360° in 180

Two nights before my one-way flight, I cast a final
glance toward my loaded backpack, switched off
the lights, and wondered what on earth I’d gotten
myself into.

What was I thinking? Nobody flies around the
world alone with no supporting organization, no
fundraising, and no plan except to talk to strangers
for six months.

Not only had I announced my mission to everyone
I knew, but I had also committed to blogging
about it weekly.

Despite my hesitation, I couldn’t deny God’s
leading so far, even from the first moment I’d felt
his call to defend biblical authority beginning in
Genesis. In fact, that call had originally compelled
me to concoct this wild scheme.

The Journey Begins

It started 10 years earlier, when I was 14. At
a homeschool conference, I heard Answers in
Genesis founder Ken Ham explain the importance
of defending a historical Genesis. Despite my
Christian upbringing, until then I had not cared
much about the debate between creation and evolution.
Compared to important causes like sharing
the gospel, I used to think, creationists’ enthusiasm
for fossils, dinosaurs, and pickled coelacanths seems
a bit irrelevant.

But my entire perspective—not to mention my
life—shifted after I realized Genesis 1–11 provides
the foundation for the whole Christian
worldview, including the gospel. Yet Genesis is
constantly attacked by those who devise stories
such as humanity’s supposed evolution over millions
of years—stories which secular schools and
media often teach as undeniable facts. And as
research has shown, the doubts these stories seed
in Christian students’ minds help explain why
most young people raised in church will vacate
the pews by young adulthood.1

Maybe, I thought, I could find ways to help Christian
students keep their faith during evolutionary classes.
But to understand what those students experience,
I’d have to become one of them myself. So I headed
to a university and registered for some of the most
evolution-saturated science courses available.

At every level, my classes championed naturalistic
evolution as truth but essentially shouted,
“Myth!” at the slightest whiff of divine creation.

Even as a deeply grounded Christian, I could feel
those constant evolutionary messages chiselling
at my biblical beliefs. I might have given in, except
that throughout my homeschooling and higher
education I had been equipped with tools to build three crucial foundations:

• Spiritual foundations: a close personal walk
  with God, including frequent prayer, consistent
  Scripture study, and biblical literacy.
• Intellectual foundations: training in critical
  thinking and apologetics, the logical defense
  of Scripture.
• Interpersonal foundations: a Christian
  support network including family, church,
  peers, and mentors.

While these foundations helped me survive
secular university, I wondered what strategies
were helping other Christian students worldwide.
After all, I’d once read that over 60 nations have
signed an educational statement claiming that
“scientific evidence has never contradicted” evolution
or millions of years.2 What if I could interview
Christian students in some of these countries
to learn what they experience?

After printing a world map, I grabbed a red
marker and shaded all the nations that had signed
the statement. A band of red ink wrapped around
the entire planet.

Obviously, I reasoned, I can’t travel that far. Or can I?

With that, I began plotting a DIY mission to
backpack solo 360° around the world in 180 days,
documenting Christian students’ university
experiences. I’ll see how far I can travel on savings
from my summer work, I figured. Just me, God, and
a backpack.

I prayerfully began knocking on doors, writing
contacts, and confirming several initial places to
visit. To test my research methods, I began exploring
campuses, interviewing students, and collecting
baseline data in Canada before launching into
distant parts of the world. Finally, late one night
in 2018, I booked a one-way flight to Australia.

Patricia traveled around the world in 180 days, documenting
Christian students’ university experiences.

Answered Prayers

From Australia, I journeyed to New Zealand,
the Philippines, Japan, Thailand, two nations that
for security reasons I won’t name, the United Arab
Emirates, Turkey, Greece, Switzerland, Germany,
Holland, Belgium, France, and England.

Originally, I hadn’t planned to visit many of these
places. During my final weeks overseas, in fact,
I often didn’t know which country I’d enter next—or even where I’d sleep some nights. But whether
I ended up staying at ministry bases, mission stations,
or with friends of friends (of friends), God
always provided. Meanwhile, I lived simply, flying
budget airlines, eating inexpensive groceries, and
sleeping in more airports than hotels. And all the
way I prayed to find the right people to interview.

God answered those prayers creatively, connecting
me with students, campus ministers, university
chaplains, pastors, and retired Christian professors.
Often I met these interviewees through churches,
friends, or campus ministries. And almost always,
I asked four key questions:

1. What are the challenges of being a
   Christian student here?
2. What are the opportunities?
3. What advice would you give a first-year
   Christian student?
4. How can churches support students?

The Experiences of Christian Students Across Cultures

Between interviews, I also gleaned insights into
worldview climates by reading university campus
bulletin boards. In Canada, for instance, I found
Bible study posters nestled among ads promoting
Eastern spirituality, campus nightlife, and an
extremely secular view of sexuality. I also found
cartoons mocking Christianity, a poster advancing
Communism, and even business cards for a
Wiccan university chaplain. Clearly, I realized,
Canada has drifted far from God’s Word as the foundation
for its thinking.

In comparison, when I visited a Filipino state
university, I spotted Bible verses on the walls. My
surprise mounted as I joined local Christians for
campus evangelism, only to watch the first students
we spoke with open their hearts to Christ.

“Evangelism is not this straightforward in
Canada,” I told my Filipino friends, “because most
Canadians believe science discredits Scripture.”

They replied that if they were in a similar situation
they’d just ask, “Who created science?”

The openness to evangelism on Filipino campuses
made sense once I read Ken Ham’s book
Gospel Reset, which contrasts the Jewish audience
Peter addressed in Acts 2 with the Greek audience
Paul encountered in Acts 17. Because the Philippines
are mostly Catholic, many Filipinos, like the
Jews who responded to Peter’s preaching, already
accept that sinning against our Creator results in
death. These concepts, founded in Genesis, pave
the way for the rest of the gospel. This is how Filipino
Christian students share their faith easily.

Patricia discovered that Japan can be a lonely place for Christian students.

In Japan, however, Christian students experience
a whole different cup of matcha.3 That’s
because Japan, like the Greek culture Paul
reached in Acts 17, rests on a completely different
worldview foundation from anything associated
with God’s Word. In fact, according to a retired diplomat I interviewed,
only 0.2% of Japan’s population attends church. To be
clear, that’s just two-tenths of 1%—one out of every 500 people.
(And I suspect this is partially related to the fact that Japanese
schools teach naturalistic evolution.) Understandably then,
Japan can be a lonely place for Christian students.

Besides the challenges of embracing a different worldview
from their culture’s, Christian students in countries like Japan
and Thailand also face being nonconformists in a collectivist
society. Unlike individualistic Western cultures,
which esteem personal independence, collectivist
cultures prioritize group harmony. The shame of
nonconformity places Christian students under
extra pressure to follow cultural expectations,
such as bowing before statues or becoming Buddhist
monks.

Still, these hardships intensify for Christian
students in a Communist nation I visited. Not
only is evangelizing there illegal, but students
who repeatedly share Christ risk expulsion from
their university. Yet I’d rarely met students more
excited about evangelism.

Other Life Lessons

Despite what these diverse cultures taught me,
not everything I learned sprang from research. In
the Philippines, for instance, I learned that smartphones
don’t mix with waterfalls. In Greece, I
learned that fish market floors have less traction
than a whale on a waterslide—and that fish scales
can cling undetected to human shins for over 20
minutes. Also, I learned to never wholly consume
any pepper the locals call “Atom Bomb.”

Turkey

Perhaps the finest learning moment of all happened
before I flew from Istanbul to Athens. Upon
reaching Istanbul’s Asian airport, I discovered
my flight was leaving from the airport across the
Bosporus strait, on the city’s European side. I had
just shown up for a flight not only at the wrong
airport but also on the wrong continent. The next
hour’s white-knuckle taxi ride cost more than my
flight, but pushing 105 miles per hour in a cab is an
excellent way to boost blood circulation. And I did
catch my plane.

These experiences and others taught me to
confront every problem by praying, “Thank you
for this opportunity to trust you—please help!”
Whether I found myself lost, stranded, soaked,
homeless, covered in fish scales, missing valuables,
or in any other predicament, God always
somehow did help.

For instance, once as I trudged through a New
Zealand rainstorm, a Christian stranger not only
offered me a ride but also welcomed me into her
home for two nights. Another time, when grocery
prices prompted me to pray for “daily bread,”
someone handed me two loaves.

Thanks, Lord, I thought. I see what you did there.

The day that bread ran out, someone else
offered me another loaf. Ultimately, witnessing
God’s provision let me glimpse that he is greater
than we imagine him to be and life is simpler than
we think it is because the Bible is truer than we
often live like it is.

What 360 in 180 Revealed

While the problems students encounter often vary
from culture to culture, the solutions are largely
the same.

What research results did I uncover on my
grand adventure? Most importantly, I noticed that
Christian students face diverse challenges across
cultures, but their advice and ideas for supporting
students sounded uncannily similar worldwide.
While the problems students encounter often vary
from culture to culture, the solutions are largely
the same. That means if churches, families, and
ministries focus on these practical solutions, the
results could make a difference for equipping
future Christian generations around the world.

What are these solutions? They all boil down to
helping young people develop the same three personal
foundations I found to be invaluable when I
was a student. For instance, I heard different campus
ministers lament how often they meet university
students who were raised in church yet didn’t
clearly understand what the Bible teaches or how
Scripture applies to every area of life. Their struggle
highlighted the need for students to have spiritual
foundations, as did advice from many of the
interviewees about the importance of spending
consistent time with God throughout university.

Other interviewees, especially those in secular
nations, also shared how apologetics training (a
type of intellectual foundation) is crucial for helping
youth counter faith-challenging messages
in class. But it’s not just students who require
intellectual foundations. Parents, pastors, and
mentors—people who help compose the students’
interpersonal foundations—also need apologetics
knowledge for answering questions.

In fact, the value of strong interpersonal foundations,
especially of older godly mentors, turned
out to be a major theme I heard students express
worldwide. But often, I see churches buying the
cultural lie that age corresponds to relevance—that seniors and youth should be kept segregated.
Yet segregation cuts off mentorship. If churches
and families intentionally fostered intergenerational
relationships, however, imagine the difference
that could make for discipling students!

An Unexpected Ending—And New Beginning

When I completed 360° in 180 in March 2019,
I couldn’t wait to share everything I’d learned. I
started speaking anywhere I could—including the
homeschool convention where I’d first heard Ken
Ham. Later that fall, Answers in Genesis–Canada
enlisted me as a speaker, writer, and youth outreach
coordinator. In this role, I share the message
of biblical authority which altered my life as a
teenager—a message that can transform cultures.

Now that my story has come full circle, was following
God around the globe with no plan except
to interview strangers worth it?

Absolutely.

SourceThis article originally appeared on answersingenesis.org

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