Cowboy Games, Cowboy Camping, Rangers Games, NASA Space Weekends & Mavericks Games: ISI Ministry? Stephenville Campout & Family Updage
C News, ISI Dallas/Fort Worth, ISI UTA, J News, KidsNews, LisaNews, RoyNews, T News(See Pictures) One of the special things about living in the Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) area is the diversity of unique things to do nearby. God has been creating opportunities for Roy & the ISI team to use these events to find people of peace and build or identify existing communities in our groups.
We live in a sports saturated area where one can see world class sports all the time that students want to see. It becomes an opportunity to connect with students. First, he finds a way to get bulk tickets cheaply. When a student can pay only $9-10 for a ticket that would normally be $50-60, that is a big draw!
Recently he took a group of 40 to a Cowboys pre-season game at our world-famous stadium here in Arlington (see picture below). He had to explain North American football to the students. When many of them hear the term “football,” they think of soccer. But the internet helped greatly in finding material.
Over the course of the last month Roy and the ISI team took 100’s of students to a Texas ranch to camp and to Houston to visit NASA and stay with host families. We grouped the students to encourage existing communities (many identified through our sports outings) to grow even stronger with a Christian host and conversation often turned to Spiritual things with the whole community.
A couple weeks ago, he accompanied one of our volunteers, Rich, with a group of Korean students to the Ballpark to see the Texas Rangers. They were still contenders for the World Series. One of the big draws for the Koreans was seeing Japanese pitcher Yu Darvish but unfortunately he was injured and did not pitch.
Next week, Roy will be taking yet another group to see a Dallas Mavericks game against Jeremy Lin and the Houston Rockets at the American Airlines Center in downtown Dallas. Already 37 signed up as we take a train to the game.
While all of these events are fun, they also serve the bigger Kingdom purpose of building relationships and seeing who is open to hearing about the Good News of Jesus Christ so we can share with them what they are ready to hear. To the others we remain wonderful friends. It’s amazing to see how much community progressively develops as people go to each event and see Jesus lived out by believers. It would be ideal to take these communities and look for opportunities to start M:28 Bible Study groups to help the students discover the God that they see already. +
Stephenville Campout
(see Pictures) On Saturday, September 15, we (Roy, Jonathan & Charis) were off to Stephenville, TX with around 120 people including 50+ UTA students and others from TCU, UT Austin, DTS, SMU, Collin College, and Richland College. The students were exposed to life on a ranch including camping in tents, eating out, skeet shooting, chasing cattle, sitting on a horse, and being part of a prairie church.
Many people prayed for the following:
- Safety in the transportation involving many vehicles
- No rain during the most important parts (there was a 30% chance).
- Good connections with students such that we could identify people of peace.
- Great conversations and Spirit-led discovery during the many M:28 discovery Bible studies that would take place in the various camp “patrols.”
God answered the prayers for safety and kept the rain at bay during the day Saturday. It did rain Saturday night, resulting in some campers having to improvise around their leaky tents, but all in all students saw it as a fun adventure. Roy enjoyed connecting with the students from Great Britain and Saudi Arabia who were in his patrol. He is hoping to build on these relationships more as the school year progresses with the result of M:28 Bible Studies starting among them.
This fall we have been settling into school routines that are busier than ever with one kid each in high school, junior high, and elementary school! In addition, Roy and Lisa are taking a marriage enrichment class at church on Wednesday nights. Here are some highlights of what’s been going on recently:
Roy is happy that his hard work on the M:28 Bible Study & discipleship initiative is maturing and producing fruit around the world, and version 1.0 is finally off to the publishers.
Lisa is still teaching ESL at Dallas Baptist University, and recently accompanied her students on a retreat to Glenrose, TX, where they were able to see a live musical production of the life of Christ called “The Promise.”
Jonathan is getting off to a good start on his junior year of high school. We recently attended a college fair with him where he expressed some serious interest in UT Austin. Hmm…
Timothy is thriving as a new junior higher and has joined the robotics team at his school, where he is learning a lot about programming.
Charis is working hard on learning her times tables in 4th grade. She also loves PE and is one of the fastest runners in her class. Later this fall she plans to play a second season of girls volleyball through the YMCA.
