The last two weeks have been a very productive time and God did many wonderful things in and through our ministry. Honestly, today I ran out of gas but that is okay. God seems be be giving me a couple of days of rest this week to catch up after non-stop stuff. God is good. Lisa and the kids too are in a busy time. Tim and Charis are in basketball right now and Tim continues in scouts. As I did some training with some ISI staff friends in Colorado who are just about to have their second wedding of the year of their two daughters, I was struck by the fact that in not too many years, we will have one in college and another not too far behind. Lisa and I celebrated our 18th anniversary yesterday. Wow… the time move so quickly.
Some quick hits:
Roy and teammate Derrah spent Jan 13-16 in Colorado training people in some of the stuff we are doing in ministry with the M28 initiative. This was in a sense a dry run for another nationally teleconferenced training in Omaha in February and a international trip to do training in Asia in late March. God really blessed the time as people seemed receptive and open to trying what we were teaching: implanting church planting concepts in discipleship of students who follow Jesus. We also learned about what works and doesn’t work in training this material. Almost everyone there said that we encouraged them to really look deeply at how they do ministry.
We welcomed several hundred new students at UTA. Roy helped out with the rides to Walmart and Roy, Lisa and the team helped out much with the Big Howdy party this last Saturday. On the Walmart run, in his group of 6, he met a young friend from Iran who really connected with Roy.
The last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of preparing for school, both with international students but also with OUR new students (J-12, & C5 are going to new schools & T-8 is going to 3rd grade).
It has been incredibly fun to meet new students at the various different campuses. This year I had the privilege of helping out on three different campuses with welcome events. The fun of it is meeting all these different types of students. On one campus I met a Chinese student who was so excited to see that there was a Christian group on campus for international students. He became a Christian in China and is really wanting to grow and seemed very excited about his walk with God.
On another campus, I met another Chinese student who said that while he wasn’t a Christian, he enjoyed getting to know Christians at his previous campus in Florida and so he was very interested in learning more about what we do. That reminded me how often God takes students through a process of bringing them to himself through a journey of studying around the country. At each stop, the student gets a different but consistent (hopefully) perspective of just who Christ is and His affect on people’s lives.
Here is one other observation. In the past ISI worked very closely with the international student offices in directly being a part of the orientation, sharing about friendship partner programs etc. But it seems today, things are different. Several years ago, it seemed the international offices were more reluctant to allow that having concern that they be identified with a Christian group. Instead they have allowed us to have a table at activities fairs, etc. At first this was a difficult change for many of us. But recently as ISM (International Students Ministries) have adapted, we have found that the table could be even more effective in reaching students. There is more time to “personally” interact which is more important in this generation of students rather than interacting in an official capacity. The result is not relationships not built on external motivation but internal motivation. It has been awesome! At TCU, it was cool to see almost every international student at a reception last week having our bright pink flyer and likely they all had direct connection with a student or ministry partner at the table we had set up. I saw the same sort of thing at UTA and UTD as our team really touched almost every new student in a personal way. No matter what… most students were able to see a loving personal response from some believer.
Kudos to our whole team who are doing a great job of adapting and touching many more students because of it!
Roy & Lisa had the priviledge of welcoming three new NCN students to UTA’s language program. These Japanese students are entrusted by their parents to the NCN corportation to navigate through the university experience and NCN working with Ron asked us to make sure the students get off on the right foot. We picked them up from the airport, took them shopping for many different types of things, and during the memorial day holiday, we had them over for a special barbeque with some of our friends who love Japan. We really got close to them as they depended on us for many new things. We will be sponsoring other trips and gatherings for this special group of students in the future.
“In my first day in America, I have a warm feeling…” one Taiwanese student commented. Unlike domestic students, international students typically stay during the summer. Many also arrive for the first time during this quiet time on campus. It is a perfect opportunity to really shower Christ’s love on them and give them our full attention. This week, Roy, Ron, and the team were able to welcome many new international students to campus.
In addition, Roy & Ron and others on the team picked up others from the airport and helped the students get settled. One student commented, “In my first day in America, I have a warm feeling…” because of the love he felt.
Ron also shared to all 50 new English Language Institute students at UTA about American culture. He was then able to visit all of them to our welcome picnic, on June 1 which ended up a wonderful success with over 40 students who came to enjoy the time in the park We played many different games and had a lot of fun.
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Who are the Yabukis
When Lisa and Roy were married, they shared a common commitment to serving God crossculturally through their family. They currently both serve international students through ISI and live in Arlington, Texas with their three children.
Here is one other observation. In the past ISI worked very closely with the international student offices in directly being a part of the orientation, sharing about friendship partner programs etc. But it seems today, things are different. Several years ago, it seemed the international offices were more reluctant to allow that having concern that they be identified with a Christian group. Instead they have allowed us to have a table at activities fairs, etc. At first this was a difficult change for many of us. But recently as ISM (International Students Ministries) have adapted, we have found that the table could be even more effective in reaching students. There is more time to “personally” interact which is more important in this generation of students rather than interacting in an official capacity. The result is not relationships not built on external motivation but internal motivation. It has been awesome! At TCU, it was cool to see almost every international student at a reception last week having our bright pink flyer and likely they all had direct connection with a student or ministry partner at the table we had set up. I saw the same sort of thing at UTA and UTD as our team really touched almost every new student in a personal way. No matter what… most students were able to see a loving personal response from some believer.
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