Increasing Diversity
Thank you for your continued flexibility and willingness to serve international students during this time of COVID! We have seen a dramatic increase in the number of countries that are engaging with IFI this fall. In the past, 90% of our activity has been with Chinese students. This year, the primary country is India, with multiple predominantly Muslim countries also engaging in activities.
For Thanksgiving last month, we served 19 students. The students came from Taiwan, India, Myanmar, Benin, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Cameroon, Hong Kong, China and Iran. It was great to see several student volunteers host, as well as some of our newest young campus staff members cook turkeys and host for the first time.
In mid November, we also hosted an event for the Indian Holi festival of lights that had almost 80 people participate.
This festival is steeped in Hindu mythology with demi-gods acting upon each other. However, we were blessed to have several former Hindu believers guide our event planning team in creating an event that started with various cultural aspects of Hinduism, Jainism and Sikhism, but led to the revelation of Jesus as the light that shines in the darkness and overcomes the evil in the world and inside us. Because of last minute spikes in covid activity and new restrictions from the OSU president, we had to change the event from 8 small in person gatherings to an online virtual event. Fortunately, the restaurant that was providing the food was able to change our order and provide us with 80 individually packaged servings! The last minute change created some logistical chaos as we tried to deliver 80 meals to the various students.
Through prayer and patience, the meals were all delivered. We had students participate who were from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iraq and a few Chinese students as well. The virtual zoom parties went really well, with virtual charades, Kahoot trivia games, and videos sharing students favorite aspects of the holiday. We then had breakout sessions led by volunteers to discuss their favorite memories of the holiday and also to share the gospel as revealed in the holiday. Though our attendance online was less than half of the participants from last year, we had much more followup interest in joining our Bible study groups to learn more about Jesus! Another highlight was ending the event with videos of fireworks displays over several famous cities in India. Please pray for our Hindu outreach team as they continue to have twice a month Bible discussions going through the book of John.
(Here is a photo of Phil Foell, IFI Columbus City Director, serving as the IT host and tech wizard for the event.)
