News > North America

On December 4 at North Carolina State University, Raleigh UBF celebrated the good news of great joy for all the people--a Savior born to us who is Christ the Lord (Luke 2:10-11). From the message on Luke 2 we saw that from a human perspective, Mary faced a lot of bad news. Mary was in danger of being divorced and stoned to death because of her virgin pregnancy. Mary had hard and forced travel at nine months pregnant and had baby Jesus in an animal shelter. But from Mary’s perspective, God was working out His will step by step and she was privileged to participate in it. When Mary accepted Jesus, the good news of great joy, her difficult news and situations did not disappear but she gained peace that surpasses understanding, faith in God’s Sovereignty, and joy in the coming Messiah. Even the shepherds had peace to leave their jobs to worship Jesus and share their testimony with many people.

Through our Bible study and preparation, God opened the eyes of the coworkers to see that God has been working in our hearts and lives exactly as He did for Mary. From a human perspective, we all received some bad news. But when we newly accepted that Jesus came to be our Lord and Savior, this good news gave us great joy and peace. Though our circumstances did not change, we accepted Jesus as Lord over them.

We wanted to share this personal testimony through the Christmas drama. All the coworkers struggled with each others’ ideas and direction to be united in making a way to clearly demonstrate our testimony as the real-life truth that the Lord and Savior Jesus is good news for all the people. In the end, we needed no lines to memorize because each person played the role most similar to their own situation and testimony.

Act one was acting out our struggle with what was from a human perspective our real-life “bad” news. Joseph Ryu got bad news that he must pass his oral Ph.D. preliminary exam by mid-January, though he had no proposal or preparation yet. He acted out his stress and anxiety   Andrew Dellinger got bad news of his mother’s worsening health each week. He acted out his sadness and reluctance to face his mother’s homecoming. Kwesi Adarkwa got bad news of his directionless future after December 2011. He acted out a directionless freshman (He is actually a college graduate). Heather Dellinger has bad news of a constantly uncertain and menial job status. She acted out her peace in Jesus even through her uncertainty and shared with us the good news of great joy--Jesus who is Lord over death and our future lives. In Act Two, as in real life when we personally accepted that Jesus our Lord and Savior is our good news of great joy, Andrew shared how he had peace about his mother’s future homecoming and joy to be with her forever in God’s kingdom, Joseph shared his peace in writing his proposal and in waiting on his advisor to read it, Kwesi acted out peace and direction from God to choose a major (He actually received direction from God to get a Ph.D.and will move in with us from the new year while he applies to schools), and Heather shared her peace through faith in God’s provision.

Students proclaimed this testimony play moved their hearts. We thank God for working in this way in our lives and for using our testimony play to testify to the good news of great joy found in Jesus. We also thank God for using the message to move unbelievers’ hearts. We were so joyful and thankful for the attendance of Misn. Mark Jr and Rebekah Yang’s family from the College of Charleston UBF, especially for Misn. Rebekah’s prayer and special music and for Misn. Mark Jr.’s Luke 2 testimony. Through God, who brought NCSU students, Chinese Bible students, unbelieving friends, and people from four nations to our Christmas celebration, we could truly see that Jesus is indeed good news of great joy for all the people.

We took an offering for famine relief in Sudan.

Andrew Dellinger