Yabuki Breeze Blog

(more pics) We had a lot of fun today, watching a bunch of people, students and friends from church acting silly, doing crazy games… together. It’ hard to believe it but the end of the school year has come and this year at UTA we celebrated with a Picnic/Party at Bowman Springs Park in Arlington with the AM101 class of Fielder Road Baptist Church as our host. It was fun watching people do silly things, eating, connecting. I think in many ways this was one of our better end of the year parties yet. All the student there were friends from throughout the year. It was great.

We were worried that there would not be enough students, not enough people from church, not enough food and to top it off, there was a Tornado watch announced for the evening at 6 PM. (A watch as opposed to a warning is generally no big deal… but rain was a definite possibility). As always, it all worked out as there was plenty of food, just the right amount of people and beautiful weather for the evening.

One of the sad things though is we found out that Miguel & Charles, two key leaders and cornerstones of our ministry were leaving the area. Miguel, a recent MA graduate of UTA, has been looking for work as an architect and is likely moving to San Antonio soon. Charles, a recent TESOL masters graduate, will be going to Korea to teach english at a CRAM type school. We will sorely miss these guys. They have been very special to us.

Today was also special because I got to spend more time with my Persian friends, Ali & Bahareh. I really appreciate the friendship Lisa and I are developing with this wonderful couple. It has really been fun. I just feel we connect with them at so many levels. I thank God for them.

Tomorrow, another dear friend Darren will graduate from TCU to move on to Rice University to get his PhD. I have met with him for the last three years every week and have really enjoyed the discussion so very much. Perhaps I will share more later…

Tags: Bowman Spring Park, Charles, Darren, Fielder, Miguel, UTA

Today I had the honor of sitting at church with some really cool people. Tillie Bergen, the iconic founder of Mission Arlington was there. Mission Arlington has become a model for outreach into a city of lost people who are struggling in life. Tilly shared that through their ministry of giving over 238 churches were started in the many apartments and areas that they serve.

James Walker, the President of Watchman’s fellowship was there. Watchman’s purpose is to keep a “watch” on cults and other religious movements and to provide tools for believers to deal with these.

Dr. Shahid, director of Good News for the Cre@scent World, was there. He shared about how God is working in the Is#lamic world right now at an incredible rate, unseen in years past. He also share of the need for people to serve the women of Isl4am who are among the least touched and possible very open people around.

Then there was were leaders from Catholic Charities(the Arlington Chapter has an office in our church and one of the main refugee receiving and community reaching charities in the nation ), Arlington Pregnancy Center (have touched over 35,000r 35,000
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 moms), Trinity Kids (a group that has camps and activites that shares Christ’s love to abused kids (identified by CPS) in the area). Then there was little ole me sharing about the ministry to international students that we are a part of.

One of the many blessings of being at Fielder is that they put a huge emphasis on members getting involved in their community. We, the main local ministries that Fielder Road Baptist Church supports, had the opportunity to share in front of the two services at Fielder Road Baptist church about what we do and how people can get involved. (Podcasts from the church) And the result… many people did come up and did want to learn more about how they can be involved. It was wonderful to watch. We were able to pass out nearly 580 flyers, and 18 people signed up on the spot. Several of our team and partners were there to help with the booth we were given including the Phillips, Ron, Ruthe Ann, the Aherns, the Weddles, etc. And the kids… the Phillips kids and the Yabuki kids were going all over the large entryway of the church making sure everyone got the chance to learn about ISI through receiving a flyer. It was an amazing thing… I was really touched by the openness of people to get involved… Praise the Lord for the Body trying to be the Body.

Tags: Fielder, volunteer

July 2007 – (pictures) “International Students want to serve the community…” the conversation Ron had with the new UTA ICF president kind of went. Ron took that to heart and was able to set up a situation for them to work with Habitat for Humanity to help build a house for a low income family. Just that week, the small group the Yabukis’ are a part of at Fielder Road Baptist church were looking for volunteers for a Habitat for Humanity missions project. ISI linked the two and the rest is history.

The Habitat for Humanity trip with UTA students was well received by the students and the Americans. Our students were really touched by the experience and said they had a great time. For many of them, this is the first time they did this sort of work (e.g. painting, powertools, siding, etc.) These were believing and unbelieving students and many were touched by the opportunity to serve.

The Christian students saw a different way to serve the Lord. The unbelieving students were able to see Christian faith in action. It was a perfect match. Ron sees this type of ministry as an opportunity for future ministry to disciple Jesus followers and to expose eager non-Jesus followers to genuine Christian worldview in action.

Tags: Fielder, Habitat for Humanity, House, ICF, Ron, UTA

“This was my first Thanksgiving Dinner. It was very good.” said an Indian student as he sat with a student from Hong Kong.

Working with ISI, Fielder Road Baptist Church is working to develop a focused ministry to International Students. We discussed ways of getting the church involved. One of the results of this discussion was that, two adult fellowship classes from the church with ISI hosted a Thanksgiving dinner with help from the Baptist Student Ministries & the university’s own English Language Institute. Over 70 students came. Over 70 church members of all ages from two ABF classes were involved and provide more than enough food and shared a little about Thanksgiving (SEE VIDEO) Fun was had by all. One of the families shared how their son “adopted” one of the Indian students.

In addition Fielder and ISI provided free “taxi” rides (over 20 cars with even a limo) around mass transit less Arlington one Saturday.

We also helped a Fielder Road Baptist Church pastor treat 19 professors from a top technical university in Beijing who were returning from UTA after 3 months here to dinner at Traildust Steakhouse.

Click on the Link below to see the Thanksgiving Feast Video
(Click Here)

Tags: Chinese Professors, Fielder, rides, Thanksgiving