day Adventist young people in Zambia?” 

What followed was an intense season of brainstorming, which gave birth to the idea for a national youth conference in 2009. The aim of the conference is to inspire, train and mobilize a generation of Zambian Seventh-day Adventist students and young professionals, who will, by the grace of God, hasten the second coming of Jesus Christ. We were dreaming big for God!

Later that week, we met with one of the regional campus ministries leaders who encouraged us to write a formal proposal about the youth conference and submit it to the Zambian Union leadership. And so on Sunday July 20, we came together for a long but productive meeting in which we ironed out the details for the youth conference.  

We also took some time to discuss Impact (Impact Missionary Movement), a bold initiative whose aim is to recruit, train and deploy Seventh-day Adventist young people as missionaries to Zambia’s remote areas and to the concrete jungles of Zambia’s secular university campuses. It dawned on us that Sunday afternoon that the youth conference would provide the perfect launching pad for Impact. Conference attendees would experience genuine revival and immediately be plugged into evangelistic work through Impact.

Thus would be unleashed an “army of youth, rightly trained,” who would carry “the message of a crucified, risen and soon coming Savior[1],” to not only Zambia, but the whole world. The idea was pure and divinely inspired brilliance! To say I was thrilled would be an under statement! 

It was also during that week that God completely solved my visa problem. I had my student visa interview at the US embassy on Tuesday. On Wednesday, I picked up my passport with visa. Just like that! I was almost driven to the point of tears. The miracles God had worked in the past few weeks suddenly came into focus, and I understood His grand purpose. I was now more inspired and fired up than I had ever been.

In the two weeks that followed I was presented with numerous opportunities to lead out in Bible studies and devotionals. I also met several times with the student leaders to perfect the proposals for both the youth conference and Impact. We had prayed for an opportunity to present these proposals directly to the key leaders of the Zambian Union, an opportunity which finally came on Wednesday, July 30.  

That evening, we met separately with the Youth Director and the President. In what was a powerful answer to prayer, they both gave their support to these initiatives, though cautioning us to go through the proper channels! I’ll admit I was frustrated with the bureaucracy, but I walked out of those meetings beyond myself with excitement! God had begun a movement that is bound to turn Zambia upside down, or rather, “right-side up” as one of my fellow missionaries would say.

In my last few days in Zambia, I charged the key leaders, my new found best friends, to hold onto the vision God had given them. It was painful to leave because I wanted to see the work all the way through. But I had to believe that God Himself would finish what He had started. My work Zambia was done, at least for now!

But God was far from done. Following my providential meeting with the conference youth leaders in Swaziland back in June, a meeting of all the Seventh-day Adventist youth in Swaziland had been convened. I arrived back just in time for this meeting on Sunday August 3. After a radical and inspiring introduction from the conference youth director, I shared a brief devotional thought in which I challenged the young people to give God their all. The plenary meeting that ensued laid the groundwork for an initiative whose aim is to revive, equip and mobilize Swazi Seventh-day Adventist young people for active involvement in evangelism. The young people had made this vision their own.

I was humbled. As I remembered the times during my missionary year when I had doubted God’s leading in my visa situation, I found myself ashamed. As I thought back to the times when I feared that I would be forced to give up Harvard should the visa problem go unresolved, I cowered in embarrassment. Why had it been so hard? Had I myself been afraid of surrendering all for the cause of God?  

The communist manifesto ends with the words, “You have a world to win.” The communist actually believes that the world must be changed and that he is part of a movement that will change it. You have to hand it to them because they have it right: when there is a world to win, when there is a cause, no sacrifice is too small to make.

There is a greater cause. God has a world to change. We have “a world to win!” But the world will be changed by those who are wholly and unreservedly committed to God. As I write, the student leaders back in Zambia and Swaziland are carrying on with the planning. They are asking God to finish His work in and through them. God is raising up more such young men and women the world over. I’m more convinced than I ever have been that maybe this is the generation that will see Jesus come. In the words of one of my favorite mentors, “Let’s change the world, by being changed.”

. was published by CAMPUS p.r.e.s.s. in December 2007. It chronicles the story of the pioneering ExCEL team. The following text, found at the back of the book, says it all:

On Sunday, June 3, 2007, a diverse group of young people gathered at the Ann Arbor Adventist Elementary school grounds. They had come from different parts of the US...different parts of the world. They came because God had called. They were chosen because they had responded to God's call. And now began their lessons in faithfulness. For some, this was the first time they had ever gone door-to-door for Jesus. But as excited as they were, none of them had any full conception of what God had in store for them that summer! They were embarking on a journey that would change them completely. These are their stories...

And so Called. Chosen. Faithful. tells those stories. Our prayer is that it is as inspiring to read as it was to write/edit. If you don't have a copy, please contact us

On the campus of the University of Michigan, every Tuesday evening, the Seventh-day Adventist students and their friends come away from the rest of campus to spend an hour learning from the greatest teacher in the universe: Jesus.  They lay aside their heavy book bags, silence their cell phones and partake in precious moments of true education, with the Bible as their textbook. They truly experience the promise Jesus bestows in Matthew 11:28-30, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” This is the Tuesdays with Jesus experience.

I just realized recently that I am learning so much here I barely have time to digest it all. But I'm trying...I'm learning.

In reading Education I found this powerful quote, "Whatever gift He promises, is in the promise itself. The seed is the Word of God. As surely as the oak is in the acorn so surely is the gift of God in His promise. If we receive the promise, we have the gift..." p.253. So simple yet so profound: the gift of God is in His promise, to be claimed by living faith.

When Elijah prayed for rain, he prayed until there was a small cloud in the sky. That small cloud was no guarantee that it was about to rain…but Elijah’s faith made it so. Because by faith Elijah took the cloud to be God’s answer to his prayer, God could not but honor that faith...

Lord, increase my faith....

So yah, I am still in God's lab...not so much canvassing anymore (though we still canvass). I continue to learn lessons in Christ-like humility and selfless service...

and now for some photo highlights from our first month here...coming soon :)