There are many barriers to beginning and continuing friendships with international students.

Think of the people closest to you.  How did you become friends?  Your friendship probably grew through sharing common interests, spending time with one another, trusting and caring for each other, listening and depending on each other.

How do you keep friends?  Usually by continuing to communicate, to share the best and worst experiences, and to tell them how much you appreciate them.  The technique of making friends is something more often caught than taught.  But it can be practiced and perfected.

The first barrier to beginning an international friendship is the wall of fear or hate.  While we were growing up, we built up this wall to keep out those who do not look or live like us.  To build international friendships we must dismantle the wall that keeps out those our families taught us to fear. 

In Reaching Out (Doubleday), Henri Nouwen says, “We have surrounded ourselves with a wall of fear and hostile feelings … Our fears, uncertainties and hostilities make us fill our inner world with ideas, opinions, judgments and values to which we cling as to a precious property.

We need to recognize these, sometimes hidden, bricks in the wall of hostility to get rid of them.  We can then begin to reach and love people.

Fort Ego

The second barrier to international friendships is our fort of egocentricity and ethnocentricity, or our self-centeredness and culture centeredness.  This barrier shows up when we think or say, “My way is the right way or the only way,” or “Your way is different, so you must be wrong.”  It shows in our assumptions and prejudices toward groups of people.

There are several other ways this barrier is manifested.  First, we may not readily accept criticism of our own country.  We need to recognize that the priorities in other cultures (for example, stronger family ties or a more relaxed attitude toward time) might be more biblical than our own.  Second, we frequently want to be in the superior or controlling role.  In the international friendship, we want to be the teacher instead of the student, the giver instead of the receiver.  We do not like looking stupid or inept. 

There is a saying, “Americans are great hosts and poor guests.”  William Lederer’s and Eugene Burdick’s story, The Ugly American (Norton), tells how U.S. citizen are viewed overseas.  Embassy official “Bob Maile is one we want to emulate because [he] was humble about everything and he made it clear that he thought he was getting more than he was receiving.”  Don’t be afraid of learning or receiving.

We need to let go of the self-centeredness that drives us to feel superior and to try to control those around us.  Then we can begin to accept others, their differences being unfamiliar but not necessarily wrong.

Declaration of Independence

The locked gate of our culture’s esteem of independence and social and geographic mobility is the third barrier to international friendships.  We often think it is weak to lean on people, to trust in people.  We don’t know how to handle people who care for us.  We protect ourselves, reluctant to give because we will get hurt when a friend moves on.

Shallowness is probably the most frustrating aspect of U.S. friendships for internationals.  They usually come from a small circle of friends where they do everything together and do not think anything of asking things of one another.  There are many examples of commitment and generosity. 

Here are two pictures: In Italy four boys went through school together.  They chose the same college, found wives and settled down together in the same town for the rest of their lives. In South America you may tell you friend her piece of jewelry is beautiful.  Since it brings you pleasure, she gives it to you.

When internationals come to the States, the one thing besides their education that they are interested in is one U.S. friend.  Most go home disappointed. They are bewildered by our outgoing friendliness – “Hi!  How are you?” – when we do not slow down to hear their reply.  We need to unlock our gate, taking the time to make friends.  We may find that we are getting more from the relationship than they are.

No Instant Christians

The last obstacle to international friendships is our impatience and pushiness in evangelism.  We are used to instant pudding and immediate gratification.  We are unused to counting the cost or being faithful when we know the cost is high.  We need patience, not programs, in our friendships.  We need to see people as individuals, not feathers in our caps. 

Our friendships should be a natural outgrowth of our faith in God and our love for people, not a tool to pull them over to our side.  Luke 15:10 reminds us:  “There is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (emphasis mine).  Two other texts that are helpful here are 1 Peter 3:16 and Colossians 4:6, which tells us to speak “with gentleness and reverence,” and “full of grace … so that you may know how to answer every one” (NIV).

After a friend of mine became a Christian, I asked him what the I.V. group had done right and wrong during his time of watching and deciding.  He said that in general the group had been great, but that a few students had tried to push him.

The decision making processes of international students are often different from ours.  They make take longer to decide because they are considering the cost more than we might.  There may be a greater cost – persecution, rejection by families, possible death – back home for their decisions.

Our task is to befriend and share.  The Holy Spirit convicts and converts.  Our role is big enough.  We do not need to take on the Spirit’s as well!

Some of the most profound things that happen in people’s lives are hidden.  We need to reject the impatience that makes us doubt our own abilities and fail to recognize God’s work in their lives.  We can then be faithful in our own work for God.

The barriers are great, but God is greater still.  As Ephesians 2 tells us, Jesus Christ is the great barrier breaker – between God and man and between Jews and Gentiles.  Verse 16 summarizes the first ten verses, “[That he] might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end.”  Jesus broke down the barriers between a holy God and a sinful people.  Verse 14 summarizes the last twelve verses, “For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility.” 

It is almost impossible to understand how great a barrier there was between the Jews and the Gentiles.  Social, religious and historical barriers are not new to Jesus!  He who has done such a great work is able and eager to help us with the barriers we now face. 

The wall of fear and hate can be dismantled brick by brick.  We can fly the white flag over our forts of egocentricity and ethnocentricity and stop fighting all that is different.  We can open our locked gate of independence and mobility and allow ourselves to put down roots and depend on others.  Finally, we can exchange our obstacle course of impatience and pushiness for the straight path of patience and sensitivity.

In college I was scared of internationals and what they might ask me about my faith.  A year after graduation, I met a group of Japanese people and go much pleasure from those relationships.  I could have kicked myself for all the fun I had missed during my college years.

I hope my experience helps you break down barriers so you can find the joy of having international friends now.  What a privilege to be part of God’s plan for reconciling all things to himself!

STACEY CARPENTER BIELER as a former Inter Varsity staff working among international students, especially among mainland Chinese, she has studied Chinese language and has given presentations on Chinese history and culture in gatherings of staff and volunteer workers of the Association of Christians Ministering among Internationals (ACMI).

Copyright Information:
Reprinted from HIS magazine, December 1984 issue.