Dreaming Big With God - Bonny Andrews

00:01 - Speaker 1
I'm just telling you, when God gives you a vision, he also gives you relationships with people. And you're always looking for the superstar, you're looking for Bill Gates, but God has put the right people around you to share it. So all I did was I just kept sharing the vision with people. Vision casting, praying. My first strategy was going to a city and praying. When I pray, the Lord starts opening up and I look for the man of peace. Who's the man of peace? Who's the person that I know? I'm Bonny Andrews and lead a campus outreach movement called Campus Harvest, reaching college students with the gospel, and this is my Faithly Stories.

00:36 - Speaker 2
Welcome to Faithly Stories, the podcast that brings you inspiring tales from conversations with church leaders as they navigate the peaks and valleys of their faith journeys through their ministry work and everyday life. Join us as we delve into their challenges, moments of encouragement and answered prayers. The Faithly Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders, pastors, staff and volunteers. Learn more at faithlyco. Get ready to be uplifted and inspired as we unveil the heart of faith through stories from the front lines of ministry. On the Faithly Stories podcast.

01:19 - Speaker 3
My co-founder sent me an article so I just kind of breezed through it and there was a title called the Chief Dreamer and I just wanted to dig into that a little bit. What does it mean to be a chief dreamer and how did you get that title?

01:29 - Speaker 1
Well, if you don't dream, you will not see it. So I, as a young man born and raised up in India, grew up in a home where there was not a lot going on. I mean, dad was an alcoholic and my was suspected of cancer. But when I saw God touch my mom and heal her out of cancer and had an encounter I had a personal encounter with Jesus changed my life upside down Suddenly, a life that didn't have any purpose is now filled with fervor, passion, burden, and I wanted to see young people like me get saved, not only in my little town in India. God just gave me a global vision and that led me to this dream to see every student in every nation gospelized and mobilized.

02:16
And I tell you, if God is not in it, it cannot be accomplished. So somebody said dream as big as possible. I dream dreams that know, dream dreams that are God-sized, that only God can accomplish, and that led me to this title Chief Dreamer. It's kind of fancy, but it just inspires people. That here's my story, to say that if God can do it through Bonny, god can do it through me.

02:38 - Speaker 3
Yeah, so let's get into a little bit of your faith story. How did you come to faith in Christ?

02:43 - Speaker 1
Oh, yeah, I mean, I was born and raised up in India. You know, I call it the United States of India. You know this is curry land, as I often call it. We have 22 official languages. Every state has got a different curry. Every state has got a different language. So it's an amazing place to live and be raised up.

03:05
But I grew up in a business home and, uh, you know, and my dad, uh, was an alcoholic and, uh, you know, I grew up in the perils of that and then my mom at one point was suspected of cancer. So we are now faced with this reality of you know what's going to happen tomorrow. And that's the moment when we had, uh, you know, some of our business friends come and pray for my mom. The next time she went for a checkup. They couldn't find any trace of what they thought was cancer. God healed my mom and maybe people are listening to me on this podcast thinking that healing and divine stuff and supernatural things. Man, I just get blown away Every time I read the New Testament Matthew, mark, luke, john. All that Jesus did was he preached the gospel and people got healed and delivered. So God healed my mom and that was a big jolt for our whole family. So I get to this revival meeting not expecting anything and I get there.

04:01
I had an encounter with the Holy Spirit, if I want to say practically I had like electric power going through my body. I didn't know anything about this. I'm not a church guy. Nobody had to tell me it was Jesus. I just knew it was Jesus.

04:11
I gave my life to Christ and then my life took a whole different turn. You know seeing my life get changed. My dad said my wife could be faking it, but my mom, my son, wouldn't fake it. He gives his life to the Lord. My brother gives his life to the Lord. The whole family comes to know Christ. And then we now go from home to home in all of our business communities. You know those kids, those people don't need Jesus because they need food, shelter or clothing. They're doing well in life. But when they saw the change in our family they started giving their lives to Christ.

04:41
And I wanted to be in business, daniel. And I wanted to be in business, daniel and I wanted to be in business. I wanted to be writing checks, just like my parents, for the expansion of the gospel. But God spoke to me one day and he said I want you to be in the business of saving people. So I got into full-time ministry. Just about to get into my master's in business, I just stopped right there and committed my life to serving God full-time.

05:08
It's been a little over 20 years serving God in that capacity and finally I ended up starting this ministry called Live Jam, out of India. The whole idea was that by 2050, 70% of the world is going to move into cities. 2050, 70% of the world is going to move into cities, so as much as India. People think we are all villages and rural, but the expansion of cities is unbelievable and I live in a city. I'm a city boy, urban, upper middle class kid and I wanted to see kids that look like me, talk like me, to be experiencing the gospel of Jesus Christ. So I ended up starting this ministry called Live Jam in 2005. The last 18 years, we've reached over 4 million students in 186 cities around the world and still growing and expanding, and so that is the most exciting thing. And now we are in New York City.

06:03 - Speaker 3
How long were you ministering in India?

06:06 - Speaker 1
India till 2019. And that ministry is still going. I mean, we have a great team out there and I'm overseeing a little bit of that, but nothing. We've got a great team and they're expanding out there, reaching high schools students and middle school and high school students with the gospel in all of the major cities and out of India. You know, the dream kind of grew out of India. We felt like we are part of the generation that's going to take the gospel from India to the rest of the world. So the Middle East started opening up, southeast Asia started opening up, hong Kong, singapore, malaysia you know all of the Middle East Dubai, qatar, doha and and some of these, kuwait. All these high schools started opening up, then to Brazil, colombia and finally in New York City. And the story to New York has been truly fascinating. God grabbed a hold of us and, you know, allured us and told us the story of moving to New York as a family Before we get to New York.

07:05 - Speaker 3
I had a friend like he's Indian and he did ministry in India and he mentioned how, like, spiritual warfare is really real there. Oh yeah, right, Could you share your experience about that?

07:15 - Speaker 1
Yeah, absolutely so. Let me give you a background to paint a picture of what India looks like. India is a very spiritual country. It's a very spiritual country. So we say there are 33 million gods in India, 33 million gods and they don't have. I mean, you're talking about a temple in every corner, like how we have. We drive through Nashville or something. It's like a South City. You see churches in every corner. That's the same case in India. We've got temples in every corner and, of course, they have spirituality at the highest.

07:53
And when we compare that to the scripture, this is something I tell young people wherever I go. Telling my story is that you know, every religion in this world is all about man somehow trying to reach God, and I saw that very clearly in India. You know people are climbing up a mountain barefoot, fasting for days, dipping themselves in a river somehow, thinking that by doing that, you know their sins would be forgiven. So, and then you talk about going in different, different places, rolling on the floor. I mean doing all kinds of things, hoping that their sins would be forgiven. So every framework, every religious uh, fundamental, uh framework, is all about man trying to reach god. When I start reading the bible. Uh, it is probably the most amazing story of god coming down to man. Uh, and you know that is. That is the beauty of god so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, and that's our story for India.

08:48
So spiritual warfare is real. Ephesians 6 says we don't fight against flesh and blood. When I say these things out in America, people don't quite get it. I mean, if you want to be seeing what's happening when you start, if you say that you don't believe in spiritual warfare, you don't believe in manifestation, and you start preaching the gospel in these villages, people's demons start coming out and you know people's, you know spiritual warfare is absolutely real. So we talk about the fact that you have to do airstrikes before you send troops. So here's a picture Before a country like India or America attacks another country, you first do airstrikes, right, you send the planes out there, you bomb the places, you deactivate and then you send the troops in. And the church has been just doing the opposite. The church has been sending people without doing airstrikes and the casualty has been crazy.

09:44
So if you want to see spiritual activity, spiritual warfare, in the highest, you're talking about every demon, every principality, force of darkness always manifesting. And the only way that we could go and advance the gospel is really by praying, and that's been one of my guiding principles in my life has been that before you do airstrikes, you cannot take things on the ground. So every city that is opened up, every door that is opened up, has been because of prayer, and we call it prayer power. I have a great devotional on you worship, a five-day devotional called Prayer Power that you guys can actually have a look at it to understand what that looks like, to understand the spiritual activity. So.

10:27
But you know, the scripture says the name of jesus is above every name. There there are other names and at the name of jesus every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. And that's what we're seeing in india. Uh, especially with the name of jesus and god being. And let me say, people in india don't have a problem with looking at Jesus as one among their gods. They have many gods. They don't have a problem. Oh, we love Jesus. But when we tell them that Jesus is the one and true living God and that's not us telling it, that's what the Bible tells us that is sort of the piece of where they have to make a big decision and to follow Christ. What were your family's beliefs before they have to make a big decision and to follow Christ?

11:05 - Speaker 3
What were your family's beliefs before they came to Christ?

11:08 - Speaker 1
Yeah, they were nominal Christians. They were nominal Christians before. I mean probably two generations backwards. They probably would be Hindus, but we were normal Christians. In fact, my grandfather hosted Billy Graham when he came to town and drove him around. So I mean we have some braggadocious rights. But let me tell you something none of those traditions will I keep telling people. God doesn't have grandchildren, he has only children. So the aspect of us being nominal, occasionally going to church, to having a personal relationship with Jesus, just you know, changed everything for us.

11:42 - Speaker 3
So how did your relationship with your dad change?

11:46 - Speaker 1
No, what happened was that there was a transformation. I mean, let me just be clear here he was a great father, right, but on top of that, what really happened is that his journey with Christ changed the whole landscape of you know of everything that happened home I mean, family prayer became the center of our home. Reading the scripture becomes. So that is what Christ does. And maybe people are listening to me thinking what's going to happen to my dad, what's going to happen to my mom?

12:15
And I'm doing what I'm doing in the ministry because of my mother's prayers and I'm doing, I'm seeing, the kind of things that happen in my home because Jesus came into my home. So I believe in the promise in Joshua 1. It says me and my family, we will serve the Lord. So for people praying and still believing for their parents to change or something's happening with your kids, I want to say don't stop praying. The Bible says God has heard every prayer. He has collected every tear in a bottle so he remembers those prayers and those prayers are going to be answered in Jesus name.

12:50 - Speaker 3
Amen. I believe that because I wouldn't be who I am without my mom's prayers. You know Amen, and I remember, like growing up, her praying, like her eyes, out in a closed room in the dark, and for me, like I didn't understand it, but looking back I'm like man. Those are precious prayers. So so from from being saved, how did? What was the path to getting to? Uh, what was it? Live jam live jam yeah like, like, how did that happen?

13:15 - Speaker 1
yeah. So, uh, I started off when I, when I was given my life to Christ and when I was getting my, you know, making a decision to follow, you know, serve God on a full-time capacity, I was asking the Lord God, what do you? I mean, what do I have? What can I do? What am I going to do? He asked me the same. He told me, whispered, the same simple thing you have a story and you have a song, so I'm going to sing a song right on the side. So I had music in my blood and what God was telling me was let's start with music. Music is the only commodity that was imported from heaven to earth right, so it was God's design. And every time we talk about world peace, it's like an element that brings people together. So I just used a simple tool of music music.

14:05
Young people love music. So let's do music concerts we had these rock concerts, christian rock concerts and get young people to come. Kids that would never walk into a church would start coming to these concerts. They're like man, they can correlate church and rock music or a band together. So hundreds of kids started coming to these concerts and then we would pause and share the gospel and we wouldn't preach at them, we would tell stories. One thing I know about learning to work with young people is that young people love stories and stories stick right. I probably remember your dad's story in this podcast more than anything else that we talked about so far. Story sticks. So I began to share my story and it wasn't about me. We built a platform. It was not built around me. It was a platform that many people could showcase their talents and also use their stories to share with people.

14:58
So I started off with concerts and we got on radio. The Lord of Supernatural opened up radio on the largest radio station in the country, national Radio. We started doing an English show and then, from there, music festivals. You know, around Christmas. So if you know a little bit about our country, is the fact that you know Christmas is probably Christmas and Easter are the two times of the year that the gospel is open in the mainstream television channel Right? So we use Christmas time to do a massive festival that would be televised. We would sell the rights to mainstream channels where the gospel be preached in music. So it'd be like some of the best music artists around the country would be brought on a platform on a music festival and then we would broadcast it during Christmas, with, you know, sharing the love of Christ through music. And this festival kind of grew to different parts of the country, feeling some of the biggest stadiums.

15:54
And you know, we've seen so many miracles happening, because it doesn't look like a typical crusade or an outreach, but it is like a festival. People come, people are Christmassy during the time of December, people coming in hearing the gospel, hearing the music, and so that became a sensation. And then at some point we found that 80% of the kids that are coming to these big arena events are already Christians. They just wanted to be part of it. I mean the whole millennial thing. They want to be part of a brand, they want to be part of a movement. So they were coming in because this movement was kind of resonating with them. But we found out that 80%. So we were like, wait a minute. We spent thousands of dollars to create a big festival. Of course, I mean the television audience and the online audience was humongous, but we found out that, man, this has to change.

16:43
So we got inspired by God to do a 30-day prayer tour across the country. So I actually bought, you know, tickets for young people, young leaders who came to church. They probably came to church for free. You know free lunches and you know they wanted to probably check the girls out or something. I said guys, listen, I'm going to pay for your tickets. We're going to go around the country.

17:02
Some of them never fasted in prayer Today. In fact, one of those guys he was the PR to the Speaker of the Parliament in Canada. He's actually visiting me today in New York. So, packed up, all these guys went across the country 30 days talking about spiritual warfare, divided the city into four halves, praying over the city, saying that, god, we want the young people of the city to be touched. And we went to the schools, we went to colleges, we went to the IT parks, whether the media hubs, the television channels, and then we would break up fast every day at a shopping mall 30 days. Daniel, guess what happened? After 30 days, all of these seven cities opened up saying we want you to come and, you know, to reach out to our young people. So we found out, rather than getting people to where we are, we got to go to where they are.

17:55
So, that just flipped. The whole. High schools and middle schools started opening up all across the country in India. So the idea was you have a band, you have a storyteller and you take over an assembly. Kids are excited because they're bunking class, they're wide open and the audience is very you know, if I may say it right, like you know, india is officially 4% Christian. So you're talking about. You walk into a school, you have a captured audience of a thousand students. So we were at one point. We were at one point. We were touching over 30 plus cities, reaching 100 plus thousand students every year, with over 25 bands and artists touring with us, zigzagging across the country.

18:39 - Speaker 3
So thousands of kids hearing the gospel going to where they are, and that was a mass movement and then that just took over to other parts of the world. Who are some people that like helped you get there? Was this you just doing it by yourself?

18:48 - Speaker 1
or like you found a team. Oh yeah, I mean, I'm just telling you, when God gives you a vision, he also gives you relationships with people. And you're always looking for the superstar, You're looking for Bill Gates, but God has put the right people around you to share it. So all I did was I just kept sharing the vision with people. Vision casting, praying. My first strategy was going to a city and pray. When I prayed, the Lord starts opening up and I look for the man of peace. Who's the man of peace? Who's the person that I know, the first person that I know?

19:16
I remember going to the city in Kathmandu in Nepal to pray, just to pray with some guys. We got there, started praying and after our prayer drives across the city, we get this message this is the first year that Christmas is going to be declared as an official holiday. It moved from a Hindu kingdom to becoming a secular nation and we have the opportunity to do the first official Christmas concert in the history of the country. So we stumbled upon these opportunities because we prayed, and I keep telling people one of my slogans is you walk into what you pray into, right, so we walk in. And then the next thing. You know, I was at a doctor's office yesterday. I found a guy from Nepal. I'm like do you know, tonical Grounds? 25,000 people live on national television.

20:06
That year the gospel went forth and of course American Christian media made a big story about that because it was historic. So, always sharing it with people around you, the relationships that God has ordained in and around you, are so amazing that you get to share the story and then people start coming in and I think I have a great story principle that I learned from the life of Jesus and also inspired by John Maxwell. Jesus never had volunteers, he had recruits. So there are people out there around you. They have probably no idea what to do, but as a leader, we've got to make the ask. Asking is the way of the kingdom. So somebody asked me to be on the podcast today. Daniel, you asked me. That's why I'm here on the podcast and because of this relationship, this podcast is now going out on the web and it's going to touch people. So your private testings will become public testimonies that will inspire a generation.

21:05 - Speaker 3
So, with that, what were some of your private testings that you would?

21:07 - Speaker 1
want to share Private testings, always like. Let me just tell you one recent story that happened in America so I have to talk about. Am I ready to launch into my New York story, daniel? Okay, so here we are, comfortable sitting in India. The ministry is growing Fancy office. Somebody is checking on you. Hey man, Bonny, you got something to drink. What do you want for lunch? I mean the whole. You know you feel like man. You're living in the fulfillment of some of the things that you've been praying and dreaming about. But I've always said and preached that comfort zone is dead zone, right, comfort zone is dead zone. So I'm feeling comfortable. I just knew that I felt inspired by the Lord in that time of prayer.

21:52
Zip code number one. And I got to say this because zip code number one is the most influential zip code in any British colony around the world. So India used to be a British colony. If you go to London, it is zone number one. Zone number one has got everything Westminster Abbey, you got everything that controls the UK in that zip code, just like in India. So I'm like Lord, we are in zip code number one because we're so fascinated by number one that our building number was number one. We were in zip code number one. I could walk up to the parliament, we were the most influential zip code in India. But I felt the Lord said not zip code number one India, but zip code number one America. Whoa, quickly Googled it to find out that 10001 is Midtown, new York. So here we are, the Lord's kind of pointing us directions. And my mentor, dr Ricebrook, says follow the clues. God always put some clues around. Got to follow the clues. So I follow the clues. And finally we felt the Lord is speaking to us and one of my good mentors, mac Peer from Movement Dotto the founder, and I remember him telling me the story about New York, how New York is a modern day Rome, one of the most influential cities around the world, by Tim Keller, and it is like if you touch New York, you touch the world, you touch the nations. So we felt as a family that we were now going to be moving from India to take this ministry to New York City and take it to 500 cities around the world. Okay, so it was a dream. So coming in make a big step of faith. You can imagine we had to raise money Moving in from city to dream. So coming in make a big step of faith. You can imagine we had to raise money moving in from city to 10 times more expensive. That's a huge step of faith. All right, just come in here, get ready, land into New York City. Now we're in Manhattan, roosevelt Island, get ready, roll.

23:34
And two months later the pandemic broke loose in our city. And let me just paint the context. My wife is pregnant. We haven't figured out our insurance. We came with very limited money. We're just about to finish off our money and I have no clue what I'm supposed to be doing because I can't meet nobody.

23:55
This is the time when Times Square was running empty 800 people dying every single day in New York City. It was the craziest season ever in the history of New York and I'm like thinking I've made the craziest decision of my life to move my family half around the world. What are we going to do? I can't go back. Airports are shut. What am I going to do? We don't have money. The rent man's going to come to collect the rent. We don't have money.

24:17
So what I did was Daniel. I got on the ferry every single day and Roosevelt died, going all the way to Wall Street, nobody on the ferry, you know masks and all that stuff. Stand on the balcony and pray in Jeremiah, chapter 29 and verse 6. Seek the peace of the city. When the city is blessed, you will be blessed. So while praying that Lord, open a way, do something. I don't know what's going to happen. This is a real testing time. I have no idea what's going to happen.

24:45
I felt the Lord give me an idea to put the songs, bring the church in New York together and produce a song. So, daniel, in India every artist is working with us. So they're all speed dial away like call them, they're on board. But here in New York I had nobody that I knew that I could put this thing together. I waited for two weeks, thinking maybe somebody smarter, somebody better can do that. You know that was the time the blessing song was coming out and the Pittsburgh blessing had come out and the UK blessing one of my good friends, tim Hughes, was doing it. Tim Hughes and Nicky Gumbel are the most influential leaders in the UK. If they call, everybody jumps. So I'm like man. I'm no Tim Hughes, I'm no Nicky Gumbel. So two weeks later, daniel, I felt God telling me this is the time, you're the one to do it. So I stepped out in faith Again, the relationship that I had shared with people like Adam, some of these people around, the brothers that God has put around me. The next thing I know, daniel, is, within the first week we're the most influential churches in New York City come on board. Finally, we had 100 churches and over 125 voices coming together.

25:53
Now, the crazy part out of this is that I had to pay up front all the costs for the production and we had hardly any money left in the account. That's probably the last amount of money that we had. But somebody told me, if what you have in your hand is not going to meet the need, it becomes a seed. So my wife and I decided, prayed and said we don't have enough money anyways for next month. Let's sow what we have in our hand into this vision of bringing the churches together and telling the story to the world. And we sowed into this project.

26:24
The next thing we know is, daniel, this song became a song of healing and hope. It went over a half a million views. Every Christian channel, every Christian media portal in America wrote stories about it and you know, even now I would meet somebody that said oh, you're the one who produced a song. It is still opening doors, it's still connecting people, still healing people, and it was the song of New York became the song of New York. So that became a private testing, that became a public testimony that touched people.

26:55
Franklin Graham, I mean, if God had to do a PR story for me, I'd have to spend. I mean, for this ministry to get launched, I'd have to spend thousands of dollars. God did the greatest PR campaign for our ministry, just number one, affirming that you're in the plan of God, you're in New York City based on God's plan. And also this became a healing to literally the nations of the world. I was in Bahamas two weeks ago. People in Bahamas were watching the New York blessing because it was New York. People in India were watching the New York blessing that they started the India blessing and they asked me to be part of it.

27:30
I mean, so it's like it went viral, private testings into public testimonies, touching people, thousands and thousands of people around the world. And maybe you're going through somebody listening to this podcast is going through a private testing that you know and your wife knows and probably a few people around them know. I'm telling you hold in there. The Bible says even though you walk through the valley of shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Your rod and your staff will comfort me, and surely goodness and mercy shall follow you all the days of your life. And I'm telling you your story. Your private testing is getting ready to become a public testimony.

28:05 - Speaker 3
Get ready, man you have such a full life, so what's going on now?

28:12 - Speaker 1
So now what's happening is that now we're talking, I'm in New York City. It is the most influential city in the world. In New York City, it is the most influential city in the world Over a million students just in New York City and this is probably the most influential corridor in America. You know you're talking about the Ivy League schools. You know we're talking about. You know Harvard, yale, princeton Brown, all of that in this area. And once we got here, daniel the Lord began to give us a burden, a burden for the students in college campuses. I have a mentor of mine, dr Rice Brooks. He wrote a book called Change the Campus, change the World. It is so fascinating that the students and so we felt this is another story that I was reading. I mean I was reading, you know Tim Keller, right? I mean we, you know, during the pandemic, became friends and he was going through his journey and every time he used to leave for his cancer treatment, he used to leave his office with me. And I tell people about God's favor. I mean, coming from a little town in India, I'm sitting on Tim Keller's office and I'm thinking, how in the world did I get here? And I get reminded about the story of the turtle on the fence. If you've seen a turtle on the fence, you know that the turtle never climbed up the fence. Somebody had to put the turtle on the fence. You know that's my story on a daily basis. So here I'm praying one day, reading the scripture. And the scripture says in Genesis God spoke to Abraham walk the length and breadth of this land and I will give it to you. Boom, it just was a reminder. So we felt as a family that we need to go across the length and breadth of this land and pray. So my wife and I, with our kids the youngest one was 22 months we got in a minivan, started driving from New York all the way to Los Angeles, seattle, to Miami, back to New York. 9,000 miles of just praying every single day, meeting every city, meeting one man of peace, praying for the city, praying for young people to be safe, praying for the arenas to be open, praying for college students to come to know Jesus. The arena has to be open. Pray for college students to come to know Jesus. 30 days later, we come back with a fresh vision, that a vision in America is to reach the college students with the gospel. So here we are in this assignment and now we are seeing open doors in all of these cities. We were in UC Berkeley going to these college campuses. Now we are taking this event called God's Not Dead, which a book that was written by Dr Ricebrooks one of my good mentors and friends and then became a movie. Over 300 million people watched it.

30:49
Like 70%, daniel, 70% of the kids that come from a Christian home would walk into a campus and will lose their faith. I heard about the story about this young girl. She was on fire for Jesus. She's a youth leader and now she's getting ready to college and she talks to her dad Dad, I want to go to UNC Chapel Hill. Dad's like no, why don't you go to Liberty or why don't you go to Oral Roberts or some Christian university? Now she said I want to go to UNC Chapel Hill and I want to turn this campus upside down for Jesus. All right, she goes to UNC Chapel Hill and I want to turn this campus upside down for Jesus. All right, she goes to UNC Chapel Hill, joins school. Six weeks later she calls up her dad and says I don't believe in God anymore.

31:28
This is what is happening in our nation and all of the campus ministries put together in the last 60 to 80 years, starting for InterVarsity. All of these people, great ministries, great friends of ours we are at. If you go to any I was at. My first stop on the prayer drive was to Penn State 40,000 students, daniel, 40,000 students, and less than 1% of the total student body is coming to any sort of campus ministry. So if I talk to major leaders, they'll say one to three percent of the college students in America are engaged with the gospel. So our story is that we have taken over this vision called Campus Harvest started in the 1990s, reached thousands of students and the vision is to mobilize the church, to gospelize the campus. We want to see every student in every campus gospelized by mobilizing the church. So here we are, taking the gospel, taking young people from these churches.

32:28
We're going on a mission to these college campuses, these God's Not Dead events, which is faith and science, because people think that faith. Students think that faith is blind. Faith is not blind. Faith is backed up by evidence. So we bring the scientists from MIT and we bring the scholars and we talk to them that faith is not blind. We lead them all the way to the gospel that Jesus rose from the dead. It is not a fable, it's backed up by evidence. If Jesus is alive, our faith is alive and we give them an opportunity to share Jesus. And 13% on an average basis, students come to know Christ at our events. I mean 3% to 4% was a landslide for Billy Graham when he was doing the crusades, so we're seeing a massive.

33:07
We're also doing mental health-based events music, mental health and Jesus. So we have a music artist, grammy-nominated artist, hip-hop Go to a college campus, we're going to Stanford, we're going to be in UC Berkeley now and then we take a faith leader and we take a mental health expert. We have a neuroscientist, dr Nii Addy, who's the first African-American to have a lab in his name at Yale. He's a man of faith and we bring these people together, use music and stories and mental health to share the gospel. So this is an exciting season If you look at it.

33:42
College campuses are. You know, the protests and things that we're seeing on the college campus is mostly pointed to what happened in the 60s major protests and riots on the college campus that led to the Jesus movement. So we're on the cusp of a major move of God on the college campus and I'm saying as a curry eating man from India, lord, we are ready to do whatever you want us to do to take the gospel and serve these students, not only to gospelize them but to mobilize them. They are the winnable, the most winnable, trainable, the most winnable, you know, trainable, sendable population in the world. So a mission is called Campus Harvest, campus Harvest it's been going on for over 25 years and here we are, an opportunity to take leadership of that vision now, to make it part of our ministry, to launch this again, all over again, to reach the college campuses.

34:36
Conferences, to energize these students, you know, intensive trainings. We're going on mission trips. We're probably going on our first mission trip to Bahamas. We have open doors in Bahamas, taking students out there. So all of these exciting things. I talked a lot, but all that to say, I'm very, very passionate. If you change a campus, a college student, you change the world.

34:59 - Speaker 3
How do students get involved?

35:02 - Speaker 1
Oh yeah, so you can follow us on our socials or go to our website. Campusharvestorg or our socials is going to be campusharvest and you can find out all about it. So you can come with us on prayer walks, you can be trained, you can work with campus ministries. If you're a church, this is the big thing. With all of these campus ministries working, we're still at 3%. So we believe the whole church needs to be mobilized.

35:30
Like I'm talking to friends out here around Hofstra University Guys, you're living close to Hofstra. Let's take Hofstra. What does that start like? Let's start talking about prayer. Maybe a campus crusade or two other groups are there. We need more groups on campus. Can the church launch a group on the campus? We'll tell you how to do it. We'll tell you, train you how to get a student status. We'll train you how to raise finances Whatever you need to get yourself on the college campus. We have the tools and we have the best people around the world partnering with us to be part of this great move Campus Harvest change the campus, change the world. Thank you for that.

36:07 - Speaker 3
That sounds so exciting. Yes, sir, yeah, I remember my college years and they were very influential to even just sustaining my faith, because there's a lot of distractions in college.

36:17 - Speaker 1
Absolutely, absolutely, and your faith gets strengthened. Either you lose your faith or your faith gets strengthened. They say if your faith gets strengthened then you will become a very strong Christian for the rest of your life. So I think we can do more. When I came to America I thought I mean, this is a Christian country, guys. I mean we got sent all these books and resources and stuff and the worship music and all that stuff. We were like, oh my God, this is like the Mecca. And then we come here. We're in bad shape. We are in bad shape and I think God is moving.

36:53
I mean the last one year, from the Asbury revival to two weeks ago, I was at University of Tennessee in Knoxville with a group called Unite Just started our prayer Kids getting saved, massive arena gatherings, kids getting saved, 200 kids getting saved, 100 students getting baptized right outside the arena in horse troughs. I mean light baptism. We're out there giving away New Testaments. The arena in horse troughs I mean light baptism. We're out there giving away New Testaments and serving in any possible way. So we're a ministry of ministries. We are working with everybody at the campus ministry, the churches, active ministry to somehow some way reach the college students, my prayer, like John you know, is that Lord Give us a campus. How did you meet?

37:34 - Speaker 3
your wife, my friend, yeah, your whole life, like so much is happening, but then, like you have a family, how was she involved?

37:42 - Speaker 1
Absolutely. Let me just tell you something you, as a man of God or as a leader, you're always dreaming about something. You want to start something. You're dreaming something, you're making a logo, we're always buying some new domain names, you know, I mean, you have more domain names that you pay for, that you can actually, you know, execute.

37:58
But imagine you heard a vision from God and you come in down the prayer room and come back home or come down into your bedroom and living room and tell your wife guess what, honey, I found? This is what God spoke to me. Imagine she would say nah, that's not from God. Mission aborted, mission is gone, it's finished, it's finito, you're done. You cannot do ministry without your wife being on.

38:23
And I'm telling you, daniel, my wife has become the greatest blessing, the greatest blessing. She's probably more trained, she's got a master's in, you know, double bachelor's, and a master's in social work, you know. But she's a servant leader and she has been my partner, my go-to person. So I met her. You want to go the whole story, daniel? All right, this is Joe Rogan style. Okay, so here I am in the city of New Delhi, which is the capital city of India, a very small little town of 22 million people. So you can imagine, daniel. I mean, the only city that resonates with me is New York City. When I drive in New York City, daniel, I feel like I'm driving in India, like we drive on all sides we drive.

39:17 - Speaker 3
I've seen it on YouTube. It's crazy. There's like no light and it's orderly.

39:20 - Speaker 1
It's crazy. It is like a river, it's like wherever there's space, it's just like water. We just go. But let me tell you, it's a controlled chaos. Nobody's getting killed. The drivers are probably more alert, uh, than anybody else. I mean people. I feel in driving in america you're like you're on cruise, cruise control. I'm thank god for automation and automated driving. I mean automation driving has to go like hundred to thousand times. You know, it has to be mastered, as we checked like hundred times in india, because you don't know what's going to happen. Somebody is going to come, some bike guy is going to come. So you're fully, you're 360 degrees alert.

39:55
So here I am in New Delhi, the capital city, and we're wanting to do this massive arena event to share the gospel around Christmas. And I walk into this church it's my hosting church there. I walk in and suddenly this girl walks up hey, Bonny, you're here. I'm like okay, I remember seeing her. She said you know, I brought my friend to Hindu friend to one of your events and she got saved and I'm so glad that you're here. And I'm like all right, great, fantastic. And when I was leaving that place, she came and gave me an envelope and she said please give this to my pastor, my local church pastor, when you arrive in your city. I said definitely I will do that. So when I landed, I went to this friend of mine's house and I gave his envelope and I had to go quickly. In the night, daniel, this pastor friend of mine, calls me up and says Bonny, that envelope came in in the right time, that had money and there was a man of God in my house and I wanted to bless him and I didn't have money and the money came in on time that I could bless this man. Wow, a couple of things went up in the air. Right now, here is a girl that hears God. Number two here's a girl that is generous. So we got two combinations there.

41:04
But now we are focused. It's not like America. You can go out, date and stuff. It's like a very shame-based culture, so you don't want to be the Christian minister. So I'm just not talking about. But we've developed a friendship and a couple of our friends came together and she's literally the opposite. See, I love. I mean you can look at me and say I'm like a loud kind of a guy. I'm like my slogan. Our slogan is live out loud, loud, loud, loud.

41:25
She threw up halfway around this festival. If there was ever a night for anybody to fall in love with me, I'm. I'm in the suit, I'm in the spotlight, there's thousands of people, five television channels going like. She left halfway and started throwing up because of the loud music. So this is a contrast, like you know, uh don't want to be on the platform. Uh, I believe in your vision.

41:47
And then we fell in love and then we prayed about it and uh, daniel, I want to say this has been the greatest blessing, greatest blessing of our life. I mean, finally, finally, I took a long, long long time to say yes, because I had to like hear it from the Lord. I tell young people this is the second most important decision of your life after your decision to follow Christ. You get this right, brother. You're going to be select. One will chase 1,000. Two will chase 10,000. And we have. It has been a journey. I told her join the adventure, because it's going to be adventurous, it's going to be full of faith. You know, we will always be dreaming about things way bigger and way greater than our bank accounts. Bank accounts are sometimes liars. They don't actually tell us the truth. We look at our, but we're always going to be dreaming, because the Bible says without faith it is impossible to please God. So it has been a journey of faith.

42:41
Our marriage was a journey of faith. You know, I remember talking to my mother-in-law. They're missionaries Again. They want to do the wedding and they say you know that we want to be. You know, give us some time. We need a year because in our culture everybody pulls in money, right, so we need some time to prepare. I said now that I knew it was God, I was in a hurry and I was like get married ASAP. And, as a man of faith, I said I'm going to pay for the whole wedding. Daniel, I'm going to pay for the wedding. Don't worry about the wedding. It the wedding, it's on me. I'm going to bring all the money. I had no money in the account, but by the time we got married, we got married in the top five destination wedding spots in our country and every bill was paid and we had extra money to start our home. So we've been married for a little over 14 years.

43:25
Three boys traveled, moved from city to city and here we are in New York, praying together, believing together and the ministry after I got married. It moved from three cities to 186 city footprint and I really believe one will chase thousand, two will chase ten thousand. So we've prayed together, we believe together, we're together, believe in God. For all that, god is speaking and sometimes somebody said the voice of your wife often sounds like the voice of the Holy Spirit. You know she's like the silent prophet that comes in and tells me things and some of the big steps that we have taken. You know it's not been a prophet that came up and said thus, said the Lord. It has been my wife's whispering certain things in my heart, or a WhatsApp text or a text message that changed major directions. So I am in love with my wife, I love my kids and onward, together we are serving the Lord. And you know, true evangelists we want to see young people come to know Jesus.

44:26
Man. You have such a great story, daniel, when you come from our part of the world. Without stories you will never get here. You know it was never easy, it was never smooth. We had to believe God every step of our way. If God wouldn't show up, we wouldn't make it, and I thought things would change when we were in America. It is the same formula here again, daniel. So, even with faithfully, I believe that such a great vision that you guys are part of, but don't look back, don't look back. You know.

45:00
Many times it feels like the scripture says the kernel of wheat will fall to the ground and it'll die. Many times it felt like my vision died, my dream died, my idea died, died, my relationships died, and then boom, resurrection. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is going to resurrect every dream for people watching. Don't stop dreaming, don't stop believing. God can and God will show up on your behalf. The scripture says his eyes are looking to and fro throughout the whole earth, looking for somebody through whom God can put himself faithful.

45:34
So, if you say yes, recently God asked me we were getting in a big, big decision and I was feeling very overwhelmed about this thing that is coming up. I was like I have no idea how in the world I'm going to do this and I heard the voice of God telling me all I'm asking you is a yes. Are you ready to say yes? And I said Lord, I am saying yes. And maybe God is speaking to people on this podcast. Listen to me. God is saying are you ready to say yes? You know the dream and the vision and the journey is going to be looking so scary. But living in New York City and Manhattan, with all of these, I live in a apartment where there's diplomats everywhere at Harvard, harvard and PhDs, and all of that I was feeling overwhelmed. But I remember the quote God never calls the qualified, but he qualifies the cold. Hope I'm not preaching too much, daniel. You said Joe Rogan, here we go.

46:26 - Speaker 3
Amen, brother. I mean truth is truth. Keep preaching it.

46:29 - Speaker 1
A quote.

46:30 - Speaker 3
I recently heard that I live by now is live long enough to tell your story, Because even if your dream dies, it doesn't mean your story dies, because God is doing something. So, yeah, I love it.

46:42 - Speaker 1
Yes, and the best stories are yet to come. The best stories are yet to come. The best songs are yet to be written, the best books are yet to be written, and I'm feeling more and more hopeful. Every time I read the scripture, I feel energized. Every time I pray in the spirit, I feel energized. I feel like God is not done with me. Every time you go through, I'm turned 43. I'm like am I too old? You know God, can you do that again? Can you work with me again? Can you do this in this nation? Can you do this in this new city? Can we do this with this new dream? God keeps telling me I can and I will, so let's go.

47:17 - Speaker 3
Last thing. How can we be praying for you and your family?

47:21 - Speaker 1
So we are in this vision of reaching college students and let me just tell you that this is also a very dark spot Convergence of spiritual warfare, convergence of a lot of things that has happened, protests, I mean. If you look at it from different ways, it is a lot going on and we need all the prayers, all the prayers that we can from all the people that are listening to us. We need prayer and the number two thing is that we need your partnership. We really need your partnership, because what we're trying to accomplish always requires resources, and I believe that our responsibility is to keep sharing the vision. Here I am on this podcast, sharing on faithfully, like an absolutely networking spot. Nothing but our passion and our desire to see campus students as a missionary from India to America, to see American campus students and come to know Jesus. So pray for us and also partner with us financially.

48:30
Some of these events on college campuses cost us a lot of money, like $15,000 a minimum to do an event, a small event on campus. But if God is putting on your heart, you went through NYU, man, I want you to go to NYU and I'm going to sponsor that. Or you went to Colorado or you went to University of Tennessee or you went to Harvard or you went to Yale. I keep sharing these stories and people from the church come up and say I went to Stanford or you want to Yale. I keep sharing these stories and people from the church come up and say I went to Stanford, I'm going to get behind Stanford.

48:54
So if God is speaking to you, to people to financially support us in this mission to reach not only American students, if you're a Heart is for Nations, we're going to. We're in the most unreached and the most youngest country in the world, in India, reaching students Middle East, southeast Asia, the Bahamas, the Caribbeans, opening doors all across the nation. So we need your press, we need your press, we need your financial support and that'll be huge, daniel, thank you. Thank you for asking.

49:25 - Speaker 3
Thank you, Bonny, this was great. Thanks for coming on the podcast.

49:29 - Speaker 1
Absolutely, and all the details are going to be on the website. Thanks for coming on the podcast. Absolutely, and all the details are going to be on the website campusharvestorg, and we'll give you all the details that you need to. You know to stand with us and, daniel, I'm excited to be on this platform and doing everything I can to help you guys succeed with this vision. So it's been great coming on the podcast and, yes, get ready, the best is yet to come.

49:54 - Speaker 3
Amen, that's it for the podcast guys. Bye.

49:57 - Speaker 2
Thank you for tuning in to the Faithly Stories podcast. We pray this episode gave you the encouragement you needed to continue on your journey. The Faithly Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders, pastors, staff and volunteers. The Faithly digital platform offers innovative and practical tools and resources to enhance connection, foster collaboration and promote growth within the church and ministry space. Remember to subscribe, rate and review our podcast to help reach more listeners like you. Stay tuned for more uplifting tales from the front lines of ministry on the Faithly Podcast. Stay bold, stay faithful and never underestimate the power of your own story.