Ben and Kristy Blog

International Games Parties

Much thanks to those of you have been praying since fall semester for the launching of a new ministry to help Ukrainian Christian youth reach out to some of the thousands of foreign, study abroad students in our city. They are mostly Muslim students from Morocco, and there are a few Chinese guys as well with whom our group has connected. It all started with a visit to their USL classroom (Ukrainian as a Second Language), which our language tutor is a big part of organizing. From there, Ben just kept inviting them to soccer every week, and word spreads fast. We’ve seen at least 20 different international students come out to soccer over the past few months. They have their regulars, and relationships are slowly forming.

Through Christmas we’d been praying for some kind of break through to connect deeper, regardless of language barriers. Our church joined us in praying, and since then, we’ve had two Wii/Playstation games parties, visited their classroom again, and have had multiple visits to their dorms, which may be the better place to hang out, since there are international student pods there. The students’ Ukrainian is improving, too! I was most impressed by a deep discussion about the Koran v. the Bible, which Syava and one guy had. Please pray for the development of this ministry. We believe that spring has some new things in store, and may they taste and see that Our Lord is good and that only the God of the Bible is worthy of following.