Earnest prayer

Historically all student evangelistic movements began when a few students voluntarily gathered together and prayed for their generation. A UBF student committee was formed to raise up a few spiritual leaders. Student committee members prayed earnestly whenever they met. In 1962 the student committee had five members. They formed a prayer group in each college. They shared their prayer topics and prayed altogether. The committee meeting began with prayer and ended with prayer. At that time the curfew began at midnight and ended at 4:00 a.m. Often the committee meeting ended past midnight. So the committee members prayed altogether until the curfew ended and went home. There were some who fell asleep while others were praying. But when their turn to pray came, they woke up by themselves and prayed with loud voices.

For students who had nothing in their hands, there was one thing they could do. That was prayer. Since they had nothing to depend on, they had to depend on God in prayer. On Jan. 7, 1966 Brother Gunhun Lee, a pharmacy student of Chosen University, said, “We prayed so much. Now I am sick of prayer.” Then Dr. Samuel Lee said, “In fact prayer is the hardest labor. The most stressful thing in our lives of faith is prayer. But we must pray until we find the power of prayer and until we feel like crying out to God.” At that time student shepherds prayed long. So they always had to run to their classrooms. Nowadays when we are busy, we run first and pray later. But they prayed first and ran next.

We not only prayed for our sheep but also for the pioneering chapters. We also prayed for our mission field—South East Asia—and for the world. We sent Missionary Hanok Kim to Jeju Island and prayed for her with tears everyday. When we pioneered Seoul, we supported it with prayer and sent many letters. When we prayed like this earnestly, after five years of pioneering Chun-nam University, 200 students out of 2,400 Chun-name University students became regular UBF members. Moreover, Jeju, Chunju, Daejun and Daegu chapters were all pioneered.

At the end of 1966 Seoul was pioneered. At that time Dr. John Jun said in his address at the end of the year, “I remember that five years ago Miss Barry and Mr. Lee prayed for South East Asia. At first I could not understand their prayer and I could not but laugh at them. But now God heard their prayer and sent Sister Hanok Kim to Jeju Island. Sister Hanok suffered more than one could say. She did not have a center so she held onto a rock and offered her crying-out prayer to God. But now we have a UBF center in Jeju and it became an independent chapter.”

Our prayer for world mission began with praying for South East Asia. Especially every Saturday we prayed for South East Asia, Korea and ourselves and prayed that UBF might become an international organization. As the fruit of this earnest prayer, we sent out missionaries to Jeju Island and Singapore. But after a while they gave up their missionary calling and turned to their own ways. We were greatly discouraged. However we did not despair but kept praying. Then God heard our persistent prayer. In Acts 16 when Apostle Paul wanted to go to Asia, God blocked him from doing so but led him to go to Europe. Likewise, God closed the door to South East Asia mission but opened the door to send missionaries to Germany and America.

In 1971 during the Summer Bible Conference held at Soongjeon University Dr. Samuel Lee gave us a prayer topic to hold an international Bible conference in Washington D.C. with 200 attendants after 10 years. God answered this prayer and after 10 years God enabled us to have a conference with 420 attendants at Niagara Falls. God answered our prayer 200%.

Afterwards we kept praying for world mission. Through our persistent prayer God is still working powerfully, leading the third great awakening to change proud students from America, Canada and Europe to humble shepherds. Students from broken families in Russia are healed from their wounds and fatalism and are growing as Jesus’ disciples and shepherds. Indian students accepted the gospel of Jesus and are being converted from Hinduism to Christianity. African students overcame their poverty and began a new and powerful life as Jesus’ disciples.