RICHARDSON—More than 50 years ago, members of First Baptist Church in Richardson decided to make a global impact without leaving home. They committed to befriend internationals in their community and help them learn English.
The International Friends ministry began Nov. 13, 1969, under the direction of Mary Dickson, offering its first English-as-a-Second-Language classes with 11 teachers and 11 students.
In the decades since then, students from more than 75 countries—including some closed to traditional missions outreach—have benefitted from the services International Friends provides.
Through the years, more than 400 volunteers have offered instruction in conversational English, grammar, vocabulary, writing, current events and citizenship.
‘It brought the world to us’
Jo Hamner began working as a volunteer with International Friends soon after the program launched. After taking several years off to concentrate on her work as an elementary school ESL teacher, she returned to International Friends and has continued as a volunteer ever since then.
At age 9, she felt God calling her to missions, and she eventually went to Baylor University with the intention of preparing for missionary service. Hamner’s life took a different turn when she married and raised two children, but the International Friends ministry rekindled her early sense of calling to missions.
“When this started, it brought the world to us,” she said. “I can honestly say it is the thing I have enjoyed most in my Christian walk.”
Some International Friends students are Christians. Others come from Muslim, Buddhist or nonbelieving backgrounds.
“We never proselytize,” Hamner explained. However, when asked why they volunteer their time, teachers freely talk about how their love for God and God’s love for all people motivates them to serve.
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Often, students involved in International Friends are most effective when it comes to sharing their faith with friends and family—both in the Richardson area and in their homelands.
A student at the nearby University of Texas at Dallas became a Christian through her involvement in International Friends. On the day she was baptized at First Baptist Church, several of her family and friends attended the worship service.
When her teacher asked if they also were Christians, the student smiled and said, “Not yet.”
Hamner recalled a student from a predominantly Muslim country in the Middle East who introduced her to her niece when the younger woman expressed an interest in Christianity. The student’s niece accepted Christ as her Lord and Savior, and she was baptized at First Baptist Church in Richardson, where she still is an active member.
The International Friends ministry makes available at no cost a Bible to students—either exclusively in their own language or printed alongside an English version of Scripture.
Charles Lake—who coordinates the Bible distribution—and his wife Joyce began working with International Friends in 2004 after being enlisted by former director Laura Ritchey.
“We were invited by the kind of person that nobody could say ‘no’ to,” he recalled.
Lake keeps careful inventory of Bibles and New Testaments in more than 50 languages. When International Friends was at its pre-pandemic peak, the ministry distributed about 100 copies of Scripture a year, he said.
Adapting to changing circumstances
Starla Willis has been involved with International Friends about two decades and became director in 2020. So, adapting the ministry in response to the COVID-19 pandemic consumed the early part of her tenure as its leader.
“COVID was definitely a challenge for us,” Willis said.
After about five decades of teaching and ministering essentially the same way, International Friends had to shift rapidly to online delivery of lessons, she noted.
After an extended period of online-only instruction, International Friends now offers in-person, online and hybrid classes. The online classes not only serve students in the Dallas area, but also have involved students from as far away as Brazil and China.
“COVID opened doors we didn’t even realize could open,” Willis said.
Ron Evans, missions pastor at First Baptist Church in Richardson, hopes to see additional doors open beyond the weekly International Friends classes at the church facility and even its online outreach.
“ESL is a fantastic tool to take the gospel to the nations,” he said.
Evans sees International Friends—which he calls “a longtime, staple, cornerstone ministry of the church”—as one of many ways the church can fulfill its vision: “to be a people who bring healing and wholeness to our community and beyond as we are being transformed by Jesus.”
Vision continues to expand
This summer, First Baptist Church sent missions team to the Rio Grande Valley to work with Vanessa Lerma, a Texas Baptists’ River Ministry missionary in the area, and area churches. Volunteers led backyard Bible clubs for children and youth and to minister to the children’s parents.
“We can begin to build relationships and earn the right to speak into their lives. At that point, sharing the gospel is a natural part of the conversation,” he said.
In time, Evans hopes First Baptist Church can help churches in the Rio Grande Valley develop ESL programs similar to International Friends.
In its 50-plus-year history, First Baptist’s International Friends ministry has provided classes that served international students at area colleges and skilled high-tech workers drawn to Richardson’s Telecom Corridor. International Friends also has ministered to refugees who resettled in the Dallas area—notably the Vietnamese “boat people” who fled Vietnam beginning in the mid-1970s.
But Evans wants to see First Baptist minister even more effectively to refugees who are resettling in the region by developing apartment-based ESL ministries.
“For some, entering the church building is a barrier. I’d like to see us move beyond the four walls of the church, in addition to what we do through International Friends,” he said.
At this point, First Baptist is seeking to develop relationships and train teams who can take what the church has learned through its longstanding International Friends ministry and minister where many newly arrived internationals live.
“We hope to go out into the community and do ESL in a different way,” he said. “We want to build off of our 50-plus-year experience and add to what we do through International Friends.”
This article originally appeared in the summer 2022 issue of CommonCall magazine.
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