A unique call – God uses a reject to start a campus ministry!

Few people know that Student Movement for Christ International was started by a Christian worker who had been rejected as being too rebellious!

About 10 years ago a Filipina, Joy, visited our church in Singapore. She had just come to Singapore to work as a domestic helper (DH). When she first came to church she greeted me and told me that she had met me and my wife in the Philippines at a Bible conference. I asked her why she, who was a Bible school graduate, was working as a DH in Singapore. She smiled at me and did not give me a clear reply. I did some investigations and found out that she had stopped serving in the churches because her pastors found her too rebellious and difficult to control.

Joy soon joined our street evangelism team each Sunday and was very effective in leading many to the Lord and to church. In fact, she was our most aggressive and successful street evangelist. Besides being an aggressive evangelist I also noted that she wasn’t afraid to approach any and everybody for any and every thing. It was in her DNA to ask whenever she felt that there was a need to ask. When she began asking church members for Bibles to distribute, for funds for Filipino workers, they were upset with her and I began to hear complaints that she was “too much”! However, on investigation of the charges I found out that Joy’s motives were to further God’s kingdom – though her method of doing so was too aggressive for most people.

When Joy finished her DH’s contract in Singapore and decided to return back to the Philippines to serve the Lord, she asked me for advice regarding what to do. Immediately I thought that she would be ideal in a campus ministry, since she had no problem approaching strangers and sharing the Gospel with them. After all, campus evangelism is similar to street evangelism.

So Joy returned to her home-town and started a campus ministry. She entered the campuses there and began evangelizing. Very quickly, many were converted and many Bible-study groups were started. True to her nature of asking whenever she felt there was a need to do so, she approached the President of the largest university in her city and asked permission to share the Gospel for 20 minutes in each class. This had never been done before! But God gave her favour with the President and she was permitted to do so. The rest is history!!

For the past 6 plus years, the 100 over workers of SMCI continue to use Joy’s method of classroom evangelism in about 50 campuses in the Philippines.

Today, Joy is opening new ground in the campuses of Leyte, Philippines. Pray for this dear warrior!