The Importance of Reaching International Students:
Many of us who grew up regularly attending church probably have heard over and over again how we need to go to the ends of the earth to share our faith in Jesus with those who have not heard. But when I went to West Texas A&M University, I came to realize that the world also has come here to the United States to study. I still support those who go overseas as missionaries, but with over 580,000 international students in the U.S., we cannot afford not to reach out to them. (Source: Institute of International Education’s opendoors 2007 Fast Facts) India, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, Nepal, Indonesia, Vietnam and Japan all are in the top 20 sending countries and are all non-Christian societies. This year alone there are over 7800 Saudi Arabian students here in the U.S. (Source: Institute of International Education’s opendoors 2007 Fast Facts) Christians in the U.S. have open access to over 7800 students from a country that does not allow missionaries into their country. I pray that we will take advantage of this opportunity that the Lord has given us.

Practical Advice on how to Reach out to International Students:

Most international students stay here in the U.S. during Christmas break. I believe that we as Christians can make a huge impact among the international student population during the Christmas season. How do we do this, though? The simplest way is just to invite an international student over to your house during the Christmas break. This could be just sharing a meal one evening or the whole Christmas break. Many international students do not have a good impression of Americans or American Christians to say the least. This would help change this.

If you are a college student yourself, then you more than likely know some international students or know some places to find some. My advice would be to make friends with them and then invite them to your house or to your parent’s house (with their permission of course) for the Christmas holidays.

If you are not a college student, than there are several ways you can go to find out how to host internationals from a university close to you. I would first look at places like Baptist Student Ministries (BSM/BCM/BSU), the Wesley Foundation, Campus Crusade for Christ, Intervarsity, along with other ministries on College Campuses. The second place to look would be international student organizations on campus. If both of these places lead to a dead end, than you can call the administration office of the university and see if they can help you at all.

When you have an international student over, you need to realize that he or she will be from a different country and different culture than you are from. If you invite someone from India or Nepal, more than likely they will be Hindu and you need to recognize that they will not eat beef. So don’t offend them by cooking a roast or steaks for dinner. At the same time, someone from Indonesia or Saudi Arabia would probably be a Muslim and would not eat pork. Do some research on their country, culture and religious beliefs so that you will be prepared to know how to treat them courteously.

There are some really good tools out there for you to use, but there is not enough room for me to share them all. So if you would like to know some of these tools or have any questions than email me at jeremyryanbutler@yahoo.com

A Personal Story

Let me introduce you to Ken and show you how this works. Ken is from Taiwan and I met him at University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) at the BSM. The BSM there has an international night for international students each Thursday night. This is something that churches might want to look at doing if there is not a campus ministry doing it on a campus already.

I was an intern at a church within the college department while at seminary. Ken is from Taiwan and grew up in a household that was Buddhist, but I would say that maybe Buddhist by name only. I started bringing him to church with me on Thursday nights for the college night. I shared my faith with him on several occasions, but it wasn’t until one of my other friends, Luke, talked to him that Ken decided he wanted to be a Christian. Luke and I discipled Ken throughout the semester. During Thanksgiving he went with me to my parent’s house and we were all able to disciple him there also. His whole idea of what Christians and Christianity was totally changed because of this. So please do the same with other international students so that they can be introduced to Jesus.