taylor hall’s trip to india: part 2

Yesterday we shared a little of Taylor’s experience this summer in India with Student Mobilization.  He shared about a student he met there, Abhishek. Today we have one more question for him…

What did God teach you in India?

I was meeting with Abhishek for maybe the 2nd or 3rd time.  We had just been hanging out and we had made our way back to talking about the Gospel and the person of Christ.  After a while Abhishek stopped me and asked me a pretty loaded question.  He looked at me and said, “I understand all of this, but, tell me Taylor, WHY ARE YOU HERE?” At first I didnt know what he meant. Why was I sitting across a table from him? Why was I in india? What did I think the meaning of life was?  But then he clarified…”Why are you telling me about Yeshu, or Jesus?”  Abhishek probably had no idea all about all of the thoughts that ran through my head at that moment, but as I collected and sorted through all of them, I was able to just launch into my testimony and explain that my life had been CHANGED radically by Christ.  That part was key: Changed.

Looking back on that, Abhishek asked me a very important question.  Packed inside of the question of “Why are you here?” lies the more important question:

“Do I, Taylor Hall, actually believe that the Truth that is found in the Gospel is absolutely, in and of itself, enough to radically change someones life?”

Do I genuinely believe that? It doesn’t matter how many times I say it, or how I present it in some cool new way, or how I can convince someone that it is truth; but do I believe that inside the gospel is a revolutionary truth that can change someone?  My conclusion was ABSOLUTELY!  And coming to that conclusion was incredible! It frees me up to be as bold as I want to, because in the end, it isn’t my responsibility to change someone’s heart. Its my responisbility to present Truth, and then to get out of the way! As I go into this fall, I find that to be a very comforting thing.  Our God is so much bigger and more powerful than we hardly ever give Him credit for!  I think that is one of the major things God revealed to me this summer.

Thanks, Taylor, for sharing your story with us!

Filed under: missions, Delhi, India, sharing Jesus, Student Mobilization, Taylor Hall

taylor hall’s trip to india

Taylor Hall, a junior in college at the University of Arkansas, grew up here at Fellowship North. Over the last few years, he’s gotten involved with Student Mobilization (StuMo for short), and spent 6 weeks this summer in Delhi, India, with their ministry. We’d like to share a bit about his experience there.

How would you sum up your time in India?

If I could choose one word to describe my summer in India, it would be FUN.

India was a whole lot of things: it was challenging, life changing, hot, sweaty, busy, tiring, stretching, emotionally straining, and hectic.

But, if I had to sum it all up, I would say it was FUN.  Everyday I got to leave my apartment, and my JOB was to hang out with awesome guys and tell them about Jesus.

Everyday I got to leave my apartment with no clue as to how the day would go.  I would be surprised by new and crazy experiences daily and never knew what to expect.  I was able to laugh at all of the “cultural norms” of India that made no sense to me; I got to experience and fall in love with a culture that is completely different from ours.  I got to sit across the table from people who have never heard the name of Christ and tell them about Him.  I had the best job ever all summer, and it was a blast! I can’t wait to go back!

Was it worth it to spend 6 weeks halfway around the world?

By the time the last couple of weeks rolled around, all of us had narrowed huge list of contacts down to a handful of people that would continue to meet up and hang out with us.  For me, it was down to basically two guys. Their names were Abhishek and Abhimanyu.  Then towards the last week, I was down to just Abhishek.

By this time he had heard the Gospel about several times and he could regurgitate it to me better than most.  But one of the coolest moments of my whole summer came during our second to last time to meet up.  He had asked me to tell him about the breakdown of the Bible (Old Testament, New Testament, Gospels, etc….). He was asking a ton of questions as I fumbled through the purpose of the Old Testament.  That it was about God’s people, the Israelites, who time and time again failed to live up to the standard of the Old Testament law.  We eventually made our way to the birth of Jesus, and at that point we were able to talk through the gospel again.

He was able to connect the fact that the people of the Old Testament were unable to attain moksh (or eternal life) on their own, SO God had to create another way, that other way being Jesus.  After talking some more, he told me that when he thought about and talked about Jesus with me, he was filled with an unexplained peace and joy, a feeling that everything was ok, that there was some other way to live besides the way the world around him was living.

That was one of the most powerful things I heard all summer.  It made me stop and think about the words that i had been saying to him.  The truth that the Gospel brings is absolutely enough to radically change someone.  Abhishek had no prior knowledge of Jesus, he had no other information about following Him other than the fact that this God-man had died for him 2,000 years ago, and because of that, he was able to have a relationship with the God of the universe.  And Abhishek got it!  Over the next week I saw him be radically changed by the Gospel and by our last day there I was confident that he had made a genuine decision to follow Jesus!  I even got to talk to him the other day and all he had to say was, “thank you for telling me about Jesus”.

By the end of our summer, our team of ten had shared the Gospel over 140 times.  There were around 25 people that got to here the gospel more than once. And at the end of the summer we got to see ONE GUY decide to follow Christ: Abhishek.  Was it worth it?  Absolutely. Every member of our team would agree that it was absolutely worth it.

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But God didn’t just have something to say to Abhishek, He had something to let Taylor know, too. We’ll share that part of his story tomorrow…

Filed under: missions, Delhi, India, sharing Jesus, Student Mobilization, Taylor Hall