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!

Go back to the beginning of this article

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.

Go back to the beginning of this article

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.

Go back to the beginning of this article

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

Go back to the beginning of this article

Roy

They were offering rides around the airport and while we couldn’t afford that, it was really fun watching the Flying Fortress run up on the runway and take off and land. The roar of the engine, the gradual climb out, etc… it was just like something out of an old World War II movie. You can imagine 100′s of these taking off all at once.

After it came back from its flight we got to climb around inside the airplane. Wow. Everything is so tight. I could barely maneuver from one part of the aircraft to another. The ball turret looked even small for C-6. I can’t even imagine sitting inside for the whole mission as was common.

The best part was seeing the wonder in T-9 & C-6′s eyes as they ran in and out of the aircraft, running through the bomb bay, looking at the gunners stations, etc. It was magical.

“Make sure the thing you’re living for is worth dying for” -Charles Mayes

“Only in the world where faith is difficult can faith exist.” -Peter John Kreeft

“Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood. Make big plans, aim high in hope and work.” -Daniel H. Burnham

“Having seen all this you can choose to look the other way, but you can never say again “I did not know” -William Wilberforce

Dear Roy

What an amazing month we have had in our Big Howdy welcome events.

Take a look at some of the numbers that all represent relationships and ministry.

500+ students at the Big Howdy party.
300 pieces of pizza
100 Chipotle burritos
200+ volunteers who provided food, did airport pickups, transported students to Wal-Mart, lifted and delivered furniture to students apartments, and many other acts of love and kindness.
300+ students country line dancing for the 1st time!
170 students picked up at the airport.
126 students taken to Wal-Mart.
100+ students have furniture and apartment needs to start their year off right.
72 feet of potluck food dishes devoured by 500 hungry students.
20 campus ministries and churches demonstrating unity in the body of Christ
19+ countries represented by the students at Big Howdy events
1 God to give all the praise!

Thank you for praying and giving!
Ron

Check out pictures from the Used Item Sale and Big Howdy party and for the TCU Welcome Party. Pray for the students you see and relationships that God will grow as the year moves forward.

Back when J-13 (not 12 any more) turned 9, feeling that I wanted to integrate rites of passage in my kids development, we went to a Japanese garden in Fort Worth and I shared with him about his heritage, how he is descended from samurai/teachers though Yabuki blood and from John Muir, Alexander Hamilton, Daniel Boone & Davey Crockett through Lisa’s family and how… wait… I guess it wouldn’t be all the special if I told you everything… suffice it to say, I tried to emphasize our heritage of service and now in our family love and devotion to God and people around the world. I then outlined a process of passing on what I am to him… He began the process as a “page” at 9, being instructed in the ways of men. At 13, he would move on to being a “squire,” given more responsibility but also more freedom as he learns how to apply what he learned in the previous four years. Finally he moves on to full knighthood, the full attaining to manhood, when I feel like he is ready, probably around when he is 18.

This last weekend was special because both T-9 and J-13 went through the ceremony in going to next levels. We were not able to go to the Japanese garden because as we left, a huge storm came by. But that make things more memorable in a way as we sat under a picnic shelter as a huge thunderstorm came by and a river swelled beside us.  J-13 shared the “essential Yabuki things” with T-9 and I passed on the rites of passage to J-13.

The rest of the day, I really saw a noticable change in both boys. It was really fun and I was really proud of them. It was a special time. We then proceeded to celebrate J-13′s birthday with a trip to the aquarium. The kids took tons of pictures. Here is a link to a few of them.

Anyway, the best moment for me came with my daughter C-5. One of the things we have done at the Big Howdy over the years is allow the students to dance with music from their countries. Often it eventually becomes a turns to a medly of Ballywood music because Indians constitute our largest group. Anyway, as behind us 100′s of Indian students were dancing in classic Punjabi form to the driving modern indian music beat, I had the special pleasure of dancing with my daughter. I was reminded of Stephen Curtis Chapman’s song, Cinderella (check out the video on Youtube). Time seemed to stop as we spun and swing danced… (or a facsimille of such) It was really special and fun watching her laugh, getting led and falling down… I don’t think I will forget that special time especially some day when she will be dancing with someone else.

Jeff Anthony, our ISI City Mobilizer and “blessing man”, helped kick off the first thanksgiving dinner for Collin College (formerly Collin County Community College), a new ministry focus for us. Here is his report…

It was fantastic! God definitely answered our prayers and pulled everything together for His glory. We had over 100 people and I think more than 60 students. Countries represented were: Pakistan, Vietnam, China, India, Kenya, Bangladesh, Tanzania, Iran, Brazil, Japan, Malaysia, Bolivia, Taiwan, Fiji, and Belgium.

A lady from Iran who works in the int’l student office and brought her three daughters (soph at CC and two HS seniors) went on and on about how wonderful everything was and how  much she and the students appreciated it. She called me the blessing man (I’ve been called lots of things over the years, but this was a first!) and said I would be blessed because of all that we did to make the students feel loved. We had lots of students from Pakistan and they really had a good time. I re-connected with several students I had met at the BSM retreat in Oct. and two of them lead different int’l student organizations on campus.

McKinney Memorial Bible Church offered to host thankgiving dinner parties for international students at several different american volunteer homes as they provided the food. As key TCU ministry team and McKinney member Babs shares,

All went well with the American Thanksgiving Dinner Saturday night.  We had about 40 students and all went to an American home. They seemed to be in groups in which they knew people and felt comfortable.  The feedback which I have received from students and JP and Cassie has been very positive; everyone had a good time!  The families really enjoyed having the students, so all in all, I think it was a very positive experience for all!  Praise the Lord!  Thanks to all who were involved from planning, to recruiting students and sending them to the right place, to driving and eating with them, and getting them back home!  Thank you so much!

In addition soon-to-be TCU intern Cassie adds,

There were… students there from China mostly and Japan, Korea, Sri Lanka, and some others.  We split up into groups.  JP (Cassie’s fiance) and I took 4 Chinese students to a house and we got to stay with them.  Everyone involved seem to have a great time.  Plus, the time waiting at the [TCU Frog] fountain was just good talking to a lot of students I had not met before.

Finally, Bennie & Patti, key TCU team members, had more than 30 people, mostly international students, over their house on Thanksgiving day as they do every year. It sounded like, as usual, students had a rich and warm time. Bennie was telling me that he went down to TCU to pick up some students and twice as many as were expected were there… They are incredible people…