Many international college students head back to classes in the fall about the same time as their American counterparts, and that means CMF’s Globalscope campus ministers are rolling out their welcome mats with activities, studies and, of course, free food.

During the summer break, the various ministries retooled their plans and, in some cases, their facilities for a new start. The one-year-old Roots ministry in Edinburgh, Scotland, for example, did a makeover on its small campus house, but also decided to move its Tuesday Night at Roots event to a local restaurant.

“With a year under our belts we were able to make some informed decisions about how to best use the small space we have,” said Kate and Andrew Owens. “But we ran into a great problem last year that our Tuesday events grew too large for our space. This year we’re moving to a local restaurant, which will open up so many opportunities for us to grow and explore new programming.”

And as they begin their second year of ministry, the Roots team will have the exciting opportunity to welcome back students who were involved last year.

“We’ve never been able to do that before!” said Kate Owens. “Although we don’t know exactly what this will look like, we are excited to give these students more leadership and responsibilities.”

Established campus ministries such as El Pozo in Puebla, Mexico, also have some changes planned this year.

“We have two new staff members and three new interns from Brazil, Chile and Mexico,” said team leader Kami Burns. ”And we have a new group of student leaders who will join the two groups returning from last year.”

El Pozo is also expanding its outreach, with new weekly Bible studies at Tec de Monterrey, another university across town, and a new event called Cine Pozo.

“Our interns created Cine Pozo,” said Kami. “We show a movie and talk about it afterwards. It’s been a great way to get new people plugged into our community.”

In Thailand, the Globalscope ministry staff at Grapevine, led by Mark and Princess Bernadino, got off to a great start on the new semester by spending time on campus meeting new students and their parents and helping them move into their dorms.

“Classes at Thammasat University Rangsit started on Aug. 18, and our team spent a whole week meeting and inviting new students to Grapevine and prayer-walking

on campus,” said Mark. “We also spent days cleaning and decorating the Grapevine house with help from some returning students.”

Regular activities for this team include a family dinner on Tuesday nights, a girls’ night of cooking, eating and Bible study with Princess Bernadino, and a worship café featuring music, group games, conversations and prayer.

Please continue to pray for a great school year in all seven of our Globalscope campus ministries around the world!