Yabuki Breeze Blog

Every year we (ISI and many different ministries, churches and organizations) welcome new international students to UTA. The whole month of August is devoted to this activity. This is true at TCU and all our other DFW campuses as well. It is a very special time when we get to meet some new friends. We welcome them in many ways! (see http://www.utabighowdy.com for info on some ways we serve them) At the two campuses where I’m most intimately acquainted, UTA & TCU, we were able to serve more students with the love of Christ than ever. Let me share with you Ron Bunyard’s report  from UTA (Ron was the UTA Big Howdy Organizer) as a sample of what was happening on all our metroplex campuses (including UTA, UTD, TCU, SMU, UNT, Northlake, UD, Collin, Navarro, & Northwood):

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.

Tags: Big Howdy, TCU, UTA, Welcome

(See Pictures) July 4 is usually a busy day for us. Between parades, parties for students, etc. there is always a lot to do. This year was no exception. Two of us being in a parade, a combined TCU and UTA July 4 party in Fort Worth. It was non-stop. Also, BOY WAS IT HOT!

The day after arriving home from Colorado, Lisa had to wake up early in the morning to take T-9 to Downtown Arlington because they were going to be IN the annual Arlington July 4 Parade on a float presented by his cub scout troop. Later on, I brough J-12 and C-6 and we sat along the route, looking forward to seeing our family members there. As we were waiting we were treated to some wonderful floats, marching bands, horse teams, etc. all dedicated to America’s monuments. Even Nolan Ryan was there as the grand marshall and Elvi were riding around in their signature white costumes riding their motorcycles.  T-9 cruised along on his scooter and looked great with his friends and mom.

In the evening, we picked up some student friends from UTA and headed off to Fort Worth to Celebrate July 4 with other student friends from UTA & TCU at the home of Babs Alvarez, a key partner at TCU. We all feasted on hamburgers and hot dogs and enjoyed the company of many friends, including some that we hadn’t seen in a long time and some we were meeting for the first time. One student, Jung, was back for only three days all the way from Korea and was able to join us! As it got dark we were able to enjoy some fireworks from a nearby park.

Tags: Fireworks, July 4, Party, TCU, UTA

(Pictures and videos) “What about Karaoke?” long time student leader Miguel shared almost as a joke at our most recent UTA ministry planning meeting. I had just heard that our TCU team members, the Moores, just bought a Karaoke machine. We put two and two together and it became a reality this last Friday as we kicked off our summer schedule with our new summer students. The students had a great time as we sang songs from the 70′s, 80′s and 90′s (Roy put together the song list). They loved watching each of us making fools of ourselves… though the most special performance was by Miguel when he changed the words of one of the raps giving his testimony and his experience in his time at UTA. Below is a video of one of the performances and here are some other pictures and videos from the special night.

Tags: Friday Night, Fun, Karaoke, UTA, Video

This last weekend a new group of students from China, all executives in large companies, arrived to start their one year Executive MBA program at UTA. “Your Texas Friends,” a team of people from various churches and ministries in Arlington, were there to help them get settled into their new apartments and learn about living in America.

These students arrived on Thursday off of a bus and YTF’s team (ISI is a partner in this) was ready to welcome them. We had welcome laundry baskets full of food, flatware, pots, etc. that would tide them over till they were able to go shopping. Also we helped them to move their luggage into their apartments. Roy made a real impression by falling off a curb down a small hill onto his face while moving luggage. They will no doubt not forget him.

For six Saturdays, YTF is going to take the student shopping at Hong Kong Market and Walmart. As Arlington does not have mass-transit, this is a huge need for students. This last Saturday, Roy picked up three students and they wanted to go get a computer so he and another couple from Grace Community Church took them to Fry’s and the student was able to buy a nice laptop computer. We all got really close through this time and talked about all kinds of things. One of the students shared that he is really into Chinese lore and we talked about him sharing some of that with C-6 to help her to learn more about her heritage.

Tags: EMBA, UTA, volunteers, Your Texas Friends

(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

April 5-11 was International Week at UTA and it always ends on Friday with a global extravaganza, a special talent show that features acts by students from many different countries around the world. Its a wonderful time for countries to show off their stuff and share with us all what is special to them about their countries. We usually take Friday night off to go and this year was special too. I took a bunch of video clips here of the different acts. As usual, the indians did some special work as did the Africans and other southeast Asians. One of the special moments came when the students from Bangladesh won two of the major prizes for the week including best attended booth at the food fair and best booth at the welcome center. They, rightly, were so proud and it was fun to watch them(see picture to right).

Tags: global extravaganza, international week, UTA, Video

One of the blessing of doing ministry is that we get to see God work through His people to share His love with others… today was no exception. Three Small groups (actually small group is a misnomer with several of these over 70) from Fielder Road Baptist Church with the BSM & ISI under the leadership of super volunteer Crissy Weddle allowed themselves to be used to share the true heart of Thanksgiving with around 200 students at the UTA.

Meeting at the BSM (Baptist Student Ministry), students were treated to a home cooked Thanksgiving dinner sitting with American families who acted as table hosts who loved on the students. They also got to hear some awesome music led by Greg Speed of our church worship team and heard the story of Thanksgiving shared by Rob Parrett.

During part of the evening, I was talking to Ron Bunyard about the party, peoples, reaction, etc. and Geoff Carter, one of our small group leaders, came up to us and told us that there was a student who wanted to know how to become a Christian and he wanted us to come and help her. Ron, the local ISI minister, went over and shared with her the torn napkin (modified bridge) illustration… I watched from a distance. It was cool watching him and seeing him share something that matters so much to him to a new friend and watching some of our church people seeing it happen and obviously being encouraged by it.

Another God thing with the food and the number of students… It seems like every year God reminds us of His control over it… There is no way we should have had enough food. When we started the evening, our estimate was that we would have half the food compared to last year and while we asked many people to double what they promised, we were concerned. We even asked our volunteers not to eat at first until all the students went by. What we didn’t realize is that students felt uncomfortable eating with their hosts not eating too… still God took care of that. The trickle of students slowed down early in the evening and there was plenty of food left so we opened up the eating to volunteers. We counted up all the tickets and there were over 200 students there AND we had so much food afterward that we had to take lots of leftovers to Arlington Life Shelter. It seems like every time we have a big even we have Jesus’ feeding of the 5000 played out and every time He comes through… I can truly understand now why Jesus had to do the “feeding” illustration twice and they still didn’t get it.

Cool technology angle and another feeding the 5000 story…  During the evening, I was concerned about the seemingly small number of students and I didn’t want our church people to be disappointed. The BSM international ministry intern and I took out our iPhones and logged into our Facebook App and we updated our profile, to remind people about the dinner and we even went into the chat application to see who was on line on Facebook… I noticed a couple of international students that said they were planning on coming and some that said they wouldn’t. I invited them and one couple from Iran ended up coming with several of their friends. It was cool… and still, as I shared before, we handed out over 200 tickets for food… Wow!

Another God thing was we were concerned that we would not get enough pictures about the event to share with students and to use for next year. As late as last weekend we didn’t have anyone to do this important job. Just a couple of days ago, God got us in contact with two of our church’s photographers and Benji & Don, two professional level photographers were available and took some great pictures. I will post these as soon as I get the pictures from them. I know the students will be blessed by seeing themselves and their friends online and the students next year will be blessed to see what to expect so they may want to come.

The tables were awesome too. We put up some butcher block table on each table with crayons so students could “express” themselves and there were some great pictures, comments, etc. It was great. You should see some of the things that the students and families wrote. In addition, each host family was allowed to decorate “their” table and the way the tables looked ran the gamut. It was cools seeing peoples creativity.

It was also great to see many of our teenage kids working so hard to help… Most of them made themselves available to serve drinks and desserts to every person there. They were working hard… I was so proud of them. Further, the younger kids were just great playing together.

In summary… Thanks also to all who provided food, stayed and helped, the young servers and most definitely the table hosts. Thanks to the BSM for hosting it in their building. Thanks to George Anna for leading the kitchen team, the McMuray’s for leading the floor team. The three classes for supporting this in prayer. Thanks to Benji & Don. Thanks so much to Crissy for organizing it all. Finally, it was clear… God was the one that made it all work. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you Lord!

Tags: Dinner, Fielder Road Baptist Church, Party, Thanksgiving, UTA

One thing we have learned about international student ministry over the years is that it really is a team effort. We have some wonderful volunteers who contribute to our Friday night dinners and Bible studies. RutheAnn Aldridge, for example, is indispensible. She comes to all the planning meetings and prepares the meal for about 30 students and volunteers once a month. She helps with rides from the university to our house every Friday, and is involved with leading discussion groups and Bible studies on a regular basis.

We also have two wonderful families in our Sunday School class at Fielder Road who have taken on occasional hosting of the UTA Friday night group. Rob and Sunday Phillips live just minutes from UTA. They are a somewhat international family with Sunday being from the Philippines. She also works in the library at UTA. They have 3 daughters who love to mingle with the students and create a warm and inviting atmosphere. The other couple is Al and Sherry Johnson. They recently updated their game room and were excited to open their home to international students last month for the first time. Everyone enjoyed their comfortable home and warm hospitality.

Tags: people, UTA, volunteers

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

I have taken some time to allow what happened this weekend to sink in. The party went very well and we could really see God’s hands throughout as He made it work. One statement that remains, and it was evident on Saturday, by Gary, the BSM director, is that for many of the students, their first Big Howdy stands out as the highlight of their time in the US. They never felt as accepted or appreciated as at that moment. Wow… That is both an testimony as the power of the Howdy to touch students hearts and allow them to smell the aroma of Christ but also a indictment on how far we still have  to go in continuing to touch their lives with the love of Christ afterwords.

The set up team, made up of mainly college students from the BSM and Lake Arlington Baptist church came 2 hours early and did a tremendous job of setting up the place to help the students celebrate. I’ve never seen college students work so hard. It was a REAL testimony.

The food came in late and there were some nervous moments as the time for the party to start came and all we had was fruit and one casserole. It reminded us of the fish and the loaves that the Disciples knew something about. With some tight muscles, we chose to trust and God seemed to bring just the right food at the right time. Even our Gnocci crew had a problem and came late… but that was perfect timing. If they came on time with what they planned on bringing, I believe it would have been gone much sooner and so the people who came late would not have had anything… God knows what He is doing.

The registration was brisk and yet we got all kinds of information from the students. The tables with all the different Christian orgainizations on campus had brisk traffic throughout and the serving lines were wonderfully staffed by an amazing army of volunteer from I don’t know how many churches. We had one Japanese American man come all the way from California (visiting his friends here) to make a stir fry dish for the students. Wow! Between Pizza boxes, there were home made pasta, Chinese dishes, rice, curry, you name it. Many student even contributed much. Further, since many of the students are vegetarian, there were tall signs carried by beautiful volunteers (Lisa included) indicating which foods were “green” and which ones had meat.

After lots of food and talk… Line dancing and Indian dancing commenced. Two days before the party we found out there was a mix up on dates with our usual, line dance instructor and so we were hard pressed. We sent out a request to the rest of our team and the UTD team shared the older lady to teaches their kids… Again God intervenes… It was a blast. She did a tremendous job. It was wonderful too, to see, some of our retired volunteers doing western line dancing with the “hip” young indians and chinese and others on the dance floor.

Finally, the students were allowed to let loose a little when we allowed them to control the DJ. It was good to see them release some of the stress that had built up in the last month in moving to America in a clean way. To many that was a testimony of grace and hopefully, it broke down some misconceptions about Christians that could lead to other opportunities to share Christ’s love in other ways in the future.

All in all. It was a wonderful evening. We also got over 130 sign ups for the next event, the Tour of Arlington, September 1. Please pray for this. We are very short on drivers to take students around Arlington, Fort Worth to see things in the area. It is probably the time when we get closest to the students of all the Big Howdy events.

Thanks ALL of you who were praying so fervently. It made a difference.

Check out more pics from all Big Howdy Events!

Tags: Awesome, Big Howdy, Party, UTA, volunteers