Tom: How do you envision Asian-American/International student campus ministry in the next 5 years? 25 years? (challenges, praises, etc.)
Jean: Deep question, Tom! There’s actually quite a bit that I can espouse here, but I will choose one word that summarizes it: Complex. More and more we’re seeing on the field that students are coming out of complicated home-life (with divorce on the rise all across the board, AAs and Internationals are no longer the exception.) Of the 31 students at our summer urban mission project 6 of them had parents undergoing a divorce through this summer and that doesn’t count the ones who already come out of divorced homes.
Additionally, our country is becoming more and more globalized. Asian-American ministry now sees a growing number Indonesians, Hmong, Malaysians, Philippinos whereas before it mainly consisted of Chinese, Korean and Japanese. Add to the mix students who are Asian adoptees.
And in the midst of all this complexity, the desire to connect is an incredible felt perhaps more so now than ever. (This explains the rise of online social networking.) And with the popularity of these new mediums (texting, tweeting, and facebook) many students may feel “connected” because on the surface they are, but as we probe deeper, we are seeing that many students still experience a deep sense of feeling unloved and forgotten. Which is why meeting Jesus is such a much needed and profound experience. I suspect that in the next 5 years we as staff need to get more savvy in communicating these deep truths through these medium (text/facebook) that are designed for surface level connection.
In the next 25 years? I can’t know. But I wonder if Americans will start meeting Jesus through refugees, immigrants, and missionaries from other countries coming here. As we slip into our sleepy comfort here in America, it may take someone from a different world to really speak into our hearts.
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