Asian American students and staff make up one of InterVarsity’s fastest growing ministries on campus.
When staff workers Andrea and Jason Huang returned to Ohio State University to participate in the Price of Life Invitational in mid-April they were excited to see the way that students were responding to a clear and compelling presentation of the gospel message. Such an outreach was in contrast to some of their own memories of their alma mater when they were freshmen ten years ago, when InterVarsity had a much lower campus profile.
They got involved with InterVarsity separately, but by their senior year Jason and Andrea were chapter co-presidents. They started dating about half-way through the year. The following year, as Jason finished up his work on an engineering degree, they were both InterVarsity interns. After they married they moved to Detroit, where Jason worked for Chrysler and Andrea worked part-time for InterVarsity at the University of Michigan—Dearborn campus.
Hearing God’s Call at Urbana
Seeking to know more about God’s will for their lives, they attended InterVarsity’s Urbana 06 Student Missions Conference. “At Urbana 06 the call to most people was to go overseas and do missions. But we felt like God was calling us to stay in the Midwest and work with Asian Americans,” Andrea said. “The Asian American experience is unique and they’re a sizeable minority on a lot of campuses. They hang out with each other, they date each other, they throw events for each other, and very, very, few of them are ever reached by multiethnic or majority white fellowships.”
The process of raising support to join InterVarsity full-time and finding the right campus took several years. In early 2009 they moved to Pittsburgh.
Planting an Asian American Chapter
Although nearly half of Carnegie Mellon University’s students are either Asian or Asian-American, God first opened the doors at the University of Pittsburgh. So that is where Andrea and Jason began. Pitt had a multiethnic InterVarsity chapter but no intentionally focused ministry for students of Asian descent.
They started a small Bible study at the end of the winter semester. Three students attended. They also started making contacts with other Asian-American student organizations, including the overall umbrella group, the Asian Student Alliance (ASA).
Over the summer they planned student events to kick-off the fall semester, and they prayed. Everyone was pleasantly surprised when 130 students, double what was anticipated, showed up at the social gathering that was jointly sponsored with the ASA. After that strong start, attendance at weekly Bible studies averaged around two dozen. They saw five students commit their lives to Christ in the fall.
Andrea and Jason cultivate a comfortable environment for seekers during their weekly Bible studies. Conversions have typically happened during one-on-one follow-up meetings. At the beginning of the fall semester, Jason was having lunch with the ASA vice president, who mentioned he had been thinking about God. “I asked him if he had heard the basic story of Christianity. I shared the Gospel with him and he became a Christian that day.”
Evangelism, Prayer, and Mission
In addition to evangelism, healing prayer has been a powerful part of Andrea and Jason’s campus ministry. On a retreat with 11 other students early in the fall semester, the sharing time became emotional as students talked about their dysfunctional family backgrounds. “There was a lot of deep brokenness there; it was eye opening to see that,” Jason said. “Experiencing truth through healing prayer is very powerful for this generation.”
Desiring that the Asian American students also share God’s missional heart even in the midst of their own brokenness and personal healing, Andrea and Jason took seven students with them to Urbana 09 last December and that led to even more growth. In the last few months attendance at the weekly Bible studies has averaged around 40 students, and there have been additional conversions.
Another outcome is that two non-Asian students who had been attending the Asian InterVarsity chapter Bible studies were invited to the regional black student Ignite conference in the spring. They returned to campus with a vision to create for their fellow black students the same kind of community that the Asian students had been experiencing all year. Over 75 students have expressed interest, and 15 have already committed to partnering together to reach the thousands of black students on campus this fall.
Preparing for Next Year
Seventeen of their students will be headed to Cedar Campus for leadership training as soon as finals are over. “We’re really excited about what God will do at Chapter camp and what’s ahead next year,” Jason said.
Andrea and Jason praise God for the exciting growth they have seen in student ministry at the University of Pittsburgh over the past year. It confirms the importance of the call that they received from God at Urbana 06. And it is, hopefully, just a foretaste of what is yet to come.
This summer, they will become part of the 5th National Chapter Planting Cohort, with sights set to plant at Carnegie Mellon University. Praise God for leading the Huangs on staff and for calling more Asian and Asian-American students to himself.
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