We had the honor of leading a joint HBU/UH BSM mission team of 10 students and BSM sta to Leeds, England the last two weeks of May to work with Anna S., an American serving as the international chaplain at the University of Leeds. Since the semester doesn’t end until mid June for UK students, the BSM team spent their time hosting outreach events (henna storying, free tea and co ee handouts, world map project, prayer walking, dorm visits, etc.) on three of the ve university campuses in Leeds. Our team focused on...
- Sharing the gospel with British and International University students.
- Doing ministry alongside Christian students and university ministers
- in Leeds.
- So ening the spiritual soil through fervent, expectant prayer/ prayer
- walking.
- Encouraging the long-term university ministry leaders in Leeds.
- Learning through experiencing a post Christian culture and ministry partnership in Leeds. ( is happened through staying with British host families, observing life in Leeds, participating in worship services from di erent Christian traditions, etc.)
Ministry in England is hard as it is a very post Christian culture. It’s even hard to get into the country as the border patrol is watching to shut down any religious groups. But God allowed us to get into a country (which is a pretty cool story in and of itself so feel free to ask us about it!) and spend two weeks joining what He is doing there. We counted up that our team was able to have spiritual, gospel conversations more than 150 times! Here are a few glimpse of what those encounters looked like!
Over the course of several days in England, our team set up a world and UK map outside of the student union and the main taxi stand. We would ask student to place a pin in their hometown and then we would ask how we could pray for them and their hometown/home country. One day, a girl from Romania stopped at the map and she seemed very stressed. She was thrilled to represent her country and was excited to hear that Mark had visited her capital city a few years back. She shared that she had an exam in a few hours and was so scared that she would fail. She shared that she was a Christian, and I got to encourage her and get her a free cup of co ee. I o ered to pray for her right then, but she seemed very nervous about that. She did say she was touched that I would o er to pray for her, and she stayed and talked for about another 10 minutes. By the time she le , she seemed much calmer. I’m so thankful that God allowed me to encourage this Christian sister in her time of stress and to remind her that God sees her, understands what she is going through and is present with her.
During our special impact trip, Anna (the international chaplain) introduced us to one of the students from Iraq. He is a PhD student who will be graduating in July, and he has been asking questions about Jesus during the last year. We had him over to our host family dinner the rst week we were in Leeds and we had a great time chatting about life, dreams and experiences in England. The next day, Mark, Anna and the student grabbed coffee and chatted about Jesus for more than five hours. The student initiated a second coffee time later that week and again the group chatted for several hours about Scripture and Jesus. The last day in England, the student invited us over to his apartment for Arabic coffee. He shared about his life in Iraq and his hopes for his country. Before we said our goodbyes, the student said he felt that he had known us for years even though it had been less than two weeks. Please pray for this Iraqi student to see that Jesus is God and is o ering salvation to him.