We are so full of praise and thanksgiving toward the Lord for our sweet, fresh, and glorious gospel trip.

Today at ODU, we distributed Bibles as well as held mini Bible studies. As open ones came to our table, we connected them to some local saints who fellowshipped and went over some footnotes with them. One student came up to our table, hungry for the ministry and burdened for her roommate’s salvation. It turns out that her roommate had stopped by our table last week and received the Lord! Both are hungry and believe that it was Jesus who gave them this opportunity.

The atmosphere of our overflow meeting tonight was mutuality. The team and local saints all shared their experiences of co-laboring with the Lord and one another these past two weeks. The saints throughout Virginia have been inscribed in our hearts.

Prayer burdens:

• That the 600 Bibles, 1000 tracts, and 700 ministry books that have gone out would be read by the ones who received them.
• ODU—The ripe ones would be added to the church here, the whole church would be burdened for ODU, and the possibility of a brothers’ house.
• GMU/NoVa—Raising up laborers to care for the hungry and seeking ones, and strengthening the core students already there.
• VCU—The warm contacts would be connected to the club and enter into the church life.
• William and Mary—More prayer for the ground to be tilled so that the high gospel is ready to go out.

Today we distributed Bibles at ODU again. About a handful of local saints also joined us. Of all the campuses we visited, ODU has been the most open and ripe toward receiving the Word and the ministry.

Prayer burdens:

• On Thursday (2/5), we will be having a Bible study on campus as a way to follow-up with the many open and seeking ones.
• ODU is the very ripe, but we need continual prayer to be one with the Lord in the follow-up. Please pray that even the whole church would enter into the Lord’s heart and fresh move on this campus.
• The saints are before the Lord about a possible brothers’ house by ODU. This would be such an integral container for the fruit, as students would have a place to gather and pursue the Lord corporately.

Hallelujah! We are filled with praises! What a joy and privilege to be in the central work of God! Not only for us to be under His dispensing, but bringing others into the dispensing of the Triune God!

• Today was filled with many encouraging appointments and reports. Today we met with S, a student who prayed to receive the Lord with us yesterday, and we shared with her the mystery of her human life. She was very receptive and would like to start reading the Bible with some sisters.
• Another student, M, who had an appointment yesterday, attended the Bible seminar tonight on God’s economy and was underlining and highlighting her Bible as the brothers were presenting the divine truths. She plans on coming to a home meeting this week (fourth face to face appointment). Her parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses and oppose her being a believer but she is seeking the Lord faithfully regardless of the opposition she has received from her family.
• Two freshman students, M and C, attended the Bible seminar, enjoyed seeing God’s economy, and were connected to read the Bible with a local working brother! They also would like to come to a home meeting this week.
• A young local sister joined two appointments with two students, C and A. C opened up about a recent personal struggle in her Christian life, and A was very eager to get into the footnotes of her new recovery version Bible. The young local sister felt that the appointments were really a mutual shepherding, and she now has a renewed desire and burden to shepherd the new contacts with other community sisters.

Prayer burdens:

• May the Lord cause S to long for the guileless milk of the Word and release her baptism!
• The Lord would honor M’s seeking heart in bringing her to a home meeting and connecting her with the local saints.
• M and C would be released for a home meeting this week and would be solidly connected with brother C.
• Pray for the Lord’s leading in how to follow up with C and A, and to get them connected to the local sisters.

Here is one update from our time last week in Fargo. Thank you all for your prayers for A. the local student from the Midwest who we met on campus and had four appointments with the sisters, to be connected with the local saints. We received an update today saying that A will be having an appointment with a local sister, sister D, this upcoming Friday! Hallelujah! May she be fully connected and immersed in the church life with the local saints.

We are very thankful for your prayers and we praise the Lord for His marvelous work through all the saints. Today twenty seven saints from Northern California labored with us on the Sonoma State University (SSU) and its nearby communities. Six SSU students attended the Bible studies on campus and enjoyed the truth opened up by the footnotes. Some of them are also planning to come to the college meeting this Friday. Please pray that the Lord will bind any distractions and release many students to come enjoy the feast this Friday night! We also had one student open up for us to come to her dorm tomorrow night to have a freshmen Bible study; and as of now eight freshmen girls are planning to come. Please pray for this very first Bible study at the dorm and may the Lord bring in the shepherds to continue taking care of these dear students after the gospel trip.

The community teams are also very much encouraged by the Lord. We had six teams go out in the community near SSU; eleven people received a RcV Bible, four of them prayed and received the Lord, and four of them are open for us to revisit. One team visited a student at SSU that we just met at the table last week, and she is a very genuine seeker of the Lord. The saints were planning to visit her for 20 min but it turned out to be a 1.5 hour Bible study. The saints studied Philippians chapter three with her and she was very impressed by the RcV footnote and kept asking how often we do this kind of Bible study. She is in her senior year and she shared with us that she always has a heart to go to Bible school after graduating from college. May the Lord preserve her heart with the shepherding of the saints and lead her clearly in her last year of college.

Tonight we also had a home meeting with the saints in Novato and Santa Rosa. Throughout this gospel trip all of the trainees are very much watered by the dear saints in this area; their hearts for the Lord, their fresh consecrations to the Lord, their taking care of one another, and their rejoicing spirit all shepherd us very much. Praise the Lord for the brightly shining lampstand in Novato and Santa Rosa!

Prayer burdens:

• SSU Campus: Please pray for the Bible study at the student dorm on Thursday night and college meeting on Friday night. Please pray for our current twenty solid contacts and pray that the Lord will bring some more genuine seekers in the next two days, especially raise up some young brothers at SSU. We pray that all these contacts will remain in the church, grow in life, and be normal functioning members of the Body of Christ.
• Community: Please pray for the revisiting of the warm doors we gained in door-knocking. May the Lord warm their heart through our revisit and open up more opportunities for further fellowship. We expect 56 saints from Northern California to join us this Saturday 2/7 to continue the door knocking in Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park. May the Lord gain some open homes in the community through the saints’ visit!
• Please pray that the Lord would burden some young saints, families, and serving ones to move to this white field.

On Lord’s day we went to the Lord’s table meeting in Brampton. It was a wonderful time of blending. The local saints were really encouraged because so many other localities came to the meeting and they haven’t had such a blending meeting in a long time. We enjoyed that the Lord is recovering us to the proper diet, one of eating the Lord as our real food, only He satisfies. Many times we think we have to do something for the Lord, but He just wants us to eat Him (Gen 2:8-9). We shared with the saints a report on how the students at University of Toronto at Mississauga have been quite open to us on campus. We are sharing the eatable and touchable Lord Jesus with them and there is a sense that the atmosphere amongst the student body is changing. We heard that prior to last week’s tabling and distribution, the Christian students on campus were more “dormant,” but they are gradually becoming more bold to speak about their faith. We encouraged the saints to participate in this labor in whatever capacity they can, and the most necessary and effective way is to pray.

In the afternoon, the teams went door knocking for an hour in some local saints’ neighborhoods. One brother shared with us that during this hour, he developed a very strong burden to save his neighbors because he saw the need for increase in the church. But because he knew he couldn’t do it by himself, he really appreciated the support of the other members of the Body, every member has a function!

In the evening it started to snow really hard and we weren’t sure if our gospel contacts would be able to make it for the BfC seminar but there was a big turnout. The local saints and serving ones ended up having to stand during the meeting because there were so many new ones that we ran out of seats. The seminar covered the history of the Word of God, beginning with how the Bible was formed and the recovery of Christian truths that have been lost or misinterpreted throughout the past two millennia. During the seminar, some of the trainees took care of the children, coloring and drawing pictures with them. One grandma told her grandson, “This is what the Lord Jesus’ children’s meeting is like, do you want to come back?” He told her that he really liked spending time with the brothers and did want to come back!

On Monday, the full-timers took the trainees out for some sightseeing in downtown Toronto. We went to the aquarium and saw the wonders of God’s creation in the ocean. We were all glad that the snowstorm didn’t prevent us from going out because it was really nice to spend time with the whole team, to be built up with one another.

On campus Tuesday, it seemed to start out slower than the past week because Friday was very, very busy at the table and in our Bible study room. But God operates in an unseen realm, so outwardly it might be slow but inwardly we know that the Lord is still moving. This slow day made us more desperate before the Lord, to pray for Him to open up more college students and even arrange their circumstances so that they would have the desire and see the need for them to receive the Lord Jesus and His Word. May He continue to draw more college students to Himself as the One who can satisfy all their needs! Praise the Lord, He is a living and moving God!