Part One: Go and Make Disciples—The God of All Nations
I didn’t expect anything extraordinary when I joined Bridges International's Friday dinners at UCLA—I just knew that I wanted to love people and see the love of God change lives, and this seemed like a feasible place to see that happen. (Bridges is a global ministry branch of Cru (Campus Crusade for Christ) that helps international students, building a community for them to address their isolation and loneliness in a foreign country.)
A few months into the school year, our Bridges director, Cheri, approached me to ask if I’d be willing to be one of the drivers for our Bridges Spring Break Yosemite Trip.
No way, I thought to myself.
I smiled. “I’ll think about it!”
I did think about it but felt no reason to go. It was my spring break and the only time I got to really be around my family without schoolwork or commitments. Still, Cheri was relentless to pursue me, and her texts eventually wore me down.
Friday night of Spring Break, I packed up my car, loaded 4 international students into it, and made the long drive up to Yosemite. When we reached the town of Mariposa, a little village nestled into the base of the mountains, a church opened up their arms and homes for us to stay in all weekend. I wondered how a church so considerably small, composed of about 10 families, could contain such a big heart. The families divided up our international students and staff amongst themselves, each one housing and feeding about 5-7 guests. I was amazed to learn that these families opened their homes every weekend to host international students from different colleges across America for free.
“Jesus hasn’t called us to the nations,” one of the mothers expressed to me, “So instead, He brings the nations to us!”
The Most Romantic Love
Driving in the backseat of my host family’s car the first night, I found myself nestled next to a Chinese woman named Evangeline. Evangeline was a CEO, newlywed, and mother of a little girl. As we sat in the backseat and got to know each other, I asked how she decided to come on this trip.
“It was totally random,” she admitted to me, her dark eyes glowing in the night as we drove to our host home. “I had been taking classes at UCLA for a few weeks when I just happened to find out about this trip last minute. The list was full, so at first I couldn’t make it, but then one girl decided to drive the day before! I’m so glad she did or else I couldn’t be here!”
I smiled, knowing very well that that girl was me. “Good thing she decided to drive, huh?”
That night, Evangeline and I were assigned to share a bedroom. Gripping a steaming cup of strawberry tea in my hands, I sat down beside her, and we easily fell into conversation. After a while, she asked me to tell her how I met God, as she had always wanted to know more about Christianity ever since she made a Christian friend back home. My story gushed out: I shared about how I first decided I wanted a relationship with God when I was four. When I was older, I studied science, history, archaeology, and philosophy and was amazed at how it all tied together and pointed further to God's existence and the truth about Jesus. I learned that God created us, knows us by name, and loves us more than we can fathom. We all mess up, and each of us has rebelled against God, causing a rift between us and Heaven/God, but God loves us so much that He doesn't want to punish us. Instead, His Son, Jesus, who shares the nature and essence of God voluntarily came to Earth to absorb the punishment that we deserve for the wrongdoings we do. God loves us so much that He would give and allow His own beloved Son to die in our place. And Jesus is so powerful that He rose from the dead and offers salvation to anyone who would simply believe and come to Him. He isn't intimidated by our messiness but wants real, organic personal relationships with us. He loves us not based on how good we are but simply because He is Love.
The next night our conversation continued, as she was intrigued by my prayer journal. She asked me to explain to her the difference between the Old and New Testament. I grabbed a piece of paper and pen in sight and eagerly began sketching out the Gospel story, and for the next two hours, we discussed the Bible. On the last morning over the church’s brunch, Evangeline said to our host with tears in her eyes, “Jesus’s love sounds so romantic.” To a woman in an arranged marriage who spoke little of her husband, I could only imagine how special this love must have been to her.
Weeks later, I found out that that Sunday, the last day of the weekend, Evangeline drove home with my friend Maurissa, who led her to Christ at their rest stop. I had been praying for Evangeline, not even realizing she had come to Christ that day! Maurissa sent me a picture of her and Evangeline reading the Bible together, and Evangeline was eager to buy a Children’s Bible for her daughter, so she could start reading to her too.
He Knows My Name
On Saturday morning, the church families drove us up the mountain for a day hike, equipping us with sack lunches for our bellies and warm jackets for our frigid bodies. As we scaled the side of the snowy mountain, I began talking to a sweet girl with short, straight black hair named Jessica. Her Chinese name was Yahui, which us native English speakers pronounced “Yah-huey.” Yahui asked me almost immediately upon our introduction if I could explain Christianity to her. Growing up in China, she had never really learned much about it.
After we returned from the Yosemite trip, Yahui expressed continued interest in hanging out and even came to a Cru Gospel outreach that we put on on campus. As I drove her back from the outreach that night, I was surprised by Yahui’s direct question: “How does one become a Christian?” She opened up to me about how she considered Christianity amazing, but still needed more time to process everything before giving her life away to Jesus. I dropped her off and lent her my Bible to read over the next few weeks.
As I drove home, I could feel my pride beginning to swell, believing I had brought Yahui (or “Yah-huey” as I pronounced it) so close to Christ. In that moment, God suddenly spoke so clearly to me, correcting: “Karisa, her name is Ya-hway. I gave her that name, she is mine, and I LOVE her.”
I was startled, struck. Leave it to God to correct me in pronunciation. But even in His correction, He was so gentle and kind, and I began sensing how beautiful Heaven was going to be, only imagining what it would be like to be so close to the God who knows our names and loves us immeasurably.
A few weeks later, Yahui and I met again during a Bridges movie night, where we watched the Prince of Egypt, which recounts the story of Moses and the plagues on Egypt. I was surprised how, even in this movie that I thought always emphasized God’s power and wrath, Yahui recognized God as a loving king fighting for His people. When the movie ended, Yahui asked me about the significance of the plague of the firstborn dying. I explained to her how God sent His own firstborn as a sacrifice for our sins, and she agreed to pray and ask God to reveal Himself, as she wants to know more.
I smiled, “God loves you, Yahui, and had a purpose for you to be here tonight.”
Yahui gasped in surprise, and her hand flew to her mouth.
“Everything okay?” I asked, puzzled.
“Yes,” she laughed, “of course. I’m sorry—I was just surprised.”
“Why?”
“My name,” she replied, beaming. “You knew how to pronounce my name. No one ever says it right, they usually say, ‘yah-huey’.”
I chuckled. “Actually, funny you say that…”
When I told her how God had corrected me on her name in the car, giving me the correct pronunciation, she looked to heaven, deeply touched in gratitude, and said, “Thank you, God! He knows my name.”
Isaiah 43:1 “I have redeemed you. I have called you by name—you are mine.”
God Chose Me - and He Speaks Chinese
Another student I met on the Yosemite Trip was Bridget. Bridget was a Chinese grad student who sat next to me in the backseat of our car, driving down from our mountain hike Saturday night. After a long hike and a full dinner, I was exhausted and ready to sneak a quick nap in the car like everyone else on our way back to our host families.
That’s when God tugged on my heart. Talk to the girl next to you.
I glanced around and then leaned back in my seat again and closed my eyes. God, come on. Everyone else gets to sleep! Can’t I, too?
But God always wins, and He does awesome, breathtaking things when we trust Him. We stopped at a traffic light for a full five minutes that seemed to be broken. I felt God urging me. Talk to her.
Fine.
I sat up. “How was the hike today, Bridget?”
She smiled. “It was fun!”
We small talked for a bit, and then she admitted to my surprise, “Actually, I met a woman today on the hike who said she talks to God, and He actually responds to her. I think that is amazing. Does that ever happen to you?
I wanted to laugh and thought, Yeah, He literally just told me to talk to you!
Though I was exhausted and could barely keep my eyes open, I began word vomiting simple truths I had learned about God to Bridget. Jesus loves you. He doesn’t want you to be far away from God. He knows how many hairs are on your head. He loves you just the way you are because He created you. He has a plan for your life. We sinned and messed up and created a rift between us and God but Jesus mends that rift. We talked about Psalm 139 and how sin prevents us from experiencing Him.
At each thing that I said, Bridget would gasp, exclaiming, “This is incredible—so beautiful!” Her eyes glistened with tears as she listened, just eating up simple truths (that all my life I had taken for granted, assuming everyone knew them) like her life depended on it.
At one point, I was literally holding up my two fists apart from each other, uttering, “This is you. This is God. This is sin that separates you. Jesus is the bridge.”
“That is SO amazing!”
When I asked her if she wanted a relationship with God, she suddenly hung her head, and I could sense her disappointment. “God wouldn’t want to choose me. I’m nothing special.”
“Oh, Bridget.” I smiled. “God has already chosen you. You must choose Him.”
She hesitated; she was still afraid. “Well, you see,” she admitted to me. “There is a problem. My English isn’t very good—I’m afraid God won’t understand me.”
I laughed and told her that God created her language—pretty sure He can speak Chinese.
She gasped, and I watched as tears filled her amazed brown eyes, that up until that moment, never knew that there was a God who not only loved her but could communicate freely with her. “God speaks Chinese?”
There in the backseat, in that twenty-minute, pitch black car ride that I had planned to sleep in, Bridget prayed to receive Christ and the angels rejoiced. But perhaps the best part wasn’t until the next morning: that Sunday, the church that hosted us put on a Sunday service for us. Every cushioned chair they set out was green, except for one random red chair. The church wanted to give out “free gift” (a Bible) to a person at random in the congregation as a tangible symbol of the gift of salvation that God gives to us by grace and decided that whoever happened to sit in that red chair would receive it.
Of course, Bridget happened to sit in that red chair. A week later, when we talked on the phone to follow-up after the Yosemite Trip, Bridget shared with me: “Karisa, I keep that gift on my windowsill, and every day I look at it and remember that God chose me. I read the Bible every night and pray to God and feel Him in my heart. I feel God opened a door to my heart, and the light entered my life, and I have so much joy and talk to God all the time. I know Him now. God chose me.”
Yes, He did, Bridget. He has chosen every single one of us to know Him. It’s the greatest honor of our lifetime.
John 6:37 “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.”
John 15:16 “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.” –Jesus
God of All Nations
International students are the most eager to learn about God out of anyone I have ever encountered in my life. When I asked one of my best friends Julia, who taught in Japan for a year following graduation, how the Christians she met there first heard the Gospel, she answered, “From Christian missionaries who came to Japan!” Then she paused for a minute and added, “Actually, no. Every single Japanese Christian I met heard about Jesus from their host families and other students when they studied in America.” She went on to explain how many students she met in Japan felt pressured to conform with the political, cultural, and religious ideals of their surrounding society, and less than 1% of the country claims to be Christian.
But when these students study abroad in a new country, they feel freedom for the first time to consider new ideas. This isn't unique to Japan - diversity to exposure allows us to consider new ideas. Including the idea of a God who crafted us personally and loves us more than we could ever imagine. Who knows our names and speaks the languages of our hearts. And though He is invisible, He calls us to be like Him in the world, so that people may experience the love and kindness of Christ through us. A love that doesn’t judge people for the way they act or speak. A love that knows no limits and goes the extra mile to offer a free ride or jacket in the cold or warm meal for the sick.
These stories amaze me but what equally astounds me is that He can deliver His messages of love through ordinary people and everyday obedience. I didn't do anything special - I just asked God in prayer for opportunities to love people/share His words and then obeyed when I felt Him calling me to do so. He brought people, and He spoke to their hearts. Sometimes God speaks directly, if we're willing to listen, telling us who to talk to and what to say. But other times, I think He's already placed people right in our backyards - at UCLA, UC Irvine, Cal State Fullerton, and USC, in restaurants, bars, offices, and airplanes. He's already shown us so many simple truths about His love/character that we take for granted but others hunger to know. As C.S. Lewis so eloquently put it, "I'm just one beggar telling another where I found bread." We just pray and ask God to give us the words, then open our mouths and start speaking. Often, I simply share about what God is doing in my own life and how much I love Him, and I find God loves to bring curious people who ask more.
After all, God loves people. And He wants all to be saved and to experience personally this love that transforms lives.
1 Timothy 2:4 -6 "This is good and pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all—the testimony that was given at just the right time."
For more information about Bridges International or volunteering with the organization, please email me at karisayou@ucla.edu.
Photo Credits: <a href="https://www.freepik.com/photos/mountain-view">Mountain view photo created by wirestock - www.freepik.com</a>
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