HISTORY

IT ALL STARTED WHEN...
Ever since IFES started, there've been two distinctives: sharing of resources and prayer. Thus, at the 1987 IFES World Assembly held in Columbia, a strong call was issued for a worldwide IFES day of prayer and fasting.

The following year, it had progressed to an annual IFES event called World Student Week. Every year, one week was set aside as a week for WSW. The call to all: “Move the World Through Prayer”. Where the student movement has arrived at today, and the lives that have been changed through their involvement in the student movement, can be traced to a prayerful disposition.

THE MALAYSIAN VERSION-lah...
In 1995, the first World Student Day was held in Malaysia. CFs were encouraged to gather to pray on that day. Next, regional prayer meetings were held in different parts of Malaysia so that students from campuses in the area could gather as one to pray.Concerning the prayer items, besides the local campus scene, initially we prayed for the whole world and referred much to the IFES WSD update for praise and prayer points. In 1998 however we narrowed our scope and decided to focus on the specific regions and countries.

We also started praying for the needs for the small towns around Malaysia, and, ever since 2007, we invited ex-students in the small towns around Malaysia to share their stories with the students.

For 2008, we only have one country for our international focus: Japan. There are two reasons for this narrowing of focus: the first being that we feel that focusing on one country would allow students to have a more in-depth and more personal look at the student movement outside Malaysia. The second is that KGK (the student movement in Japan) is hosting the East Asia Regional Conference this year. This conference is no small matter, both logistically, with students arriving from all over the East Asia region, and as an exercise of faith, in a country where less than 1% of the population is Christian.