Friends International Celebrates 40 Years Sharing Friendship and Faith With International Students.

Friends International, the Christian mission agency that supports international students across the UK and Ireland, will this month begin marking its 40th anniversary with a series of events and celebrations to highlight the impact it has made in the lives of thousands of international students.  Celebratory events are planned in Edinburgh [26th April], London [10th May], Manchester [17th May], Cardiff [31st May] and Belfast [7th June]. Full details are available at http://www.friendsinternational.uk/40th-anniversary-events.

The seeds were sown in 1983, when American couple Max and Pat Kershaw, arrived in the UK with a brief to research the feasibility of establishing a national international student ministry. Pat remembered the time: “We arrived in England on Guy Fawkes Day with a list of names of evangelical leaders to contact. We spent the first year driving around the country meeting leaders of Christian ministries, pastors and Bible colleges, in an effort to learn what was happening in outreach to internationals.”

Subsequently, the new ministry was launched in 1985, initially under the name ‘International Student Christian Services’ [ISCS], with a vision to reach out to the growing numbers of international students coming to the UK and Ireland to study. In 2002, ISCS rebranded and became Friends International. In the 40 years since Friends International [formally ISCS] was launched, the number of international students coming to the UK and Ireland to study each year has grown tenfold from an estimated 95,000 in 1985, to over one million today. Throughout its 40 years the ministry has sought to keep pace with this growth, and today operates in 46 university towns and cities across the country through its network of local centres and affiliates reaching out to over 1,000 international students every month with the love of Jesus.

For more than 40 years teams from Friends International have been sharing friendship and faith with international students, organising social events, hosting cafés, offering hospitality and simply being available at times of stress. International students such as Tom, a language student who came to study at Cambridge, have seen their lives transformed. Growing up in Prague where everyone he knew was an atheist, Tom signed up for a Bible study course with Friends International because he wanted to learn English. As the Bible was opened to him, he ‘began to see, practically, Jesus walking off the pages’, and he gave his life to Jesus. Today, Tom is himself involved in leading an international student ministry in the Czech Republic, where there are an estimated 55,000 international students.

Alan Tower, National Director of Friends International, reflects; “From humble beginnings in 1985, Friends International has grown into a national mission agency impacting the lives of tens of thousands of international students. Over the years, from sowing the seeds of international student ministry in Bournemouth, Guildford, London and Cambridge to launching our newest local centre in Derby, our vision has remained the same: to see international students transformed by the good news of Jesus so that they fully engage with the mission of the Church in the world.”