iGoGlobal Students

A couple of nights ago, I found myself sitting behind a group of college students. You see, these are not your typical college students. These are college students deeply in love with Christ. These are students that understand the bottom line: make Him famous.

As I am sitting in the back row, I look to my left and see three young women in college preparing to head to East Asia to share the gospel in one of the most dark places in the world. In front of them, is two teams of college students preparing to head to two parts of the Middle East. Yes, the Middle East. In front of them is a group of college students leaving their families behind for three months to go backpacking in Southeast Asia to spread to gospel among an unreached people group. That’s just the left side of the room. On the right side of the room, we have a team ready to head to Central Asia to proclaim His name in a country where proclaiming His name is condemned. Behind them is a team praying because they know within a couple of hours they will be on a plane heading to North Africa. Lastly, the group sitting directly in front of me is a group of college students humbled by the fact that they are about to spend three months in the Netherlands and France just to make His name famous.

Could you do me a favor? Do the same thing I am about to do for a couple minutes, let what I just told you soak in. A group of about 30 college students about to give their entire summer up, thousands of dollars, and risk their own safety...to make Jesus famous. They are not going just to get souvenirs,t-shirts, or even those cool bracelets people always get on mission trips (I have quite a few of them). They are not going for a vacation/site-seeing trip. They are not going just to get a stamp on their passport. They are not even going to hook up with a beautiful women/man of God. They are going for one simple reason that me, some friends, and the people at iGoGlobal have discovered to be the bottom line of our lives: make Him famous. After you can let that soak in for a little bit, pray for them.

I want to tell you a little bit about these college students. I am not going to use their names or the exact locations they are currently in for protection reasons. But, I want to tell you a little bit about these particular college students. As I am sitting there, looking around at these teams, I actually see a few tears in their eyes. Here is the amazing thing, they don’t have tears because they are afraid of what they are about to do. They have tears because they are ready. They have tears because God has prepared their hearts. They have tears because they are ready to go. Ready to go in some of the darkest places in the world and make His name famous in those places. I am sitting there, and I am just so humbled as I look at the group in front of me. I know it’s soaking in with them too. That in a couple of hours they are hopping on a plane to head to nations to make Jesus name famous (Acts 1:8). These college students...these young men and women, “get it”. They “get it”. They get the bottom line: make Jesus famous to all the ends of the earth. Whether it be in Asia, Middle East, Africa, Europe, Australia, South America, or right here in the United States at their university and home-community, they are living their lives to make Jesus famous. Wow. Dang. Do you know how these students got to the point where they decided to live like this? They started reading the gospel, and they started to understand what God calls all of us to do: living a life that gives God the glory, which makes Him famous. These students are begining to understand what the gospel instructs us. The gospel doesn’t instruct us to live a life about our self-improvement. The reality is the gospel calls us to live a life that is about dying daily so He will get the glory (2 Corinthians 4:8-18).

I am so honored to simply be “Timmy” (Base Camp Worker or “temporary Jimmy”) with iGoGlobal. iGoGlobal teaches students the bottom line. I look at some of the students that go through iGoGlobal, and it always amazes me how different their lives are after going through iGo. God is using iGoGlobal to make His name famous all over the world. Spend some time in prayer for the iGo students currently in the field. If more of us were like these students, we could truly make His name even more famous. It doesn’t have to be in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, or Asia. It can be at our own home, workplace, university, and city. We can make His name famous. It all starts with us reading, understanding, and living out the gospel.