Bridges International Dinners

We prayed hard and worked hard to pull this event off and God blessed us with around 40 students who stayed for dinner. At our second International Dinner event, however, we only had 7 students show up. Some factors for this drop in numbers include a change in venue (the first event was on campus and the second one was at a church nearby), and that there were other events happening on campus that night including a free concert.

After much consideration and prayer we have stopped beating ourselves up about the drop in numbers and are committed to continuing on with this event, tweaking where needed, and trusting God to show us how He wants to use us and this event, even if that means discontinuing it.

Gloria and I are going through the book "Counterfeit Gods" by Timothy Keller (highly recommend) with our church small group right now and that has been really helpful in knowing how to respond to things like this in ministry. Instead of allowing the sneaky idol of ministry success to creep in, our team is holding loosely to our own plans and approaching the King with open hands and ready hearts to do His will despite our desires.

All that being said, we are praying for this event to continue if it is God's will, and we invite you to pray over this with us. We see the strategic implications of an event like this and look forward to doing the work of crafting it into an amazing tool for ministry.

Here are some more photos of this event.

These events are great ways to introduce international students to a community of believers so we can have better, future opportunities to hear their stories and share with them the good news of Jesus Christ. Please pray for these events and the people who work hard to put them on.