Students take the gospel to East Asia, come back thinking ‘missionally at home’

Keith Wieser said when he looks across his church and identifies the highest-impact individuals, the ones who are highly evangelistic disciple-makers, they have some unifying factors. One of them is that they’ve spent time in East Asia.

“They come back and their perspective on their life and on the world is completely changed,” said Wieser, who serves as pastor of Resonate Church, a Washington state-based church with campuses in Idaho and Oregon. “They see lostness where they had just seen regularity, and they see themselves as missionaries more than when they left.”

During the past three years more than 80 students have participated in Resonate’s partnership with International Mission Board workers in East Asia.

“We put them into a college campus and by being in that context, their lives are radically changed,” Wieser said. “To be able to say ‘I’m here for a specific reason for a short time’ develops that courage muscle. As they try stuff there the receptivity of college students begins to create an optimism that gets carried home with them. It builds a courageous spirit and that permeates their identity.”

It also makes a lasting impact on the East Asian students they meet while there. “We’ve seen 13 college students decide to make a decision for Christ,” Wieser said. “There are four house churches that have been started in the past year or so.”

Double blessing

All this started in 2014 when Wieser and his wife, Paige, went on a trip to East Asia and saw the incredible opportunities there to reach the region through its university students. The Wiesers came back and told the stories. Eight Resonate members decided they wanted to relocate their lives to East Asia.

Wieser wanted to make a habit of sending students there to get their feet wet in missions. It was a double blessing as it bolstered students’ hearts to come back and think missionally at home, while supporting their partners on the field.

 The students see they are empowered to start something for the Kingdom and start to see their world as a place where they were sent as a missionary. 

“Going to East Asia not only opens their eyes to the lostness, it shows them that they can do something about it,” Wieser said. (Missions  Mosaic, IMB) 

How to pray:

• Pray for IMB workers and their field partners in East Asia to impact lostness by reaching and mobilizing Asian university students.
• Pray for God to raise up more workers through strategic partnerships.