I can’t believe Thanksgiving is almost upon us already. It still feel like we just came out of summer. God has been good and there are so many things to be thankful for.

This was a good week of ministry though it started off interestingly. Charis was home sick for much of last week and I cared for her while working at home. It was a good time together and I did catch a little of what she had. Still, God still worked in special ways this week. It seems like students are interested in walking toward Jesus.

Praise

• Praise God for a wonderful time with Charis while ill.
• Praise God for a wonderful Friday night gathering. We were supposed to meet at Ruthe Ann’s but as you know she was injured in an accident so we met at our house. It was a nice sized group and good conversations were happening all over. the other wonderful blessing was that Ruthe Ann, who you all prayed for, was able to be there and even lead the students in singing music. Praise God.
• Several of the North Texas Staff including Roy, Derrah, Ray, Jeff, Laurie and Hannah led volunteers from Dallas county in both level 1 and level 2 M:28 training. For some of the staff, it was their first time in their teaching roles. They did a good job. People said they were so thankful to have a structure to build their ministry on now. It was exciting to see. It is our desire to eventually have all our staff be able to do this type of training at a high level.
• On Saturday evening. Fielder Church worked together with us and the BSM to host a Thanksgiving feast for international students (see pictures) . God used Liz McMurry to do a bang up job of organizing the dinner (members of several small groups from our church brought all the food), organizing the entertainment and sharing and making sure that the students were truly hosted by the American families present. I know good conversations and connections happened. I was talking with a student, Rahad from North Africa who shared some very significant stuff that seemed to indicate that God is becoming more important in his life.
• God has been doing some good transformative stuff in our marriage and in each of us through our church of late. God is good.

Pray for “Access ministry” (see chart above)

• To find out where God is already working, you need to broadcast Jesus so people can respond. This is access ministry.
• The purpose of this step is to allow people of peace (POP) to reveal themselves to you and to provide opportunities for international students to experience the love of Christ in action.
• We sometimes describe “Access ministry” as “Making noise for Jesus and then leaving breadcrumbs so that people of peace (people who God is already working in or who have interest) can find you later on”
• In what we do, it can take the form of Airport pickups, furniture giveaways, conversational English, host families, home groups, trips, etc. It is just basically blessing students and not being afraid of giving Jesus the credit.