Eric Ji’s Prayer Letter

Dear partners in ministry,

Three Years of Waiting for One Sentence

Three years ago, when we first started a Bible study on campus, we had no building and no budget. Some weeks I sat alone at our meeting spot and then went home. Still, I kept showing up every week.

Then this semester, students began to say something new.

The moment I heard it, the last three years came rushing back: the Tuesdays when no one came, the prayers I prayed alone. God had not wasted a single one of those hours.

Three students are now in baptism classes ahead of the October baptism service. We sit down together and go through the basics of the faith. Please pray with us for the day these three confess with their own mouths, “Jesus is my Lord.”

“Who Do You Say That I Am?”

On Sunday, September 13, I preached from Matthew 16:15–17 at Guam Evergreen Presbyterian Church.

Peter’s confession did not come from being clever. Jesus said it was the Father in heaven who had revealed it to him. When a person confesses Jesus as Lord, in the end it is God who is at work.

That Sunday I put this question to the congregation, and now three students on campus are about to answer it in their own words. I thank God for bringing us before the same question, at the pulpit and at a small table on campus.

The Summer of Pink T-Shirts

From August 10 to 16, a vision trip team from the education department of Juan Presbyterian Church in Incheon, Korea, came to Guam. MGM served as the local coordinator, and I spent that week with the children.

The team split into two age groups and ran English camps. On Wednesday evening at the Chamorro Village night market, children in matching pink T-shirts sang and danced in front of the crowd and shared the gospel. We also visited Zero Down, sang with the children there, and handed out the gifts the team had brought. I think I will remember for a long time how children from across the sea and children of this island sang the same song together.

No Shyness Here

At the start of each semester we walk the campus with students and share the gospel. This time we set the first two weeks of HisPlan’s Tuesday worship as evangelism weeks. Wearing the pink T-shirts sent by Juan Presbyterian Church and carrying fans printed with the Four Spiritual Laws, students walked up first to every table in the student lounge and started a conversation. Watching them from behind, I wrote this down.

In a way, the church that came in the summer also lent a hand to our campus evangelism this fall. Pastor Dasol Lee of Lord’s Church (주님의교회) visited our Tuesday worship for the second time and once again filled the students’ table with a meal. As the name The TABLE suggests, I am thankful for everyone who comes and sits at this table with us.

A Table with a Student Ministry Leader from the Pacific

David, the Pacific regional director of IFES (the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students), reached out before coming to Guam. We shared a meal, talked for a long time, and agreed to cooperate going forward. The campus ministry I began alone is now joining hands with other student ministries across the Pacific.

A Kitchen on Dirt, and One Stove

I cannot forget what I saw when I first visited Sino Memorial Elementary School on Tonoas Island in Chuuk. The school had no kitchen. Mothers came to the school and cooked the children’s lunch on portable gas burners set on the dirt ground. For a school of more than 250 students, that is nowhere near enough. When it rains, the mothers have to cook right there in the rain.

In November I am going back to that school with two deacons from Guam Evergreen Presbyterian Church. We plan to build a wood-burning stove so that lunch can be cooked properly. One stove may not sound like much, but when I think of 250 children’s meals and the mothers’ hard work, it is not a small thing. My hope is that this becomes the start of building kitchens like this at many more schools.

Looking back, I did not do much this quarter. I kept my place, left the door open, and sat down at the table with those who came. It was God who sent the students, the churches, and your prayers to that place. And you, our partners, have always been at the very center of that grace.