By Alyssa AkersBy Alyssa Akers
We first met three weeks earlier, and now, even though we're scattered all over the United States, we're inseparable.
We came from as far as North Pole, Alaska; Huntsville, Texas; and Murray Hill, New Jersey.
For a short but intense two and a half weeks, July 31 to Aug. 17, we served God with our Asian brothers and sisters in Singapore and Malaysia together as one body. We are Team America--Don't Hold Back (DHB).
The 17 team members were selected by a committee from Youth for Christ (YFC) in March. The committee prayed over who God wanted to send. They believe each member was there for a reason and handpicked by God. This humbled me and made me wonder why he wanted me there.
July 31, we met in Denver, Colorado. It's amazing how fast we jelled. By day one we were a team.
Each one of us had either musical or dramatic abilities, so YFC sent in a drama and music coach to help us perform songs and skits.
We used these tools to reach Christians and non-Christians in the Asia Pacific region.
In Denver, we had four days to practice music and drama as well as to physically, mentally and spiritually prepare ourselves for our cross-cultural experience.
It's awesome how God worked with us by binding us together and helping us to master our songs and skits by the second or third run-through.
After our long flight to Singapore and a short night, we spent one day of sight-seeing.
Then we put our dramas and music aside to attend the ASPIRE '98 conference. ASPIRE was a combination of YFC's DC/LA and InterVarsity's Urbana conferences for high school and college-aged students in the Asia Pacific region. It focused on evangelism and missions, placing emphasis on the 10/40 window (a region from 10 degrees north to 40 degrees south latitude that is a focus of evangelistic efforts).
More than 500 delegates from 19 countries attended. I enjoyed seeing people from so many nations joining together to worship and pray to the same God, sometimes even in numerous languages at the same time.
Most of the time, we didn't just socialize with people from our own country. I would look out at the audience and see Americans spread out over the entire room. We weren't confined to our own culture and language. God tore down the would-be barriers between the different people groups, and the rewards were awesome
After the conference, we put to use our dramatic and musical talents during the latter portion of our trip. We performed at two ITEs (Institutes of Technical Engineering, a type of pre-university) in Singapore.
Since it was a public show, and Muslims were in the audience, we weren't allowed to openly share Christ, but we provided a message of hope and left them wanting to know more.
Singapore YFC will be able to follow up with some of those in attendance. After the show, we were swamped with people asking for our autographs--they thought we were professionals!
When we told them we had only been together about two weeks, they were astonished. But it was God who did it, not us, and through much prayer, we were able to remain their humble servants.
Friday, Aug. 14, we left for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The day after our arrival, we put on an evangelistic concert at a university with the help of a performing arts team from Singapore.
Since tickets were sold only to non-Muslims, we were free to share testimonies, the gospel message and give an invitation at the end.
Fewer came than we expected, but out of about 150 who returned the response sheets, most of whom were already Christian, five made first-time commitments to Jesus and four wanted to know more about him.
The concert also opened the door for Malaysia YFC to reach more young people.
Don't Hold Back (DHB) was also able to perform in three churches in the Kuala Lumpur area, giving more exhortative messages to Christian audiences. The Holy Spirit moved powerfully at these meetings.
Some of my favorite memories of the trip were spending time with the people afterward, learning not only about each other's culture, but about each other.
The last time Team America met as a group in Malaysia was a time to remember. We spent about an hour and a half talking about the whole trip, sharing specific praises to God, and praying.
God was with us throughout the trip and he revealed himself to us in many ways, but two tangible miracles stood out that placed a special edge on the whole thing.
Between performances at the two ITEs, another of our leaders, Sumi Flanagan, left her bag, which contained her passport, money and plane tickets, on the subway. We prayed long and hard about it and upon arriving at the second ITE, she got word that it had been found 30 stations away and was with the conductor who, incidentally, was a Christian.
The other miracle happened to me. Somewhere between Hong Kong and San Francisco I lost my plane ticket home to Burbank, California. I was told there would be a $75 replacement fee. I started to get out my wallet, but they started asking me questions such as, "You're just going home, right?" and "do you have a receipt or anything?"
I did have a receipt and they found my name in the computer. After a couple of "should we's?" to each other, they decided to give me a boarding pass at no extra charge. I was blown away!
The trip was a complete success, but only because of the Almighty God who had it in his will to begin with and made the whole thing possible. It was through much prayer that we were able to accomplish all that was done.
To God be the glory!
Team America's Singapore Youth for Christ hosts
SINGAPORE DELICACY--Casey Stanley eats a
durian--a Singaporean delicacy.
Copyright © Worldwide Church of God, 1998