Summer Project

by Ethan Zepper

Over the summer of 2013 I was blessed with the opportunity to spend a month in Moscow, Russia, with Cru on a Summer Project reaching out to Russian college students with the message of the gospel. Over the course of those four short weeks, God did amazing things in my life, as well as worked through me to impact others.

One of the major ways in which God worked in my heart was in creating a daily reliance on Him for everything.  It impacted everything from my patience to my courage and ability to speak about my faith to students. He taught me how to have a heart for those who don’t know Christ.  I also gained a much better understanding of God’s Holy Spirit, how He dwells inside of me, and how powerfully He can work in and through me.  Going on Summer Project also gave me a vision and a working example of living on mission and working to glorify God every day through my interactions with other people.

God also worked through me in many ways over the summer. I was able to have spiritual, and sometimes gospel conversations on a daily basis.  God gave me many opportunities to delve into the Russian student’s lives and find out what they believe and from where they base that belief (or lack of belief), and then present what I believe and the biblical basis for why I believe that.

One particular example of this happened on one of our “park picnics” around the middle of the project.  Earlier in the week, Corey, another student on project, and I met a Russian doctoral student at МГУ – Moscow State University – and, after talking to him for a bit, we invited him to join us for our picnic.  Shortly after he arrived, our conversation became focused on religion, which he really seemed to enjoy. He said that he was not a Christian, and didn’t really believe in anything.  However, after finding out that Corey and I were Christians, he wondered if he could ask us some questions pertaining to Christianity which he felt didn’t have logical answers. He began asking very deep theological questions, which showed that he certainly had done some extensive research.  His questions were mainly based around the concept of free will and how God could actually be good. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, for I certainly could not have adequately responded on my own, Corey and I responded to his questions. At the time, I was reading through Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis, which I used as an outline of how God not only is, but has to be good and that anything less doesn’t make sense. He commented that he had never heard that prospective before, and that he would certainly ponder these things.  I then proceeded to ask him if I could share the core of what I believe.  He responded in the affirmative, and I went through a booklet containing the essence of the Gospel in both English and Russian. After I had finished, he thanked Corey and I for a good, deep conversation, and that he would continue to think about the things we talked about.  While he didn’t become a believer at that moment, our conversation hopefully cleared up some of the misconceptions he had and we were able to present the Gospel.

There is not a day that goes by which I do not think and pray for the people I met in Russia, as well as praying for future laborers to be raised to reach them.  That summer changed my life!