Ariel Kim is a 2014 CrossConnect Alumni, who came to GLO Australia after her sophomore year at university where she studied education. She had decided to major in English, so she wanted to improve her English skills. It was at this time her father, an Elder at her church, received a letter from GLO with information on their courses. Ariel sent in an application and during a conversation with John Aldridge it was decided she would come to CrossConnect.

Could you tell us about your time in CrossConnect in 2014?

It was an unforgettable experience. It was my first time going abroad away from my family, and I spent about a year learning about God while being with people who believe in Him, 24 hours a day. The wonderful memories and important life lessons I gained from the friends, lecturers, and fellow believers I met at GLO have and will surely continue to enrich my faith journey in the future.

Do you remember any evangelism training in CrossConnect?

I remember the mission trip to PNG. The conditions were challenging, but we prepared plays, songs, and the “Who is the King” book to share the gospel. As we walked through the mud, I truly learned the value of the sweat poured into sharing the gospel with those who had never heard it. It was a precious time as believers from various nationalities, Korea, Australia, Myanmar, China, and PNG, came together to pray and work together to spread the gospel.

Amelia, who is a current CrossConnect student, was someone you met in university. How did that friendship start?

We had the same major and shared a room at university, and we developed a very close relationship.

Did you see that relationship as an opportunity to evangelise?

When I met her, I was a freshman, and I always had this desire to preach the gospel. I had other friends at university, but when I saw Amelia, she was so colourful, fashionable, and she loved people, so I felt she would be the last one on my list to believe in Jesus. I prayed for her, but I couldn’t imagine the opportunity to share the gospel with her arising. She saw me reading the Bible and although I was not shy about telling her I went to church, I just didn’t know how to reach her. But in the end, she was the one who started asking me questions about Jesus and she was actually the first one who became a believer among my friends.

What happened when she started asking questions?

She just came to me and said, “Why don’t you ask me to go to church with you?” I told her that if she is interested, she can always come and she told me right then she wanted to go.

I wasn’t brave enough to ask her to go to church with me. I feel like because I didn’t say anything to her God then opened her mouth and said, “If you won’t say anything, then I’ll let her say something and I will work things out.” It seemed like a rebuke in a way, however, through this, God showed me that He is not someone who can only work if I do my part; rather, He is capable of accomplishing His purposes in any way He chooses.

I think God likes to surprise us sometimes. It’s not the people we expect. Were you worried about having the right words to say?

Of course! After she mentioned wanting to come to church with me, we would be lying in our beds with the lights off and she would ask a bunch of questions about spiritual things and Jesus and God and there were some questions I couldn’t answer. There were many times I told her I would have to ask my dad and then get back to her.

Right after going to Church, she started reading the Bible and she had a lot of questions. Because I was born and raised in a Christian family, I read the Bible all the time, but I didn’t think enough about it, I just accepted it. But every sentence she read was so meaningful to her that she wanted to find out what it all meant.

I then invited her to a gospel conference, where an evangelist was invited to speak. It was a three-day conference, so she travelled to my town, and stayed at my house. Here she was able to have a one-on-one chat with the wife of the evangelist and then she got saved right away.

Were you the one who talked to Amelia about GLO?

When we were in university, she saw me taking a year off and going to Australia to study the Bible at GLO. After she became a believer, she always had this heart to learn the Bible correctly, from beginning to end. She also wanted to go to GLO to study. After marrying Lucas, the Lord opened the door for her to study at GLO.

How did you come to know Jesus?

I grew up in a Christian family and I didn’t have any trouble believing in God because I knew for certain that it didn’t make sense if God was not there. But I couldn’t really distinguish between the knowledge and believing …  it felt like my life hadn’t changed when I said I was saved. I had many troubles in my heart.

I think I had this problem that I felt like if I do something good then God loves me and if I don’t obey him, like I don’t read the Bible regularly, then God hates me, like He’s disappointed.

But one day I read Romans 5:8 and God told me that He didn’t love me because I am right but because He chose me.

What ministries are you involved in?

I am involved in youth group and prayer meeting for kids, I play the piano, and I am a member of our evangelism team.

What is involved in the
evangelism team?

It is a new thing that started this year. We try to reach out to new people and family members of the church who don’t believe in God. We visit them and invite them for dinner. There is also a mission soccer team. There are some kids who have parents but are staying in a separate facility, so we visit them and give gifts to make connections.

Do you have any advice for those thinking about evangelising to their friends?

I recently took Andrew Cowell’s CrossConnect subject because Amelia invited me join via Zoom. He introduced me to the coffee method, where you start with coffee, then dinner, and then the gospel.

I now have a co-worker from South Africa, and she said she used to go to church when she was a kid but doesn’t go to church now. She started working with me in June and I thought I should do something with her. I didn’t start with coffee because I hadn’t done the subject with Andrew yet, so I started with dinner and invited her to my place. I introduced her to my family and invited her to come to church on Sunday and she said yes. She has now been coming to church every Sunday for four months.

Now, I feel like she needs more questions to be answered so I invited an American who lives in South Korea to come and chat with her so she can hear about the full gospel.

So, I can say coffee, dinner, gospel is a good way to reach people. And I also use Bridge to Life, this is what Amelia learned in Indonesia from Yuta, she sent me the file to practise with, and I tried it out at the youth group camp.

Any last comments?

I don’t know if it’s God’s intention, but I think God works when you feel there is no possibility and I think that’s because God wants to show that this is not your work, it is His work.

I have so many experiences where I tried to do every part and then I failed. And one thing that I learned is that there are many steps. You probably won’t save someone with a single talk, but by walking with them one step at a time, you will show them who Christ is and He will do the work. So, if I can do one part, make them one step closer to God then I haven’t failed.