Graduate program can be a spiritually trying time for the Christian students in the International Student Ministry (ISM). The work load, the uncertainty of research, and the pressure from advisors to produce results can cause our graduate students to put aside their time with God. To proactively make room in our schedule for fellowship with God and with one another, we scheduled to meet together for DT at one of the students’ apartment near campus every Thursday evening.
We had about four students and a few staff members in each meeting. Starting with dinner, we would catch up with one another’s life over the past week, study that day’s DT text with the help of the DT questions, have a time of group discussions and reflections, and share prayer requests at the end. The discussion time is my favorite part of the meeting because the students would engage each other with questions and answers about the text. Through the discussion time, we would delve deeper into God’s Word and share how God spoke to each one of us personally.
I was concerned about the consistency of these meetings in the beginning. The students could easily miss a meeting here and there because they had an unexpected meeting with their advisors, or because their experiments ran long, or because they were too tired from a day’s work. However, the students tried hard to make it every week so that they could connect with God and with one another.