Last week I had the chance to return to East Asia, to the city where I led a summer mission trip in 2012. I had a BLAST walking the same streets and seeing the same places I did four years ago. I love visiting other countries because I get to experience how a culture is different from mine, and how a culture is the same as mine. As I've traveled, I've realized that at their core, college students are similar all over the world- searching for hope and purpose, searching for a career path in which they can make a lot of money, or make a different in the world around them, looking for satisfaction in relationships and pursuit of dreams. In my monthly newsletter I wrote about a student names Leo who talked about 5 things that he sees his friends pursuing for a happy life: a house, spouse, car, career and money. Not all these things are easy to come by in his city; you need to literally win the lottery to obtain a license plate for your car, housing is quite expensive, and there is fierce competition for jobs. Leo was quite aware that we think these things will make us happy, but there is always something more to pursue even once we obtain our goals.
But "east asian" college students also deal with things that some American college students do not. Most students are the only child in their family, and feel the weight of caring for their parents someday and the pressure to succeed because all their parents' hopes and dreams are on them, the only child. There is incredible competition to get into college and excel academically. Students aren't necessarily passionate about their chosen career field; either they are told to pursue that major, or take a test that picks their major for them (and the test also determines which college they are allowed to enter). At one point during the week I got to mean J, an east asian college grad who is serving with our company there. He came to Christ in college at a prestigious school where are one of our American teams works. Throughout college he lead several mission trips. In one two month span, he shared the gospel more than 500 times and saw more than 50 people trust Christ. Needless to say, he had a vision for how God could use him and was passionate about others coming to know the God he had a deep relationship with. How encouraging and motivating to hear of his passion for his country to come to know God.
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Amy WellnerEncouraging others to intentionally live out their God-given identity. Archives
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