While numerous students across Alabama campuses spend summers and spring breaks serving on international missions trips, many have found that they can serve the nations right at home on their college campuses. With the rising number of international students traveling to the United States for collegiate education, campus ministries and college students are now able to minister to students from around the world.
Baptist Campus Ministries (BCM) on campuses across Alabama and other ministry groups have had the opportunity to work with international students and build relationships with them. BCM also provides a place where international students can meet other students, find friends, work on language acquisition skills, learn about American culture and hear the gospel.
Several BCMs participate in conversation cafés, where American students meet with international students to work on their conversation skills and help them practice English.
Brad Bensinger, BCM campus minister at Troy University, explained that he encourages BCM students to get connected with the conversation partners program affiliated with their university. Conversation clubs and cafés give students the chance to help internationals in an extremely practical manner while building relationships with the hope of being able to share the gospel.
BCMs also have been able to serve international students by partnering with other campus organizations. For example, Auburn University’s BCM provides a meeting place for the Auburn Chinese Christian Fellowship. This organization, with more than 100 members, meets at the Auburn BCM center to fellowship, study the Bible and worship. The BCM also has been able to open its doors to several other international student organizations.
Some students have been working through other creative ways to reach international students on their campuses. Lauren Haley, a student at the University of Montevallo, hopes to be able to host an international food event at the campus BCM in the future. She envisions international students coming to the BCM center to cook various cuisines from their countries and hopes that, while cooking, they can interact with each other and build relationships.
Several BCMs also are equipping local families and churches to partner with them in their ministry to international students. One program at Troy University encourages families to invite three international students and one American student into their homes for dinner and game nights.
Anna Kathryn Carter, a student at Troy University, said it is a good idea for families to invite international students into their homes around the holiday season, because many cannot travel home to be with their families. Carter shared that having international students spend time with her family back home for Christmas break was a great opportunity to share the gospel with them and the meaning behind the holiday season.
Ministry to international students has been a statewide focus in recent days. In October, the Alabama Baptist State Convention and Woman’s Missionary Union hosted an event at WorldSong Missions Place called the International Friends Retreat. The retreat’s goal was to develop relationships with international college students through various teaching times and activities.
More than 100 American and international students participated, representing nine schools across Alabama. There also were several gospel presentations.
Haley and others said they trust God planted seeds and that He will use others to follow up with the gospel presentations made throughout the weekend.
The focus, however, was not just on large group sessions or presentations. Many of the activities on the retreat, which included zip-lining, canoeing and hiking, were low pressure and meant to start conversations and help people make connections.
Shannon Hughes, BCM campus minister at Auburn University, said, “It was those conversations waiting for the zip-line or at the bonfire where international students roasted marshmallows for the first time where the really important ministry happened. That was what the weekend was really all about.”
Ministry to internationals across the state doesn’t stop with events; the focus of international ministry is building relationships and living life day-to-day with students from other cultures, with hopes of making Christ known.
“The way of reaching out to internationals is a lifestyle — going where they are, eating their food, speaking their language,” Carter said.
Bensinger expressed a desire that, as students build relationships and engage with those from other cultures, they would be reminded of God’s good creation and God would continue to put students in positions “where they can experience and see the world … to experience these other cultures and to know that God created us and desires a relationship with all of us, regardless of our backgrounds.”
BCMs continue to encourage students to mobilize and reach out to those around them, both Americans and internationals — and God has brought the ends of the earth to campuses throughout the state and is opening doors for students to minister to the nations for His glory.
As Haley said, “[Y]ou start in your neighborhood, because Christ said to love your neighbor as yourself. We start in our Jerusalem.”
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