PRESS RELEASE
Head knowledge into heart knowledge
It was a reality check, up close and personal.
The 18 IMPACT 360 students and four staff members who journeyed to Central Eastern Europe in January 2007 for the International Experience (IE) portion of their gap-year program experienced the stark truth of missions: they encountered students like them in so many ways, but who navigate life in spiritual darkness.
Stationed in Hungary, Moldova, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, the IMPACT 360 teams partnered with International Mission Board (SBC) personnel to plant the seeds of the Gospel among students through conversational English-language classes, social interaction and prayerwalking. They used movie clips and songs to spark conversations in class, and they visited coffee shops and villages to foster relationships. Some teams had the
opportunity to hand out Bibles.
“It was simply living out our faith and stepping up to the higher standard that God has set for His followers,” said Zack Fallon, an IMPACT 360 student from Peachtree City, Ga., who served in Chisinau, Moldova, and nearby villages.
And yet, the task was enormous, challenging the students spiritually, physically, emotionally and mentally. They learned firsthand that cultures outside their own don’t always welcome or foster contemplation of faith. They also learned some people are just waiting to be told about God’s Gospel of hope.
“The Moldovan nation is imprisoned by poverty, a still-visible communism filled the past and an empty orthodox religion,” Fallon wrote in one of many student-penned blogs at www.impact-360.blogspot.com.
“Communism has left an incredible legacy here,” wrote David Parker, a student from Woodstock, Ga. “Satan has used the legacy of communism to create a culture dependent on someone or something else. … But here is the amazing thing. God uses that very dependence here in Moldova to grow His church in a way that sets an example for many American churches to follow.”
One team in Slovakia saw a dirty area while prayerwalking, and returned later to pick up trash. They encountered two young men who watched them intently. One said his family is atheist, but he is searching and believes there is “something out there.” He said he wanted answers, but had been looking in the wrong places. The team and the missionary with whom they worked gave the man a Gospel of John and told him the true answers are found in the Bible.
“Pray that he would stop searching for answers in the wrong places and that he would turn his life over to God,” posted Abby Perez, an IMPACT 360 student from Aurora, Neb. “God is faithful in using something as little as picking up trash in a random neighborhood to bring others to Him!”
The students experienced obstacles similar to what full-time missions personnel face every day: language barriers, illness, concerns at home and even the weather. But they also learned the family of Christian believers stretches worldwide as they prayed for one another, worshipped together, worked cooperatively and fellowshipped over meals.
Worldview up close and personal
The students’ IMPACT 360 classroom curriculum focuses on developing a biblical worldview. The International Experience put into action the lessons, theories and philosophies they have considered for months.
“When you are studying worldviews, particularly your own, it is relevant to just about everything,” said Phillip Mahoney, a student from Macy, Indiana who served on a team in Budapest, Hungary. “In a more pragmatic way, the things I learned at IMPACT 360 were used in very specific ways while I was overseas. Even things like philosophical arguments for the existence of God were used in real conversations while in another country.
“The things I have learned about missions were illustrated overseas. Because I have learned some of the main ideas behind communism, I was able to better understand the remaining negative effects. I was able to anticipate what students believed about certain things because I was able to identify the worldview they were coming from.”
Through the International Experience, the students discovered their role in missions is not to debate what they have learned, but to connect on a personal level and allow God to work through them. God worked through the empathy of team member Abby Dickinson, a student from Villa Rica, Georgia, to convey His love to a teenage girl named Andrea in the Czech Republic who had just experienced the death of a friend.
“I totally understood her pain because I had endured the same pain the previous year,” said Abby, who endured the tragedy again while on the month-long missions experience. “Later that night she told me that since I cared so much, maybe my God did exist. … It helped me realize how many people were in the world that had not had the opportunity to experience the love of God through someone else.”
Hungary team member Ben Zahn, a student from Locust Grove, Georgia, also experienced God’s power during the experience.
“The longer we are here the more I realize it is not about what we know, or the arguments we have learned, or anything we are equiped to do,” Zahn blogged. “We needn’t worry about not being able or qualified, that is not our problem. Our part is to be ready to do what we are asked. Questioning what we can do for God is questioning God Himself. After all, it is God doing it, not us. He can use who He will.”
A big future
Despite the post-modern atheistic culture surrounding so many of the people they encountered, the students trust their actions impacted the futures of the people with whom they built friendships and made acquaintance.
“We were able to be examples of what Christ and His believers are like,” Mahoney said. “I think it was good for the students to see that Christians are rational, ‘normal’ people and that we have a hope in our beliefs.”
An interest in sharing their faith, international missions and learning about other cultures did not end with the teams’ January service.
“God used Moldova to solidify my basis for approaching life,” Parker said. “My framework for choosing lifestyle, personal ministry, career and service was completely affected by what I observed and experienced from the Christians within Moldovian culture.”
Dickinson said, through the experience, her perception of the world has changed.
“My realization of how lost this world is has been huge for me,” she said. “I have never been broken for the souls of mankind before. This was the first time I have ever just been hurt to the core for the pain and suffering people face daily without the hope that Christ gives us.”
Fallon said God has given him “a heart for the nations.” He said he comprehends he might be the only person to take Jesus Christ to the people he encounters.
“The burden to share Christ falls on His Body (us), and we might be the only ones!”
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