The InterVarsity community is easy to find on the Boston College (BC) campus this fall. A large 6-foot-tall and 12-foot-long Proxe Station holding signs with questions about evil is being set up in high-traffic areas of campus every week.
“The Proxe Station enables us to move beyond a magnet form of ministry and it helps us to become quickly visible,” said Mako Nagasawa, a campus staff member who works with InterVarsity’s Asian American Fellowship at BC. “It helps us to engage the wider campus and challenges people about what they think.”
Mako had used Proxe Stations several times each semester during the previous two years but decided to do more with them this semester. Mako and students staff the station. They ask passers-by if they have time for a survey and then engage those who respond in conversations aimed at identifying the source of evil in the world and what can be done about it.
The conversations are designed to help students understand that evil in the world comes from evil within the hearts of men and women, and that God sent Jesus Christ into the world to provide a solution to that evil. And that each person needs to accept God’s grace through Jesus Christ.
The biggest impact Mako has seen so far is on the students who have been working with him at the Proxe Stations. “The experience trains the students so well that they can now have good evangelistic conversations without the Proxe stations,” he said.
Global Poverty Impact
The students in the BC chapter are also being challenged to consider lifestyle changes through a “Global Poverty Impact” curriculum that Mako has been sharing with them for the past month and a half.
“We have been looking for an on-campus experience with an active component, much like a spring break project,” Mako said. “This series teaches on giving thanks, living simply, spending justly, and donating more.”
Mako developed the curriculum with a pastor friend, Gary VanderPol, in 2006. It has been used by a number of churches and ministries. A year and a half ago the Christian Science Monitor wrote a story about how the curriculum was being used by the Boston Faith and Justice Network in a program called Lazarus at the Gate.
Lazarus at the Gate was founded by Mako, Gary, and several others, and comes from the story told by Jesus in Luke 16:19-31. Groups using the curriculum have donated more than $200,000 to assist the global poor since 2007.
Mako invited other InterVarsity chapters to use the curriculum. (The Leaders’ Guide for the series can be downloaded from the Lazarus at the Gate website.) It gives participants hope that the things we do might actually benefit the poor around the world,” he observed. “It’s an easy segue to the intersection between faith and giving.”
The Journey with Jesus
The intersection between faith and giving, between evangelism and social justice, is often on Mako’s mind because his own faith in Jesus Christ came through that intersection.
He began attending an evangelical church during high school in southern California, at the invitation of friends. Then he was invited along on a spring break service trip to Mexicali, Mexico, in March of 1989.
“I saw poverty like I had never seen before,” he recalled. “In my heart I knew it was meaningful to help the poor, but in my head I was asking why. It didn’t make sense that it was that significant. Then I thought it must be Jesus.” Mako has been following Jesus ever since.
He graduated from Stanford in 1994, got a job with Intel, and also began volunteering to work in urban ministry in East Palo Alto. He met his wife-to-be, Ming, on a blind date arranged by mutual friends. She was a Harvard graduate who had been working with InterVarsity in the Boston area since 1992. They married in 1999, and Mako moved to Massachusetts.
Ministry in Boston
Mako worked for two start-up companies in Boston that focused on bringing technology and jobs to the inner city. He also volunteered with InterVarsity. In 2001 he was invited to join InterVarsity as an area director, working in that position for five years. He stepped down as area director in 2006 in order to devote more time to evangelism and working directly with students.
Mako and Ming now live with their son and daughter in a three story home that they own in Dorchester. “Our area of Dorchester has the second highest crime rate in the Boston area, and lots of ministry opportunities,” he said. Their home is their base for reaching out to the community. Mako, Ming, and their children live on the first floor. They rent out the second and third floors.
“We have a community dinner every Wednesday,” Mako said. “Our church meets in our home. We’ve helped organize neighborhood meetings and coordinate a community garden.” He often invites students to his home, so they can see an example of a Christian missional community lifestyle. “We try to be good neighbors, and I show students one way to do that.”
Asian Christian Fellowship at BC
The Asian Christian Fellowship is one of three InterVarsity chapters at BC. Since Mako first started working with the chapter in 2004, it has grown from 35 students with no conversions to over 100 members with 7-9 conversions in each of the last three years.
Mako noted that his students are having an influence on campus through their involvement with the organizations for Asian American students of various ethnic backgrounds. “Back then these organizations’ activities involved a lot of alcohol, now they’re more interested in social justice,” he said.
Mako is pleased that at Boston College, InterVarsity students are embodying InterVarsity’s vision and renewing the campus, as their lives are transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ.
