Kazakhstan

At the beginning of February, we had an American who currently does missions in Kazakhstan come and speak. He came in town to speak at a missions conference in San Diego, but he also spoke at our weekly service. I had the honor of having him stay at my house for a few days while he was in town. He arrived on Monday, did the Tuesday night service, then left to go back to Kazakhstan on Wednesday at 5:00 am! He had some incredible stories of what God was doing through him, and what it was like over there, defiantly the read deal! He also provided a training for the people involved with leadership here with UCLA after our prayer meeting, saying some really powerful things. A few nuggets include “with great blessing comes great responsibility” and “if you dare to do the ridiculous, God will do the impossible.” Think about those quotes, especially the first one and how you can apply it do your life. We live in the most blessed country in the world where even the poorest of the poor are rich compared to some other countries.

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Chinese New Year

A few weeks ago we had the largest event of the year, that being our Chinese New Year Celebration. I believe we had over 50 international students alone show up, not to mention the traditional students and other people involved with our ministry. The international Chinese students helped cook food for the event, and we also had karaoke in English/Chinese, as well as some traditional Chinese games. One of the international students from China that came to the event has started coming to our services and has been playing Ultimate Frisbee with us. When I spoke with him last week, he said that he searched online about Christianity before he came to our service because he had never heard anything about it. He ended up accepting Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior that week, and I was able to meet with him the next day and help do some basic discipleship.

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Homeless Outreach

On Saturday, UC Hope, the LA outreach division of Chi Alpha, met up to make PBJ and turkey and cheese sandwiches to give to the homeless. We walked around Westwood, the town UCLA is located in, and handed out the sandwiches along with fruit and carrot cake out. We where also able to minister to some of the homeless and hand out Bibles. They where very appreciative and it seemed that many of them just wanted to have a conversation, because many people wont even look at them as they walk by.

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Tonight we have a prayer service, tomorrow we are going to have a have free food and fellowship after the service, and next week, we are going to have a powerful guest speaker fly in from Sacramento to speak.

My January newsletter is finally out. I hope you all take a few minutes and read it. You can view it here or find it under the Newsletter page.

Thanks

Here is the video from last Sunday of me speaking

Speaking at the Father’s Heart International Ministry from Bryan Citrin on Vimeo.

Thank you Father’s Heart for the opportunity you gave me to speak. I love your worship, your gifting, and what God is doing through you. Don’t lose heart! I greatly appreciate your prayers and support. Feel free to subscribe to my blog and keep updated on my whereabouts.

God opened up an awesome opportunity for me to speak at a church near Philidelphia. I was in town to help sell shirts at the March for Life 2010, the country’s largest pro life rally all in Washington DC with over 250,000 people in attendance. The weather was suppose to be horrible, with snow and rain. We prayed that God would bless the event keep away the bad weather. Eventually, the sun even came out which was great. We did pretty good mentioning we are in a recession.

Last weekend we flew up to Sacramento for our Winter Conference. There was over 25 Chi Alpha chapters in attendance from across the west coast, and even a chapter from Hawaii flew in. There was over 200 students in attendance, and God really moved during the services, We experienced salvations and rededication! The keynote speaker, the campus pastor here at UCLA did a great job, the best I’ve heard him do! He spoke a unique message I have never heard regarding the importance of the staff in the Bible.

I would greatly appreciate it if I could receive your prayers on a matter of healing. My knee dislocated during the conference while engaging in a one legged race. Please pray for the complete healing of my knee, I have injured it in the past and just believed God for the devine healing. I really need it up to par, so please keep it in your prayers. I have torn my ACL in the past and don’t want to think of the idea tearing it again. I would rather have God heal it completely. I don’t have insurance and it would be a great testimony.

As you have probably heard, there was a massive earthquake yesterday in Haiti, the 3rd poorest country in the world, and the poorest in the western hemisphere. The damage strikes home, with Port-au-Prince in ruins only weeks after everyone I work with, including my brother, was there. I would have been there too, but I didn’t feel it was God’s timing for me to go. The Chi Alpha team I work with has been going down to Haiti for more than 12 years. Many of the staff, interns, and students here at UCLA just got back from helping with an orphanage there just weeks ago. This was the third trip to Haiti in the last year for some of the staff here at UCLA. One person was thrown out of her chair into the wall as she was reading her Bible. Praise God she wasn’t injured, and everyone from the orphanage is alright, with only minor cuts and bruises.

School is back in session here at UCLA for the winter quarter. School started back a few weeks ago, and we have had a great start to this new year! We started off the first Tuesday of the quarter year with a welcome back party with tons of food and games. It was a great opportunity for new students to come out and meet some of the existing Chi Alpha students. That Friday we went to Santa Monica to go Ice Skating outside (I was able to wear a short sleeve t shirt!). Definitely not what I was used too, but it was a great event. We had a good share of traditional and international students come out. Afterward we went out to eat and fellowshipped.

This week we had our first prayer meeting of the quarter, It was extremely powerful and God was really moved. That momentum really carried over to the next day, being our first weekly Chi Alpha service of the quarter. At the end of the service there were at least 7 rededications to the Lord so that was exciting. Additionally, I met a student yesterday while doing book table, who seemed to be searching for something, but was not really sure where the truth was. I invited him out to our service, and he took a flier but did not really seem interested in being on our mailing list (Which typically means I will never see the person again.) He actually showed up at the service and was participating in the worship! That really surprised me, and afterward after talking with him again, it turns out that he shares a lot of the same hobbies and me and other Chi Alpha members. I just wanted to praise God for awesome divine appointments like this.

This weekend everyone flies out to Sacramento for the Winter Retreat, a weekend long conference with powerful worship and Bible teaching. Chi Alpha chapters from across the west coast and Hawaii will be in attendance. The main speaker for this event is none other than Winston Bui, my neighbor, friend, mentor, and the campus pastor at UCLA.

Thanksgiving has come and gone. I hope you all had an amazing time with your friends and family. Here at UCLA Chi Alpha we put on a huge Thanksgiving celebration focused towards international students. Most international students have never celebrated a traditional thanksgiving celebration. When all the American students go home for the Holidays, many internationals are stuck at campus with nothing to do. Because of that, we put on a free celebration with tons of food, games, etc. We had over 110 pounds of turkey to give out and the internationals had a blast! I met new students that I will be able to connect with over the next few months and the light of Christ really shinned at the event.

This Tuesday is our last Chi Alpha service for the quarter, and our group is taking a missions trip to Hati in two weeks. The semester has been crazy, but Chi Alpha has made a difference on this campus, and has made a difference for the kingdom of God.

A huge victory happened last Monday for the kingdom of God. God used me to lead a friend of mine to Christ that I have been connecting with for the last month and a half. This person happens to be Japanese. He accepted Jesus as his Lord and savior, and this is a huge deal because until recently, less than 1% of Japan was saved. The person I’m interning under said that this was the equivalent of leading 100 Americans to Christ. The campus pastor led another student to Christ on Friday right before our monthly activity, which happened to be a beach bonfire. We had tons of internationals and traditional students show up, so it was a great event.

This Friday we are taking a lot of international students to a mock jousting tournament, and the following week we are putting on a Thanksgiving celebration for internationals. Most students go home for Thanksgiving, but internationals do not have that holiday in their home country, so they typically do not have anything to do over that time. Because of that, all the Chi Alpha Staff and Interns stay in Los Angeles to host a traditional Thanksgiving feast as a huge outreach. Its events like this that resulted in my Japanese friend accepting Christ.