Friendship Families
Your family can tell the nations about Jesus without leaving your own hometown!
By becoming a friendship family for an international student you will step inside an international world without even crossing the ocean.
It’s easier than you think: Being a friendship family is as simple as being a friend. International student ministry is all about relationships! It’s providing kindness, support and fellowship to an international college student who is far from home. It’s as easy as providing a ride to the grocery store, helping your student make a dentist appointment or find a place to get a haircut. It’s inviting them into your home for dinner and for holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. It’s including them in family outings to the zoo or the park. It’s helping them to practice speaking English, teaching them about American culture, and showing and sharing your Christian faith through conversation. It’s asking God to help you reach out with love and compassion in friendship.
By becoming a friendship family for an international student you will step inside an international world without even crossing the ocean.
It’s easier than you think: Being a friendship family is as simple as being a friend. International student ministry is all about relationships! It’s providing kindness, support and fellowship to an international college student who is far from home. It’s as easy as providing a ride to the grocery store, helping your student make a dentist appointment or find a place to get a haircut. It’s inviting them into your home for dinner and for holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. It’s including them in family outings to the zoo or the park. It’s helping them to practice speaking English, teaching them about American culture, and showing and sharing your Christian faith through conversation. It’s asking God to help you reach out with love and compassion in friendship.
It's what we are called to: Jesus’ final admonition before his ascension was for us to go and “make disciples of all nations.” (Matthew 28:19). By offering friendship to an international student, your family can be fulfilling this calling right in your own home. God also specifically calls us to love those who are strangers in a strange land.
“You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” Leviticus 19:34
It will bless your family: Friendship with an international student will not benefit only the student. It will be a blessing to your family. It will expand your family’s horizons, teaching family members about different cultures and helping them see the world from a different viewpoint.
“You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” Leviticus 19:34
It will bless your family: Friendship with an international student will not benefit only the student. It will be a blessing to your family. It will expand your family’s horizons, teaching family members about different cultures and helping them see the world from a different viewpoint.
GETTING STARTED
Each university organizes friendship or host families in different ways. Search online for the nearest university and add “office international students”. Browse to see whether they mention a “friendship program” or “hospitality program”. Call them, or fill out any application. If they do not mention such a program, call the phone number for the university’s office for international students and scholars. Tell them, “I have heard that some universities look for families in the community to be a friend to international students during their time in the U.S. My family would like to be a friend to one or two international students (some students feel more comfortable in pairs).
Each university organizes friendship or host families in different ways. Search online for the nearest university and add “office international students”. Browse to see whether they mention a “friendship program” or “hospitality program”. Call them, or fill out any application. If they do not mention such a program, call the phone number for the university’s office for international students and scholars. Tell them, “I have heard that some universities look for families in the community to be a friend to international students during their time in the U.S. My family would like to be a friend to one or two international students (some students feel more comfortable in pairs).
This brochure shares some helpful ideas on Getting Started with International Friendships.
You may also write to [email protected] We will give you a call to help you get started.
International students come from cultures with different expectations about relating to people of the opposite sex. Read more about helping international students feel comfortable here.
Join our Friendship Family Google Group to receive ideas about growing as a friendship family and join zoom calls to learn from others.