BUILDING FRIENDSHIPS

Marisa from Spain just returned home last week. I met her in March while playing broomball at one of my international student ministry's outreach events. She spoke English with a thick Bar-tha-lona accent and I immediately tried practicing my broken Spanish with her.

Over the last two years since I've been involved in this ministry, I have been continually surprised to discover how seemingly little it takes to spark a friendship with international students that can lead to gospel opportunities. Drawing from my experiences and personal expectations of how friendships form, the things that "work" and "click" among international students are often a surprise to me. (Good thing not everyone looks at the world as an Asian-American woman in their 30s!) I don't know if it's that relationships are built more quickly in other parts of the world, if it's a generational "Facebook friends" thing, or if it's the mere fact that international students need and desire to make friends in a country where they hardly have any--whatever the case, it has been a lot easier to build relationships with these students than I expected.

We see many of our students weekly at our Friday night "Talk Time" event. Anyone can contribute a question to a box and we randomly draw four each week to discuss in small groups. Questions range from "What is your favorite holiday in your country?" to "Do you believe ghosts are real?" to "Who would you call in an emergency at 4:30AM?" I used to think that as a leader, I needed to get the gospel into every answer. But more and more I'm seeing (and hearing from our students) that the thing they notice and find attractive is based on their observations of how we interact with them and with each other. Actions, not words. Incarnational ministry through the body of Christ! It's common to hear students refer to our group as their family in the US. One Muslim student from Yemen even welcomed a new student with "Welcome to your new home!"

Marisa told me early on that her grandmother was Catholic but that she herself didn't really believe. Now she is thanking us for showing her "the way of Jesus" and reminding her of what she used to believe. This weekend she told me she wants to do a Bible study with me via Skype! Praise God...I certainly never thought we would get this far! I don't think she fully understands the implications of the gospel yet so I hope to go through "Christianity Explored" and the Romans "Scripture Under Scrutiny" studies with her.

If you would like to pray for me:

-my Bible study with Marisa this summer

-starting a study on Bible reading tools with Fifi, a student who became a believer two years ago in the US and plans to move back to China next year.

-looking for an ESL teaching job to start in the fall (and finding out if I actually like teaching since I hope to do it long-term on the missions field)

Recent praises:

-nearly finished with my first year of grad school (with two years left in my MA TESOL program)

-a report that International Students Inc (ISI), our "parent" ministry, has noticed the special way that God is working within our group and is actually looking at our ministry as a model for other international student ministries in the US! Hard to believe!