The Big Howdy

We are off to another rewarding semester. I have the privilege of working with all the other Christian organizations at UTA on a welcome party for international students called the Big Howdy. In addition to the welcome party. We meet the needs of the international students in several other ways. We begin with rides from the airport as the students arrive. We follow that with trips to Wal-Mart during the week before school starts for the students to get the essentials for their apartments. Our next event is a used item sale where we sell donated furniture to the students for rock-bottom prices (the money goes to buying food for the welcome party) and deliver it to their apartments.

Delivering furniture to these Indian students' apartment

Finally, we have the Big Howdy Party. We had over 700 people attend the welcome party this semester. At the Big Howdy Party, volunteers serve dinner and interact with all the international students, followed by a chance to learn a country line dance, and we finish the night off with a lot of Indian music, which the students absolutely love. They dance the night away.

Some volunteers from The Paradox Church learning some Indian dance moves

I meet many new students at orientation, and the Big Howdy Party is a great second point of connection for me to establish the relationships a little deeper. This semester, I met new students from Bangladesh, India, Iran, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. I'm looking forward to the opportunities to share Jesus with these new friends from around the world.

For more information about the Big Howdy party, go to utabighowdy.com.

Persian Birthday Party

I was invited to a birthday party of one of my Persian friends'. This is always an exciting step, when they begin initiating and inviting you into their circle of friends and into their community. When I arrived at 10:00pm (yes, they are definitely university students), I heard the Persian music blaring from outside of the house, and was welcomed into the house by meeting at least a dozen Persian students that I hadn't met before. There were an additional dozen or so that I had met before. They were so excited that I had come! They felt honored that I was willing to spend my time at their party. They had some entertaining traditions (some Persian and some that this group has developed on their own, including smearing cake in the face of the birthday boys). It was really a great time getting to interact with these students outside of the school atmosphere, playing foosball with them, and getting to deepen these relationships.

Game Night

Jenny and I have loved having students over to our house every other week to host a game night. We have played games like Phase 10 and Poker, like I mentioned before, but we have also played Uno, Power Uno, Guesstures, Yahtzee, and had a Halloween themed night where we carved pumpkins and made S'mores. It has been a joy to invite these international students into our home to share a little hospitality with them and enjoy some fun together.

New Semester and New Activity

The Fall semester has begun, and with it, Jenny and I started a new activity: we are hosting a game night for international students at our house in Fort Worth. We are doing it every other week, and we are going to teach them a new game every time we get together. So far, we've taught them Phase 10 and Texas Hold 'Em Poker. We've had 6 Iranians and 2 Pakistanis come. This is going to be a fun activity with the students and a good tool to get together with them to deepen relationships, and we hope it will be a springboard to meeting one-on-one with them.

Ready to go Deeper

"The Big Howdy" party was a big success. There were many international students from all over the world. I got to interact with a large group of Iranians because I met one of them at orientation a couple of weeks ago. I am excited about the relational possibilities within this social circle. I was able to use my Farsi greeting, and they were very surprised and impressed. I also met a student from Palestine, who seemed very outgoing and interested in relationship. The possibilities here are very exciting, and I am looking forward to delving into deep relationship in order to talk about my beliefs about God, the Bible, and Jesus, and plant the seeds of relationship with God into their minds.

Everything is new

This has been an exciting new beginning at UTA. Classes at UTA began this past Tuesday, January 18. So far, I have met a guy from Iran, a couple from Bangladesh, and several Turks. There is a lot of potential in these relationships.
The other thing that I am excited about is collaborating with other ministries on campus. There will be an event called "The Big Howdy" (I love Texas) tomorrow night that is a product of the collaboration of the different groups working with international students at UTA. We will be welcoming the new students that have arrived on campus this Spring semester. We are expecting over 200 students to attend.

Fall Orientation

This week is orientation for the international students. I was able to meet a student from a central Asian country on Monday, and it was exciting to make a new connection. It is interesting how secular he is, and he seems to think that everyone from his country is equally secular. He and his wife got married at the same age that Jenny and I got married, and I hope that might be an area of common ground that we can begin relating around. His wife is still in their home country, and they've been apart for 2 months now. She hopes to come to the U.S. soon. What an adjustment to make! He is in a new country without his wife and child.