• A new student Andrew from Nepal made a decision to follow Jesus through one of our volunteers doing Discovery Bible Study with him. God was influencing him in many way through many people and when he read the Bible he recognized what he was looking for.
• We are praising God that several of some of our closest students finished school this last weekend. Still we will miss them dearly. Vritant, Fernando and Bibianna specifically said that we all were their family in Texas (they even said it in a caption on facebook). Cynthia and TCU was showered with many blessings by the team over there. We are very sad to see these very special friends go home.
• We are excited that our student friend, Greg from East Asia welcomed his family to the US to join him after 6 months apart.

We know that during this time we all think about serving others and the Lord through giving in different ways. ISI in the DFW area is in a special time right now. God is doing amazing stuff and we feel that God has put us smack dab in the middle of it. In the last year God has started two huge new ministry opportunities that allow us to touch the world more effectively for Christ through internationals students. We invite you to consider being a part of one of these giving opportunities and projects.

Three opportunities to give where God is working (click on the following to learn more):

1. We need your regular help to allow us to be a catalyst for to serving international students! – Backing up God’s Call
2. Do you ever get goose-bumps when God works so clearly and immediately? We do! – UTD Ministry House Project
3. Special people God is using in special ways with South Asians – ISI Midwest Aradhna Concert Tour

1.We need your regular help to allow us to be a catalyst for serving international students! – Backing Up God’s Call

As you have seen in the last year through our newsletter and blog, God has been doing amazing things in and through our family & ministry. Many of you have been partners with our family & ministry and have been praying and tracking what has been going on for years. You know that this is an unprecedented time. God has brought many international friends to our weekly Friday gathering. So much so that we have had to divide up in to two groups. Many of these students have asked and so we have been able to start many Discovery Bible Study groups and Passing Truths On (PTO) disciplemaker making groups to help students meet and walk more closely with Jesus.

Our team is at ground zero where God is teaching us revolutionary ways to touch international students  through new strategies and concepts that have the potential of many students being cultivated as leaders who will perhaps become multiplying ministry planters back home – taking what they learn here and applying it. The rumblings of God’s movement through students are beginning to be felt. As we saw in our Asia trip, our dear student friends are starting groups in their home country to disciple other who can start groups to disciple others. Imagine the impact if this continues.

So many wonderful things, yet, at the same time, we all know that times are tough for individuals and organizations which depend upon donations, and we are no exception. As you know we have been faithful in the work of the ministry – praying and reaching out, and mobilizing volunteers to do the same. But we cannot continue without help from people who care, who love seeing God at work, and who love partnering with God in what he is doing—people like YOU! You make it possible for us to be the catalysts for movements of God, empowering people like you to touch students’ lives.

We have been receiving anywhere from $200 to $800 less than our monthly budget many months this year. Just doing the math you can see that we have had a considerable shortfall and our formerly considerable reserves are depleted. Won’t you help us to make this up by sending a tax deductible  gift through our ministry fund (you can give online here) to help us make up the shortfall throughout the year? These gifts are Roy’s sole source of income and we have been living and doing ministry in deficit. We believe in God’s call for us and in His promise of provision and so it is vitally important that you all, who believe in what we do, join us and perhaps be the means of His provision. We also need additional monthly donors who will stand in the gap and make up for our lost monthly givers. So again prayerfully see if you are called by God to use this link to make a gift which will continue to keep us on the front lines!

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2. Do you ever get goose-bumps when God works so clearly and immediately? We do! – UTD Ministry House Project
At the Dallas-Ft.Worth ISI annual planning retreat, the Lord led us to focus on the critical need for 20-something year old interns to reach out to the international students at UT-Dallas. We had to face the fact some 20-something

year old international students like being around 20-something year old Americans and the trend is towards a larger number of 20-somethings coming! In planning HOW to recruit such interns, we were led by the Lord to pray for a home within walking distance of the UT-Dallas campus where the interns could live (paying only utilities). These interns would be students also—strong Christians—who could devote 15 hours per week to outreach to internationals. They would probably be Dallas Theological Seminary students or UT-Dallas grad students. BUT THE IDEA OF A HOUSE THAT NEAR CAMPUS SEEMED IMPOSSIBLE!

But the God who led us to pray for the impossible specializes in doing the impossible! JUST ONE WEEK LATER, the UT-Dallas ISI Campus Director was contacted by an old church friend who wanted to see if ISI could use his house near campus. His renters has trashed it, and he was prompted by the Lord to see if the Lord wanted to use it for ministry. He did not want to sell the house, but could see how its proximity to the UT-Dallas campus could benefit our ministry there!

We prayed, and the Lord made clear this was from him! GOOSE-BUMPS! We have a multi-year agreement with the owner to use the house, and we are responsible for fixing it up and maintaining it while the interns live there and minister through it.

We need your help with the costs of fixing it up—estimated at $4,850! We have guys from two churches who will do the labor along with local ISI staff, but we need your help with the cost of paint and materials to get the house back in shape for living in and for ministry.

Doesn’t it sound like the Lord to use disastrous renters, a Christian home owner, a local ministry in need, church guys with fix-up skills, ISI staff, and YOU to partner to make ministry happen?! The Lord led us to ask him for the impossible; we listened-obeyed and he worked mightily; and now we need you to be a part of the team. Will you join us in seeing God at work through his people?! Please click on this link and see how you can give towards this project.

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3. Special people God is using in special ways! – ISI Midwest Aradhna Concert Tour

Two years ago some 500 Asian Indian and Nepali international students in the Dallas-Ft.Worth area attended four concerts by the Christian worship team Aradhna. The members of Aradhna are former missionary kids in India/Nepal who learned the language, love the culture, and use their musical gifts to worship the Lord by writing and playing music in the cultural traditions and styles of India and Nepal. Go to www.aradhnamusic.com and click on sample tracks. You can also read the words of the music. You can see that they honor God with their words but also by their professional and yet soulful sound.

The South Asian Indian and Nepali international students love this music. But more importantly, the guys playing it are doing so in the power of the Lord. We had prayer teams on their knees, and what happened in the concerts was powerful spiritually! The Lord inhabits the praise of his people, and these were worship concerts attended and loved by hundreds of non-believing and secular students who witnessed God at work!

Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn. I will praise you, O LORD, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. ~ Psalm 108:2-3

Aradhna has responded to our invitation and made room in their tour schedule for another visit to the Dallas-Ft.Worth area campuses (as well as campuses in Wichita KS and Colorado Springs, CO where ISI is ministering). Again, we need your partnership to make this special ministry by very special people happen! Aradhna only asks for their travel expenses, concert expenses, and a small honorarium, but for five concerts in our city that amounts to $4,500. Could you help us make this a reality? We have staff and volunteers ready to follow-up Indian and Nepali students who attend. This could be the start of many significant relationships. Please use this link to help with this outreach project.

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In closing…

This is shaping up to be a wonderful year of seeing the Lord at work! We just took more than 100 international students to tour NASA and had incredible conversations about spiritual issues while there and on the way back. Something about space and the vastness of the universe which turns our thoughts to the idea of a Creator! Follow-up from a fun event like this is so easy and natural!

Blessings on you and your extended family for the celebration of Christ’s birth! And let us know how we can pray for you as you interact with family and friends this holiday season. Sometimes it isn’t very easy!

Roy & Lisa and the Kids

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Here are some quick things to pray for.

Praise

• Friday nights – As we continue this experiment with Friday Night ISI at UTA meetings at two locations (early & late groups), God continues to bless. This last week is a example of how God is working. The late group had a student who just got baptized this last week. In the early group, our volunteer Cal had some significant conversation with several students which led to him meeting with a South Asian person of peace and starting to set up relationship with a couple of other students. Roy also had a couple of significant discussions about Jesus with the result being one East Asian couple taking the discovery Bible study “cheat sheet” with the intention of doing a family discovery Bible study group in their apartment. Praise God also for workers for the Harvest. Keep on praying for more. The fields are VERY white for harvest who want to be loved on and who want to learn more about the God of Creation and His Son.
• PTO (Passing Truths On)- Three PTO groups have started. PTO groups are a 16 week mode of discipling students where they are trained to 1) become disciples who train disciples, 2) learn the essentials of how to walk with Jesus, and 3)  learn how to start and lead discovery Bible groups. One of these groups is being led by a couple of American volunteer girls who are learning the process themselves and are passing it along immediately to another students. Ron is training one other key volunteer on how to lead PTO groups. Roy is leading an on-campus PTO group with three students and also  two volunteers who are learning how to lead these groups. Roy is also doing one PTO group using video Skype to disciples a student in Colombia and another one in Mexico. This process of starting these groups helped us too to tease out who the followers of Jesus are, those who the seekers are and whose not interested in Spiritual things but have a deep relationship with us.
• Right Now Conference – Roy and staff members, Jeff, Hannah, Judy and key volunteer, Tom joined in a conference to learn how to minister together with churches from the 20-30′s demographic. Tom and Judy also were involved with a conference with business leaders on helping believers see “Work as Worship” – using the workplace as a place of ministry. We need to help our students to have this perspective. We also were able to network with business leaders in the area to kick off a new ministry that we are looking at related to students in internships.
• Lisa is enjoying her new job because she is actually encouraged to share her faith with her students. It does require more outside time with students and it has less regular hours than her previous job.
• Ti* is getting more and more involved with Boy Scouts and playing the cello. He is getting better at both. In scouts, he has had the opportunity to learn things such as orienteering and tying knots. Cha* is really growing into a sweet young lady who loves to do crafts, cook, and spend time with her friends. She even made her own dalmatian Halloween costume. Jonathan is navigating through his sophomore year of high school and is learning how to be more responsible with managing his home work etc.
• Phoenix Training – Ron, Roy & Derrah had the privilege of training the ISI Phoenix team of 12 in some of the things we have been learning in our work with M28/CPM using video Skype. Imagine training a group of 12 people  hundreds of miles away with three local presenters and still be able to see their reactions, give feedback and everything. What a blessing that was to join hearts with kindred spirits and they seemed to grasp it. We hope that through all this training in M28 all over, it will catch sooner than later and a student movement will spark.
• At TCU, the team continues to flourish with several students growing through the Bible study there. Sharon, Sarah, Tim, the Moores and the rest of the team are ably leading the team. Recently, 8 UTA ISI students joined with 8 TCU ISI students in helping out with the Fall Festival as volunteers at Christ Church Assembly of God in Fort Worth. The student’s eyes were open wide as they were part of 300 volunteers who served 6000 kids and family members. They were touched by how a church would do such a thing through volunteers and donations without government help or anything. They asked many questions including “Why?”

• Charting the course of a new ministry initiative for ISI in developing a new discipleship and outreach ministry strategy
• Meeting to help look at sites for our ISI national conference in June of 2012 in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
• taking students furniture
• Sharing at a national conference of South Asian (Indians, Pakistanis, etc.) Christians about the possibilities for them doing ministry with international students
• Picnic meeting with our family and our friendship partner students and their friends and families from China
• Meeting with students to share the Bridge illustration.
• Meeting to share at a seminary class about helping with ministry with international students
• Meeting with our friends from Central Asia to discover what the Bible says
• Meeting with a staff friend in New York over the phone to encourage each other in ministry
• Meeting with a church friend about the possibility of working together on a special project
• Meeting with some seminary students who have decided to focus on serving Indians at UTA and doing some pioneer work there
• Meeting to prayer walk with a couple of people
• Meeting with a man who wants to volunteer and share about our ministry for a mobilization effort called Perspectives
• Meeting to talk and plan for Friday nights with several individuals
• Meeting with another couple to talk about how to help with international students
• Meeting with a national speaker, who wrote the book Death of a Guru on Hindu ministry

Okay, I think you get the message. Honestly, each of these things were energizing and invigorating… It reminds me that God is at work right now. Continue to pray that the Lord of the harvest will raise up more people for the harvest. Also pray that he will take these that He has risen up already that He will empower them to share with the 18,000 international students in the Dallas/Fort Worth Area the love and message of Christ.

The original purpose of the Friday group going to two different locations was to alleviate pressure in the homes that we meet in. There were just too many people for our homes. We are praising the Lord because while the late group is growing and developing a regular following and a level of stability, the early group is still bursting at the seams with as many as 50 people still coming. God is working in different ways in each group and he is able to touch different types of people in different ways because of the different natures of the groups. Praise the Lord. Pray that the Lord of the Harvest will raise up more workers (and maybe more and bigger houses to host) Pray also that the students will still feel like while we meet at different locations, we are still “one group” following one Lord.

• The Austin trip to the Vibrant Dance of Faith and Science was challenging in many ways. I think most important thing that came out of it for Jonathan was that he was able to see that even really smart and educated people not only follow Jesus but have logical reasons why. I believe he also saw the limitation of science to explore some types of truth. Still, I appreciate your prayers. My heart aches with the stuff he is struggling with. I was once there. I trust in God’s grace and I understand what he needs to work through this himself and this is normal as a child grows into an adult and my role becomes one more of coach than player, but it still hurts sometimes.
• The Fall festival at Christ Church Assembly of God was wonderful as 20 of us (Americans and international students) volunteered at this event. The students were truly amazed by it. One Chinese student was amazed that someone other than the government sponsored something like this for the community. He was touched. We have learned that in China volunteerism is in its infant stages and so this was a paradigm shifting activity for them.
• Space weekend in Houston was probably our best yet. We took 50+ students and volunteers from UTA & SMU and we were hosted by our ISI team in Houston and Seabrook United Methodist Church. After visiting the space center, we were able to take pictures with an astronaut who spent more than a year up in the space station and then the students stayed with host families. I had the privledge of driving an Indian, two Russian, one Mexican and one Turkish students. They had a wonderful time! By the end of trip, there was sadness to leave their host families and I really felt like the people in our car were like family to us. God clearly spoke to them to show them his love for them.
• The T4T discipleship group at TCU has started and we have met three times already (on Fridays). To see what God is going in the hearts of the different members of the group.  It has been a real blessing. Further I am learning so much that can be applied to future groups.
• Pray for the HUGE thanksgiving party this Saturday, November 20 at the UTA BSM hosted by Fielder Road Baptist Church for the UTA international students. Pray for great connections between people and the students.
• Pray for TCU’s Thankgiving event hosted by McKinney Memorial Bible church also on the 20th as the students visit various homes.
• Pray for Thanksgiving day itself as various students will be visiting home (including 4 at ours) and more than 30 at the Moores.
• One of our student families had a HUGE family loss. I can’t share more but please pray for them as they grieve.

Students and Host Families Listening to the Astronaut

Happy Birthday!

• Family weekend at TCU went very well. I got to spend some time with a Japanese couple and other Japanese woman. It’s been a long time since I’ve had so much time with Japanese and it was a real blessing. They are not believers and we had a delightful conversation about all sorts of things. I also talked with a new believer Japanese and he will probably be the anchor of a new Training for Trainers (T4T) discipleship group for young believers that I will be leading at TCU.
• The trip to Colorado Springs was somewhat refreshing because we learned so much about different ways people are doing ministry and preparing students to make an impact back home. I was encouraged that the team there felt that we were on the right track with our work with CPM’s. (Christ Community Planting Movements).
• Pray also for clarity in Tim’s scout pack that Lisa and Roy are in leadership with. We are struggling at the pack level though our den is going strong. Pray for a fishing trip we are taking the boys on this Saturday.
• Keep praying for Jon’s heart and that he survives his dabbling in existentialism and the writings of its secular champions.
• Pray for a special project that is just starting where we help students in their post college transition that Jason and I are working on. We are in the pre-design phase. Pray for clarity of direction and focus and again balance.

One of the difficult things for me this time of year is that everyone is running on frantic, in a focused manner because we all know this is the most important part of the year. The relationships we make this time of year determine how the rest of the year goes, at least the next semester go. The busyness of it all drive us to become focused on doing… getting the job done. Some times we feel frustration from volunteers, other times we are excited about new students we meet. other times we feel like we just can’t do enough to keep up. For those of us with a base performance frame, it’s exhilirating but and intoxicating at the same time.

I’ve struggled with maintaining a grace orientation, one that rests on God’s work in and through me. Yet, it is especially important to see life that way this time of year. I often miss God’s plan in all the encounters and inconveniences  during this time of year. I often miss the people of peace right in front of my face, I miss the life lesson my kids are shogin me right now… My desire is to walk expectantly with job and yet I often find myself expecting God to walk according to my latest plan and organizational strategy.

Still, this week was very hard… Several dear friends are going home long term this weekend. In addition, several of our staff have had some huge family crises and we are transitioning one of our kids through teenhood and another through being a Webelo… I can’t remember when we have had more “stuff” to do in my life. No I take that back, back in High School, the weeks before I left for New Jersey for the first time, I had just about every hour scheduled with packing, having dinner with someone, etc. It was just as non-stop but the idea that that sort of life style not ending any more can be daunting… Still the exciting thing is that God is showing me through daily time in His word and in prayer that it can be done. We are being forced to depend on Him for every second of every day and it actually works!

One of the things we end each Bible study with every week is “if this passage is true, (which I believe it is) how does it change the way that you live…” I’ve been really challenged this year to make this question a part of every Bible truth that I know and imagine this… THE BIBLE ACTUALLY IS TRUE AND LIVING AS IF IT IS ACTUALLY WORKS! Imagine that…