Shining like stars

Following the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe in 1989, the work of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) has blossomed remarkably in many countries.

As he comes to the end of his tenure as General Secretary of IFES, Lindsay Brown reflects on some of the marvellous stories of how God has been at work in the lives of students worldwide.

God sometimes works in very unusual ways.

Rebekah, a Bosnian student at one of our conferences, met with Femi Adeleye, IFES Regional Secretary. Rebekah had grown up as a fundamentalist Muslim; her father was an Imam. She had never met a Christian until God reached out to her. Her life began to change through dreams (not unusual in Muslim cultures). She dreamt of a cross stretching from her pillow into the heavens, of a great white light drawing others upward while she remained in darkness; and of a large book spread before her on which was boldly written in Arabic, ‘Jesus is the Son of God. Worship him!’

Afraid, she kept these dreams to herself. Her heart was so stirred that she knew she must solve this riddle. She met some girls from a Christian mission school, and borrowed a New Testament from them. As she read, she realised that God had revealed truth to her about the lordship of Christ. She finally invited Jesus into her life. When she told her brothers and sisters what had happened, they considered it blasphemous and shameful to the family. When they failed in their attempts to get her to recant, they began to persecute and torture her. Eventually they plotted to kill her.

One night, her younger sister sneaked out to see if Rebekah was sleeping, so that her brothers could murder her. On approaching, a bright light blocked her path. The only direction she could go was back to her own sleeping place. She went back, terrified by the light she had seen. The next morning she warned her brothers to have nothing to do with Rebekah because she was protected by ‘powerful spirits’.

Rebekah was forced to marry a fundamentalist Muslim, but she continued in her faith even though her husband often kept her under lock and key to restrict contact with Christians. Rebekah’s husband was desperate for a child of his own, but she suffered three miscarriages. She frequently discussed her faith with her husband and told him that they might not have children until he submitted to Christ. In desperation he allowed her to go to church and Christian meetings. That was how she was able to attend the conference at which Femi was speaking. Having shared her story with Femi, she asked him to pray for her husband and for them to have a child. As she got up from her knees, she said, ‘The next time there will be three of us to meet you: my husband, my child and myself!’

Some reading this story may be cautious in accepting that this could have been an authentic ministry of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps I can share some pointers as we seek to appreciate God’s special work in this situation.

Dreams were common in the Old Testament before God’s Word was written down and widely available. It was his way of graciously reaching out to people when they didn’t have Scripture to read and understand for themselves. Dreams were much less common in New Testament times. In pre-literate cultures or cultures where Scripture isn’t widely available, God’s grace is evident in still communicating through dreams today. It is very common in Muslim cultures, especially in rural areas where there is little access to written Scriptures or to radio ministry.

Where God introduces the Person of Christ through a dream, his normal pattern is to bring people in contact with Christians who can explain the gospel, or to give them access to Scripture, as happened in Rebekah’s case. This seems to follow the line of Romans 10.8b-15,17 where those who call out to God are sent someone to explain the way.

So while this story may seem sensational and unusual, it is part of God’s way of fulfilling his promise that all who call to him will be heard, even if they don’t initially have access to a Bible. We should rejoice that there is no one beyond the reach of the gospel if they open their hearts to the God of the Bible. Let us thank God that we have access to Scripture, and praise him for his grace in situations like Rebekah’s.

An airport phone call

Let me share another story of God’s sovereignty, and the way he uses amateurs. In the early 1990s, a group of young people from the University Presbyterian Church in Seattle were sent on a short-term programme to Belgrade. When they arrived at Frankfurt airport after their overnight flight from the US, they heard on a news bulletin that civil war had broken out in what was then Yugoslavia. They phoned their missions pastor to ask him what to do. He had seen on the news that the Albanian government had just fallen, so he suggested they go to Albania instead!

Bravely they caught the next flight to Tirana, the capital, where they spent four weeks, and God used them to bring ten young people to faith, who in turn would plant the IFES movement we have today. One of those ten was Zef Nikolla, a gifted linguist, who is now its national director. Zef took a year out of ministry to learn New Testament Greek thoroughly, so he could join the team translating the New Testament from the original Greek into modern-day Albanian. The translation was published in 2005. The student ministry is now active in each university in the country, and many of its graduates have taken up key positions in church leadership. That team of students could have had no idea of the way the Lord would use them over their summer vacation. We thank God for the spiritual antennae of their missions pastor. In Albania now we have a wonderful example of how investment in a generation of students benefits the life of the national church over the long haul. This is a key element in the vision God has given to us — graduates going on to build and to strengthen Christ’s Church in every nation.

Two international students

Now to another very different illustration of God’s sovereignty at work. Derek Mutungu from Zambia came to study at Bath Technical College in England. In the first week of term he met a few Christian students who invited him to a church service. He happily went along, hoping to find friendship, and was welcomed by a family into their home. Over a period of several weeks, Derek heard the gospel taught, and he responded to the overtures of Christ. Gifted and dynamic, he quickly grew as a Christian. He was impressed by the testimony of the Christian students in Bath and subsequently in Imperial College, London, where he went on to study for his degree. Having seen the effectiveness of Christian Unions in the UK, he returned to Zambia determined to form a similar student ministry. He became its first staff worker, supported by IFES, and quickly set about building a Christian student group in the University of Lusaka, the capital city. The work grew rapidly and in due course as many as a tenth of all the university students in the country were Christians. News spread to the then President Kenneth Kaunda. He invited Derek Mutungu and the leader of the local student group to the palace. When they met, President Kaunda asked Derek, ‘What is this message you are preaching which is turning the university upside down?’

Derek told him, and Kenneth Kaunda was moved to tears. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is the message our culture needs to hear. Come back in two weeks and bring the other student leaders with you.’ Derek and the leaders of the Christian Union returned two weeks later to the presidential palace to meet the entire Zambian cabinet. ‘Now’, said Dr. Kaunda, ‘Preach to them what you preached to me.’ They did! So through the kindness shown in Bath to one student, far away from home, God was sovereignly establishing a Christian witness among students in another country; and through those students the gospel message would be preached to their government.

Standing firm

Once captured by the glorious light of the gospel, it is our responsibility to stand firm and proclaim Christ, no matter what the cost to ourselves, as God works behind the scenes. There are innumerable examples of students and graduates who have done this. I will share just three more.

40 years ago a student ministry quietly began to grow in Vietnam with the help of an OMF missionary, Paul Contento. It was led by Cuong, who became its first General Secretary. He skilfully developed the work in the midst of the Vietnamese war, which divided the country North and South. America backed the South in an attempt to strengthen its stand for independence against the advance of Communism. That war brought tens of thousands of deaths. In 1975 the Americans withdrew, and at the last moment, Cuong was offered the chance to leave the country with some American troops. He refused, preferring to stay to be a testimony to Christ in that situation. On May 1 that year he wrote a letter to Chua Wee Hian, then General Secretary of IFES.

‘I decided to stay and I do not encourage any of the Christian students to leave the country. Their faith needs to be proved under trial and God will not let them down if they truly believe in him. I doubt the kind of faith that is easy-going. Here they will be a witness to those who need Christ the most. My ministry will be restricted, but they will have more opportunity to witness and to uphold one another. If all desert Vietnam, who is going to be here to witness to the other side?’

The letter ended poignantly, on a note of triumph:

‘This is probably my last communication with IFES. Pray for me and the students, and the church in Vietnam, for wisdom to face the coming fiery trial. Our Lord has risen. We are going to suffer, to die and to be raised up with him in glory. Please extend our warm greetings to all IFES member movements. Thanks.’

When he wrote that letter he was only 26 years of age.

Cuong planted a church, aided by students and graduates in the Vietnamese student movement. The church grew to several hundred within a few years. Because of his growing influence he was eventually imprisoned. On one occasion interrogators challenged him, ‘Do you not understand what we could do to you?’ His response was quick and brave. ‘Do you not understand what God can do to you? You may be able to harm my body, but ultimately one day you will all have to stand before the judgement seat of Christ.’ Soon after this interrogation, they released him from prison and expelled him from the country. Today he is still serving the Vietnamese church, but outside the country.

Another outstanding example of courage and determination to speak the gospel in trying circumstances occurred in Peru in the 1990s. A guerrilla movement called Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) arose, bent on bringing down the government and destroying the church. During the 1980s they systematically killed over 300 pastors and many female Christian workers simply because they were proclaiming an alternative message of hope through the redeeming gospel of Christ. A story was told of two students going to a church meeting carrying Bibles. The students were stopped by a young guerrilla, who ordered them to throw the Bibles on the floor and spit on them. One student did, the other didn’t. They shot the student who spat on his Bible and released the other, telling him, ‘You can go free because you stood by what you believed.’

It was in this context that I visited Peru in 1992 to take part in a student conference, arriving just a week after elections had taken place. We were in Huancayo, in an area where many students had been killed only a few months previously. During the elections, two local pastors were kidnapped and the local mayor shot dead on his doorstep. It was a disturbing situation. The conference centre, just outside the city, was located close to the base for the guerrilla movement. It had not been used for over a year because of the dangerous situation. I asked the students why we were there. Typically they responded, ‘Because we got a good deal — it costs only a dollar a day.’ I admit I was very concerned for my own life. My only daughter had died not long before and I cried to the Lord to spare my life for my family’s sake because I thought it would be too great a burden for them to lose me as well in a short space of time.

While reflecting on this, I talked with a young student, Amelia, who was studying Sociology in the university in Huancayo. She asked me what I thought of studying Sociology. I told her I thought it was a useful subject and asked why she inquired. She said most male students on her course were in the guerrilla movement. She had become a believer only three years earlier when the guerrilla movement was at its height. At that time student guerrillas put up a notice on campus with a list of the people they were going to kill. As they killed them, they ticked them off, one by one. She said Christians in the student group urged them to stop the killing, but they refused and said that if Christians didn’t remain silent they would kill them too. When she heard this, she was frightened for her life and said nothing about her newfound faith for two years. She went on, ‘Six months ago I asked myself the simple question: Is the gospel true? If it is true, then it is worth living for, and it is worth dying for. After several months of reflection I became convinced that the gospel was true. Since then I have spoken openly of Christ, counting the cost.’

I was rebuked by her testimony. In an age when it is fashionable to emphasise our feelings and our sensitivities, let’s note what strengthened Amelia — the conviction that the gospel is true. When faced with difficulties, our feelings will naturally be wayward. Only a real conviction of the truth of the gospel will buttress us, hold us together and give us confidence to press on in living for Christ. He came to give us good news, not good feelings.

Shining like Stars by Lindsay Brown is published by IVP (£7.99) and is available online from http://www.ifesworld.org/books

Shining like stars

God sometimes works in very unusual ways.

An airport phone call

Two international students

Standing firm

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