Text of March Newsletter

What is needed

Though I have worked with American

students in America and East Asian students abroad,

I have been learning this year what an international

student needs is not the same. While at West

Chester and abroad, I would focus my time ensuring

that the men I worked with loved the gospel and

had experience doing ministry. I felt that if I gave

students those two goals, they would be prepared

for a lifetime of ministry. My experiences this year

have shown me that international students need a

third. I need to show them how important it is to be

plugged into a local church.

While at West Chester, I would require that

students leaders were part of a church, but here I

need to model to international students to serve

and love their local church. This point has been

drilled home to me by Stuart, a fellow worker with

international students in Philadelphia. He is starting

work on his seminary doctoral thesis tracking the

spiritual well being of East Asian Christians who

return home after college. After seeing so much

data and anecdotal evidence, he longs to understand

why so many new Christians do not find a church

home when they return back to East Asia.

If is for this reason, I have decided to do

most of my work this year in conjunction with two

local Chinese churches. At one church, I teach

English and a Bible study a couple times every

month.

The English class, which for many people is

what brings them in the door, has been interesting.

Many students have a hard time with all the idioms

we constantly use. (Listen to yourself talk for the

next hour and see how many phrases you use that

aren’t in a dictionary; like sports metaphors). The

Bible study time is the highlight of my schedule.

Most of the dozen or so members are non-

Christians and I really enjoy hearing what they love

and are offended by as they hear the gospel.

At the other Chinese church, I recently

returned from a weekend retreat that taught what

the Bible says about marriage. For the Christian and

non-Christian students, this was new material for

many of them. After the retreat, the pastor

requested that we meet. He asked what my goals on

campus were and I shared how I would love to see

the Christian men of the church trained and

motivated to find ways to share the gospel on

campus. He then grabbed the church directory and

gave me some men who he thought would benefit

the most from this. He then asked if I would like to

come to his church some Sunday to lead evangelism

training during the Sunday school time.

At home Alex still has bad eczema and is an

awful napper. When the itching is not bothering him

too bad, he is pleasant and smiles a lot. Lilia loves

being a big sister and making her brother laugh. We

are ready for winter to be over so we can take the

kids outside and enjoy the city.

Dave and Katie Brindley

5005 Chestnut Street

Philadelphia, PA 19139

e: dave.brindley@uscm.org

c: 215-407-7182

giving online: give.ccci.org

Prayer Requests:

1)For Alex as he struggles with eczema, that he

would be healed. The poor guy is so itchy.

2)That many students would accept my challenge

to join me this summer in Boston for a two week

mission trip.

3)For the emails just sent out to new faculty at

Penn inviting them to the Christian faculty lunch.

Many of those receiving that email come from to

Penn from abroad.