The International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES), of which InterVarsity is one national movement, just finished their World Assembly in Krakow, Poland last week. Students and staff from across the globe- hundreds of countries, open and closed- praying together from every language and nation. This is the sort of gathering I dream of being a part of-- one where there are hundreds of people for whom everything is different- except our love for Jesus. One of my co-workers wrote about his Bible study with a jailed-for-her-faith attendee:
"With wide, fierce, young eyes, she began in halting English. 'Carrying the cross like Jesus is hard. When they arrested me and my husband. We separated by them. The man teased, ‘There are no problem with your faith. Maybe you had a dream or something, and you are confused. The problem is why you share that news with other peoples? You say, “OK, I don’t share Jesus any more.” Why don’t you say it? Then I let you go, free.’ "
Read the whole post: For Churchy Americans
As an American, citizen of a country with a huge university system, and a large number of campus ministry organizations, I am both humbled and encouraged by the work of our sister movements. I was a recipient of the care and hospitality of the Studenten Mission Deutschland when I studied abroad, a movement where staff support quadrants of the country- not campuses. And yet the IFES has great impact-- here's an idea from a real infographic we drew up. (Disclaimer: the stats are the best we could find, via the internet.)
You can get a taste of the gathering through daily update videos, which are all posted on the IFES World Assembly media page. They all have no words, so someone from any language group can view them. This one, about unity and diversity, is my favorite. And it features 2100's (my team's) founder Eric Miller, who works in Kenya now: he's the old man to the right, who looks like Santa.
Praise God for our brothers and sisters all over the world and pray that students in closed countries can gather safely and freely at their universities.
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