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U of I & IUPUI UBF

“But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:31)

U of I and IUPUI UBF held their first joint Easter Conference at University of Illinois, IL during the Easter weekend, April 18-20. It was to celebrate our Lord Jesus’ death and resurrection through studying John 17-21. Kweisi from Purdue and Alex and Vicka from Springfield also joined the conference.

On the first day, Joe Jung from U of I delivered a message on Jesus’ high priestly prayer (John 17). We learned from his message that the purpose of Jesus’ life on earth was to glorify God and he did so by completing the work God gave him. Joshua Lee from IUPUI also delivered a message on Jesus’ arrest and trial (John 18). Through his message, we learned that though he had foreknowledge and divine power, Jesus willingly allowed himself to be arrested in order to drink the cup of God’s wrath and to die a substitutionary death in our place.

On the second day, Alex Foster from Springfield delivered a message on Jesus’ crucifixion (John 19). His message clearly showed us that Jesus was innocent, yet was beaten and killed because he wanted to die for our sins to fulfill the Scripture. We also learned that all the work of our salvation was completed when Jesus said “It is finished” on the cross.

On the third day, Jerry Park from U of I delivered a message on Jesus’ resurrection (John 20). He emphasized that God gave us evidences for us to believe Jesus’ resurrection and therefore, not by blind faith but by keen and proactive observations we need to believe and share the life-giving message, the Resurrection News with other. David Kim from IUPUI also delivered a message on Jesus’ reinstatement of Peter (John 21). We were moved by Jesus unchanging love for Peter who had denied him three times. We also learned that Jesus wants us to feed his sheep based on his love for us.

Everyone actively participated in the programs and God blessed our joint conference abundantly with powerful messages, special songs, praises and sincere testimonies from our Bible students. Especially we thank God that seven IUPUI students, Nick, Max, Esther, Lacey, Angela, Kahla and Michael attended this conference and five of them shared their honest and sincere testimonies they prepared before coming to the conference. We pray that God may grow them to become disciples of Jesus and excellent Bible teachers. We especially pray for Esther who is going to China as a student missionary this summer after receiving training at Chicago UBF. She will be the first missionary from IUPUI UBF.

Nikhil’s Inputs
We searched and found two rooms for the girls to stay while the guys stayed together in a house in Urbana. We had a great opportunity to bond and get to know each other and also have lots of fun. The Easter conference was very light as compared to other UBF conferences and we were able to use that free time to share our experiences, eat ice cream and play Frisbee. We had two group Bible studies; one on John 19 and one on John 20. I lead the Bible study on John 19 and it was attended by Lacy, Kahla, Esther, Kewisi, Msn. Grace, Andrew, Yoon etc. We were able to discuss the meaning of the chapter and talked about Jesus ministry. Especially focusing on the phrase ‘It is finished’ we discussed that what is finished is not Jesus victory over sin, but rather Jesus life on earth which he lived as an example to all of us. Jesus victory over sin is complete in his resurrection from the dead, but through his death his life on earth is complete. We realized that in focusing too much on death only, the two other major portions of God’s plan viz. Jesus’ life and resurrection get overshadowed. In the afternoon we wrote testimonies and I was joined by Max, Nick and Esther in testimony writing. Others went to different places according to their preferences. In the evening we had second Bible study lead by Jeremiah Park which was attended by myself, Lacy, Msn. Grace and, Elizabeth and Frank for some time. In that Bible study we focused mainly on Thomas who did not believe until he saw Jesus personally and discussed about the reactions of those who were present there. We discussed that each person is different and each person has different understanding as well as different difficulties in having faith. However Jesus met each of them and fulfilled their need to help them have strong faith.

by M. Joshua Lee