Tonight Michael, Bethany, Bridget, Emily, Carmen, Di and myself had the incredible privilege of visiting the weekly meeting of the InterVarsity group at Bukidnon University. As I said in my last post, I was really looking forward to this opportunity to experience this meeting, and I certainly wasn’t disappointed. It was an awesome night, and certainly opened my eyes to some misconceptions that will be very quickly blown away this year.
Essentially, I’ve been realizing certain thoughts of religious ethnocentrism bouncing around my head. They say that you often don’t realize the expectations you have until they aren’t met, and I’m ashamed to say I have been surprised at the spiritual maturity of everybody that we’ve met. I am so thankful I’m being humbled in this respect this early in the trip. These thoughts attempt to say that the Christians we meet around the world are not yet at the same point as we Americans are, like the God of the universe really chose to reveal himself particularly to the US of A. The reality, as expected as it really should be, is that I will learn more this year from the people I meet than I could ever hope to bring myself. I don’t know if it’s just being an American or also the weird, still slightly uncomfortable “missionary” label, but particularly at this college meeting I was struck by the temptation to believe I had something special these folks didn’t. Of course, their passionate prayers, worship, and teaching blew those thoughts away and made sure to give me the reality check I didn’t know I desperately needed.
2 Corinthians 4:18
Carmen and Emily had gone to meeting last week, and the group invited Carmen to come this week and bring the message for the evening. She really stepped out in boldness, sharing her testimony and some really powerful words on God’s plans for our lives. Again, I was struck by the universal themes of our human needs and desires, and the God that unites us.
It was an incredibly humbling evening, as they expressed an incredible level of hospitality and love on us, particularly offering to pray over our group at the end of the meeting. God is definitely doing a big work on the college campus here, and it was really neat having the same conversations I’ve held with students back in the states. It brought me right back to Young Life stuff when a student I was talking to expressed his excitement when he saw a younger guy coming around that he had really poured into during high school. The international body of believers is a beautiful sight.
