Groundbreaking!

On September 21, 2016, For the Nations Refugee Outreach had a Groundbreaking celebration to start the construction of a refugee community center. This facility will function as a school, church, and physical presence in the community, and will allow For the Nations to accommodate twice as many refugees so that more people can receive help and hear the good news found in Jesus Christ! Although I was unable to attend the ceremony, it's exciting to see how God is answering prayers through the progress of this project.

"This building is dedicated to everyone forced to leave their homes. To all who have run for their lives. To everyone who has experienced war, trauma, hunger, and pain. To those who are looking for a home. To refugees. Despite hardship, you are the most determined, willing, & hopeful group of people we could ever know. You are brave, kind, hospitable. You add character and depth to our country, and we are better because of you. This building is dedicated to you and to all those who will come after you. And in this place, we will welcome those who are far away from their homes. For those looking for an education, we will teach and for those seeking friendship, we will show love. For anyone far from their family, we will become a family. This place will be a symbol of hope for a bright future through education and an understanding of the American culture. But most importantly, this building will be a place where the true hope found in Jesus Christ can be proclaimed, and where the Message of life in a world of death can be shared to all nations. It's with this Hope and Good News that we dedicate this place to you! For you. For the Nations." (taken from the FTNRO Facebook page)

Fall News Update

It has been such a long time since I've written about what's been going on at For the Nations since classes started back up at the beginning of September! But so much HAS been happening here, and I'll try to summarize some of the highlights:

1) Back-to-school event - Just before school started back up in August, my mom and sister joined me, along with some youth from our church, for this event for kids and their parents. We had games, crafts, a Bible story, and passed out backpacks with school supplies to refugee children at their apartment complex.

2) ESL classes - Last spring, I spent one day a week at For the Nations, but this year I'm thankful that my schedule allows me to be there for all four afternoons each week of English classes so I can assist Htwa Meh (my deaf friend whom I wrote about in a previous post) and others more consistently. In addition to serving as the TA for Level 2, I've also enjoyed getting teaching experience with a variety of levels as a substitute teacher for other classes.

3) Kids Club - Kids Club continues to be my favorite weekly activity! On Tuesday evenings at an apartment complex with refugees mostly from Burma, I get to supervise the cute little kindergarteners and first-graders as they work on their spelling lists, math, and reading. All the kids, including the older ones, really get excited about the Bible story time. I remember one time when the Bible teacher said something about all of us needing Jesus to take care of our sin problem, one little girl exclaimed, "Yeah! We don't just want Jesus, we really REALLY need Him, a LOT!" Praise God for these young ones voicing the truth. :)

Our Thursday evening Kids Club has grown to almost twice as many kids as last year, which is exciting! And it's been so fun to have two former refugee Kids-Clubbers, who are now believers full of joy and energy, come back as volunteer tutors to invest in the children! Thank God for these dear young ladies. Please continue to pray for many of the kids to understand that Jesus isn't just for America, or for cultural Christians, but also for all the tribes and cultures of Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Ethiopia, and Congo (I'm sure I've forgotten someone's country haha! But you get the point. :)

4) The Legacy Project - We have grown so much that the church buildings we rent as classrooms are simply not big enough to accommodate the number of refugees that want to enroll in English & citizenship classes. While it is exciting to see God bringing so many to a place where they will encounter the Gospel, I wish we didn't have to turn people away. But Lord willing, in about a year For the Nations will have completed construction on a refugee community center, which will give us a physical presence in the community and allow for twice the number of refugees we currently serve. I'll include some photos of the recent Groundbreaking ceremony in another post. For more info about the Legacy Project, check out this link.

Finally, one of the most exciting developments this fall (at least for me personally!), is that I have been asked to join For the Nations as a full-time staff member! Lord willing, I will begin as Assistant Director of Child & Youth Services this coming January. I really appreciate your prayers as I seek God's wisdom and raise a financial/prayer support team. But more about that in an upcoming post. ;)

Recent Changes to Refugee Resettlement in Texas

Here's an article that explains Texas governor Greg Abbott's announcement that Texas will no longer coordinate with federal refugee resettlement. Refugees will, in fact, still be resettled in Texas, but will now be administrated by nonprofit organizations (like For the Nations) instead of state agencies. Personally, I think this can be a good thing, but these organizations need prayer in this adjustment.

State of Texas won't resettle refugees, but nonprofits will continue to help

Summer Kids' Reading Program 2016

An awesome summer with these awesome kids!!! So many stories with each of these photos and each of these children...

(Photo credits: Maryellen Smith & For the Nations)

(Music credits: Steve Pettit Evangelistic Team)

"Jesus said, 'Let the little children come to Me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.'" Matthew 19:14

Graduation Day -- May 2016

What a special day of honoring the accomplishments of the adult students, who all worked so hard this year in their English, GED, and citizenship classes. Thanks for joining the fun, Mom! So much food from so many countries. Another highlight was getting to hear an Iranian refugee share his powerful testimony in English & Farsi! So thankful for Cameron & Kaitlyn and their vision and tireless efforts for this outreach. Because "learning English is good, but learning about Jesus is much, much better."

"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations..." Matthew 28:19a

Building Bridges with Burmese Friends

This was the last week of classes for the year at For the Nations. Though I'm sad that I won't see many of my international friends and students for a while, it's a blessing to look back over this semester at all they have learned, as well as all they have taught me. Since we will be celebrating their accomplishments at the FTNRO graduation ceremony tomorrow and I still haven't written about my adult ESL class, I'd like to share about a few of the students who have impacted me the most.

In my Level 1 adult ESL class, I typically sit between whichever two students need the most assistance and guide them through the lesson at their own pace, while the teacher instructs the rest of the class. This is Htwa Meh (right). She is from Myanmar (Burma), a country in Southeast Asia where minority ethnic groups, such as the Karenni, suffer from internal ethnic conflicts. Several of the students in my class, including Htwa Meh, are Karenni, and most have no background in English. Htwa Meh came to America about three years ago, but this was her first year to enroll in English classes here at FTNRO. What is most remarkable about Htwa Meh's success in English this year is the fact that she is deaf. That's right, she's trying to learn a written language for the first time, with unique phonetics that she can't even hear, at the pace of a roomful of hearing students! So back in February when I was asked to sit with her each Thursday during class, I gulped, prayed, and wondered how to teach a deaf person in a class that includes listening/repeating exercises and pronunciation. But God knew what He was doing. Htwa Meh was determined to learn, and she surprised me with her ability at lip-reading. Even better, one of the teachers had already taught her the American Sign Language alphabet, and because I had taken ASL in my last semester of college, I was able to teach her basic ASL vocabulary to go along with each English lesson. Once she finally realized that ASL is a legitimate language, we started having a lot of fun with it and bonding. She has made incredible progress in both English and ASL, and was one of the fastest learners in the class! Trying to interpret for her during the Bible lessons with our limited vocabulary was a challenge, however. Even though her background is strongly Catholic, I sense that she has very little concept of what is in the Bible. It is my prayer that she will someday be able to watch the Deaf Bible in ASL (www.deafbiblesociety.com) and understand its message of salvation!

Oo Meh (to the left of me) is another Karenni woman from the same ESL class as Htwa Meh. When she started class this year, she knew zero English and was entirely illiterate, even in her own language. She was shy and wanted to blend in with the group, constantly repeating under her breath whatever the teacher said without comprehending the meaning. When I tried to help her with the alphabet, she struggled a lot just learning to hold the pencil and tracing the letter "A." But gradually she began to pronounce simple words and associate them with pictures, and can now even write her name and copy words from the whiteboard! In recent weeks, some students from the Graduate Institute for Applied Linguistics (GIAL) in Dallas have been creating simple vocabulary sheets with pictures and corresponding words in her native language, but written with the Latin (English) alphabet. This provides a bridge between the two languages and gives phonetic meaning to letters on a page. It has helped Oo Meh immensely with adjusting to written language, and as this tool develops it will hopefully be useful for many similar Burmese students in the future. Even in this last week of class, I noticed how much confidence Oo Meh has gained. I'll never forget the smile on her face when she was the first to recognize and call out the "kitchen" flashcard! It has been very eye-opening and humbling to be the “teacher” for this dear woman who has so much she should be teaching me! She inspires me by her perseverance to learn new and hard things at her age.

I didn't know what to expect when I first signed up to help with an ESL class, having little experience and no certifications. But God knew just where He could use me most and teach me most. When I "randomly" decided to take ASL for fun in college, I had no idea I would actually have a use for it a month later. But "we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28).


*To respect the privacy of individuals mentioned in this post, please do not share this information in a public setting or on social media.*

This is the next generation...

One of my biggest highlights of my spring at For the Nations has been Thursday afternoons at Kids' Club, when twelve to fifteen 4- to 12-year-olds come sprinting from the van to greet us. Four or five of us volunteers and staff members help the older kids with their homework assignments and direct the younger ones to work on coloring and activity sheets. As you might imagine, it's an interesting challenge trying to communicate the significance of Texas history names and dates to a bunch of Afghan and Ethiopian refugee kids who can barely pronounce them! But it is always rewarding to watch these scholars make connections once someone has taken the time to explain their social studies or math concepts on an individual level.

When it's time for the Bible lesson, one of the staff shares a short Bible story and reviews the creation-fall-redemption narrative. It always makes me smile to hear these kids (from different religious backgrounds) enthusiastically filling in aspects of the gospel story they have learned this year. Some of them ask excellent and thought-provoking questions. One particularly bright 6th-grader, Hassan, asked just the other week, "Why did Jesus have to be baptized, since he didn't have any sin?" Last week I was able to follow up with him and explain more about Jesus' identity and how He fulfilled everything written about Him. Such an awesome privilege to be able to talk freely with the youth from some of the most "restricted" nations in the world!

The opportunities also come with obstacles. These kids have no problems learning and reciting biblical truths, as they belong to a culture that values religion and even shares the same Bible characters. But one-on-one, they often share things their parents have told them about God and eternity that are simply truth twisted. They love to discuss spiritual things, but it is a challenge to help them understand the personal implications of God's truth.

Pray for these children, that Jesus will reach into their lives and that they will realize their need for a Savior. Pray that they will read the gospel books and watch the Jesus films they received for Easter, and that their families will find salvation in Christ. And please pray for wisdom & boldness for us tutors; next Thursday is our last Kids' Club of the school year. Pray that we'll take advantage of opportunities to share the Truth  with these children through VBS this summer!

*Names changed for privacy reasons. To respect the privacy of individuals mentioned in this post, please do not share this information in a public setting or on social media.*