Jesus, Justice, Multi-Ethnicity and Evangelism: Into this nexus, we brought together two InterVarsity chapters at Western Michigan University – one predominantly white, one predominantly black. Our focus was on the injustice of the human trafficking industry (sexual slavery, bonded labor, human defilement, and unprosecuted rape) and on proclaiming the Gospel and leading people to Christ. White and black Christians on campus came together to fight slavery and proclaim Jesus, and the campus responded in a big way. During this outreach event, we saw at least 30 students make decisions to follow Christ! We are very excited about what the Lord did.
We had two days of outdoor ministry which included a marketing/billboard campaign, human illustrations (e.g. actors portraying women who were bound and gagged), conversational evangelism, and “postmodern proclamation stations” (displays that invite students’ interactive participation). About half of the students came to Christ through the stations and conversational evangelism and about half through the evening meetings.
On Wednesday we showed the movie, “Hotel Rwanda,” and had a discussion. On Thursday we had two gatherings, one on body image and one was a step show, featuring black fraternities and sororities. Spoken word poetry and a singing competition was also included. We grossly underestimated the attendance for this event and we had to turn away about 150 students. On Friday, our main event was a banquet for the winners of the previous evening’s competition. We had over 300 attend.
We raised about $1,500 for International Justice Mission, an organization which fights the human trafficking industry. Please join us in thanking God and praying for the follow-up efforts with students who professed Christ during the week.
