College student opens up her life to the world God loves
Every summer before Texas A&M University welcomes nearly 10,000 freshmen, there is an event called Impact Camp. Impact Camp is a ministry fair targeted specifically toward freshman students. A variety of churches and Christian organizations are able to quickly connect students to the gospel and local ministry opportunities on campus and around the city. Our CMM staff attend this event each year to start conversations with students who desire to live missionally. This is how we first met Mya.
Mya was kind and genuine. During her experience at Impact Camp, Mya learned about the life-changing importance of having a relationship with Jesus and chose to start following Him. That decision set a new trajectory for her college experience. Now, rather than focusing on only herself, Mya yearned to be solid in her new relationship with God and discover how she could be used in sharing the gospel with others. She had a deep desire to see other people experience the same love that she found in Jesus. She immediately began thinking about missions.
Shortly after she received Jesus, Mya decided to come to the CMM Info Night we had invited her to. As we talked more with Mya about why she wanted to get involved in missions, I could see that God had already given her a desire to share what He had done for her with others. Our staff introduced the Xplore study to the freshman students that night, and Mya was eager to participate. I began challenging Mya to start mobilizing before she knew what the word meant; turns out, she was already doing it! She had invited her friend, Natalie, to come learn about missions with her at our meeting, and she also responded to the challenge of finding two more people to go through Xplore with her and Natalie. In her first two weeks at her new university, Mya had gathered a group of four other people to go through Xplore. She was truly a mobilizer.
Reading through Xplore, Mya learned that she could use her time in college for much more than just studying towards her degree. When sharing what God had taught her, she said, “I’m relly happy that I learned of so many ways to support God’s global mission. It’s not only mission work in the sense that you have to go and live in another country, but it’s also just as valuable to send, welcome, pray, and mobilize from exactly where I am.” She longs to integrate a World Christian lifestyle into her daily routine and inspire other believers around her to do the same.
Since then, I have seen Mya take the initiative to invite friends into all that she is learning. She now spends time each week meeting up with international students, prays for people groups all over the world who have no access to the gospel, and looks for opportunities to share the truth of Jesus with other students. While shopping at the grocery store, Mya met several girls from China and began building relationships with them, most of whom had never heard of Jesus. She challenged some of her Christian friends to use grocery shopping as an opportunity to meet and befriend international students too.
Before Mya had learned about God’s love for the nations, she had always enjoyed learning about the cultures of her international friends but was blind to the need as well as the opportunities she had to share Jesus with them.
Before Mya had learned about God’s love for the nations, she had always enjoyed learning about the cultures of her international friends but was blind to the need as well as the opportunities she had to share Jesus with them. Now, she purposely welcomes even more international students with a mission. She states, “Every person deserves to hear the gospel. Jesus commands us to pray for, befriend, and love the nations. He loves me so much but His mission is far bigger than myself.”
Since Impact Camp, Mya has dynamically grown in her relationship with Christ: she has learned so much about his love for all people and The Biblical basis for mission. She sees how the kingdom of God is bigger than just herself and her own salvation. Praise God for Mya’s decision to follow Jesus at Impact Camp and her finding her role in reaching the nations from College Station. His work is evident in Mya’s life as she whole-heartedly engages with the nations from the midst of Aggieland.