Building Life-Changing Friendships in Daejeon, South Korea

IFI Peoria is entering a new season…the founders are stepping back while new leaders are stepping forward. A ministry that was built on showing up to soccer games, dinner tables, and the margins of campus life is being prepared not just to survive the transition, but to grow through it.

IFI Peoria was founded by Jim and Paula Hanes, who had just returned from serving overseas in the fall of 2016, moving back to a city they already knew and their alma mater, Illinois Central College (ICC), just five minutes from their front door.

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Ruby* remembers the moment her plane touched down at Chicago O’Hare back in August of 2025. The cabin filled with applause, something she hadn’t known people did.

“It was as if they were clapping for me,” Ruby said. “It was so special.”

The welcome felt like a sign. What followed was harder.

Navigating the huge airport alone was a struggle; she got stuck in an elevator, spent the night at the terminal, and arrived on campus still without a US bank account. The challenges kept coming– unfamiliar technology, difficulty finding halal** food, and a roommate who was rarely around.

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Summer* had dreamed of living in the US since she was 14 years old. After years of watching American YouTubers and feeling a quiet connection with the culture, she finally arrived in January 2024 to pursue her master’s degree at Kent State.

It wasn’t her first time in the country, as she had previously taken some trips to the West Coast that had left her charmed: the greenery, the friendly strangers, the generous portion sizes…

But moving here was different.

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Beatrice* was born and raised in South Asia, and from a young age, she carried a question: Which God is for me?

Determined to find answers, she asked friends and family and even created a plan to follow a different god each month. After years of searching without any results, she gave up and began calling herself an atheist.

“Faith had always felt like a strict set of rules,” Beatrice confessed. “It never felt like something real or from the heart.”

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In the fall of 2024, Fiorella arrived in Columbus from Peru, stepping into a brand-new chapter of life at OSU.

Just one day after landing, she stopped by an IFI table on campus, where she was warmly welcomed by students and staff from Latin America. It didn’t take long for her to find her place, building friendships, attending gatherings, and eventually joining a weekly Bible discussion led by Bob, Karen, and Fabi, IFI Columbus staff.

One Friday during a Bible discussion, Fiorella asked a simple but profound question:

“How can I make sure I have Jesus in my life?”

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Coby* almost didn’t come to the United States.

When a college recruiter from America showed up in South Asia during his undergrad, Coby assumed it was a scam. But his mom believed before he did; she bought all his winter gear before he was even accepted. That kind of faith runs in the family.

Coby arrived in Chicago in August 2025 to pursue his master’s degree. The pressure was real: student loans, a job left behind, and a mom whose dreams were riding alongside his own.

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For over 15 years, IFI Cleveland has been waiting at the door when international college students step off the plane, often disoriented, jet-lagged, and without so much as a meal plan or a city bus pass. That initial welcome has quietly become the heartbeat of everything the ministry does.

DJ Bradley, IFI staff member who joined the team in 2021, has watched that evolution up close. The first point of contact is simple yet effective: a welcome dinner and driving them to Walmart. It sounds small, but ask the students– it’s the kind of thing that earns trust in ways a flyer or a campus event never could.

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Lea is a second-year student at Corban University studying intercultural education. She is originally from Washington State, grew up in a military family, and has already lived more cross-culturally than most people twice her age: a gap year in Papua New Guinea, coasts crossed, cultures navigated.

When Dawnita, IFI Salem leader, came to speak at one of her classes about IFI, it felt like a natural next step.

But natural didn’t mean easy.

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Have you felt stuck in your ministry to international students due to the lack of resources and/or ideas? Our friend and IFI staff member in Muskingum, Katie Pozzuoli, shared this fun article with us to help our trusty volunteer community. Continue reading for some inspiration!

At Muskingum University, the bread and butter of our ministry to international students is our Friendship Family program (many of our IFI locations use the term “Conversation Partner”). We are a small school, and connecting every interested student with a local family is the key to fulfilling IFI’s mission “to extend life-changing hospitality and friendship to international students out of reverence for Jesus.”

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When Simon* moved from South Asia to the U.S. in the summer of 2022, he expected academic challenges. What he didn’t expect was how much living in a cross-cultural community would shape him.

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