Yabuki Breeze Blog

(See all pictures) Yee Ha!!! Such was the call as international students from all over the DFW area enjoyed the hospitality of George DeVries at his Ranch together with many others from Grace Fellowship church and Stephenville, TX. They were able to… camp out in tents overnight under the beautiful Texas night sky, watch a incredible trick riding demonstration, ride horses, fish in George’s fishing pond, see George’s dairy cow milking operation and baby calves just learning to walk, learn to skeet shoot, attend a “cowboy church” service at the local “opry hall” , play  volleyball, horseshoes, and an experience and incredible evening bonfire complete with skits and singing.

Over 90 students, volunteers, friends, etc. from 17 different countries from TCU, SMU, UTD, UNT, and UTA had a terrific time together learning about this part of Texas culture. These students came from countries like   China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, Nepal, Mexico, Malaysia, Poland, Serbia, S. Korea, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, USA, and Vietnam; a very diverse group. In addition, there were so many first by so many students.  They even saw a baby calf being born (I have a video if you want to see it.) The students had a great time. One of our Italian students from UTA wrote one of our staff the following words regarding the campout…

“I liked the trip from the beginning to the end. The ranch experience lead us in contact not only with nature, but also with God. I especially liked the simple and [sincero] cowboy spirit, which is exemplified by the Christian service as well. That was also a great opportunity to meet people from the Dallas/Fort Worth area which share the same [pensieri=thoughts] as ours.  I hope there’ll be other occasions of this kind. Looking forward to meet you again.”

God was clearly there and the students were able to see him both in word, spirit and deeds. What an experience!

Tags: camping, Stephenville, trip

One of the real blessings in my role as City Director is to hear the reports from our local team about what God is doing and it gives me a chance to see the big picture of the direction God is taking us. Here is a sample from Ron Bunyard’s report from August. I gave you a preliminary version earlier. Here is the full one….

Along with these events, I had the opportunity to speak to over 200 new Indian students and welcome them to our campus. I challenged them to get involve with making American friends and let them know that our Big Howdy team was the way to do that. I also was able to speak to over 100 new ELI (English Language Institute) students and welcome them as we continue to grow our relationship with the this very important group of students.
God has also given me a Korean student, an Indian student and a Nepali student to lead in Bible study and discipleship. Our weekly Friday night dinner, English discussions and Bible discussion are off to a great start.  The first two weeks we have averaged 28 students. More importantly, the spirit of the group is wonderful and real community continues to be developed.
One weakness so far is our ICF ministry with Christian students. We have lost our leadership in this group and God is yet to provide new leadership. We are working to get this group off the ground this school year.

Praise the Lord for what he is doing!!!

Tags: Big Howdy, Report, Ron, UTA

One of the things ISI City directors get to do is visit the local seminaries to share with students about international ministry and ISI. It is actually a lot of fun. I usually get to visit both Dallas Theological Seminary and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. I was able to make these visits this week.

The purpose of these visits is really two fold. First, we look for students who are interested in helping out with the ministry, potential volunteers who are generally motivated to serve and have some skills that they want to try out. Further, almost all the intro to mission students are required by their professors to develop a relationship with an international person to pass the class. This usually gets them even more interested if they weren’t enough already.

We usually introduce them to opportunities to be friendship partners, english partners, camp/retreat helpers, Friday/Saturday ICF/Bible Study, volunteers etc. It’s a win/win situation for everyone. I’ve heard stories where students have mantained the relationship they made with an international student through this program years later, even after the seminary student is long gone from seminary. Wow!

The second purpose is to expose these students to international student ministry in general. They will be the future pastors, missionaries, and seminary/bible school professors who will be the gate keepers of churches and the like that our ISI missionaries all over the country/world will be interacting with. If they had a good experience here, (most do) they will likely be more open to working with us to reach the over 600,000r 600,000
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
Izbrano poglavje ne obstaja! Štetje svetopisemskih vrstic se za?ne z ¹! Vrstica ⁰ ne obstaja!

WP-Bible plugin international student all over the US that ISI seeks to reach through church volunteers (and their own work too). There have been several testimonies from staff where this has been the case and its exciting that we can “lead block” for our other colleagues around the world. It’s kind of cool being in Dallas/Fort Worth. With the flagship Southern Baptist and Evangelical/Bible church seminaries in the area, we have the opportunity to make a different in reaching student all over the country.

Tags: DTS, Seminary, SWBTS