Bridges International and me.

Hello everybody, I am Leila and I come from Shanghai, here is my story. I got information about Bridges in the CSSS(Chinese Students and Scholars Society at OSU) website, it is one of the organizations have airport pick-up and temp housing service for international students. Meanwhile Bridges also has some programs and activities which attracted me, such as "meet the felt needs of internationals and help them adjust to life here at OSU; host a wide variety of social and recreational activities to help internationals meet American college students and make new friends; social networking opportunities, and spiritual growth resources". I think i can give it a try since i come here alone and need some new friends.

My host family named Jane Davis, she's around 60 years old but she's a pretty cool old lady. She is an artist, there are many paintings of hers and have price on it, that is why I call her artist. I lived with her and her pet named teeny for 10 days before she helped me find my new apartment and we still keep in touch now. Chris Kuffman is the director of Bridges International and he is the one who gave me his old sofa, full size bed, tables, microwave, tableware, cookers… I saved a lot of money because of his generosity, and I really appreciate that. Moreover, every Sunday morning, he picks me up to the church called Faith Community Wesleyan Church, as a Christian, it is really important to hear the words from God and keep on having faith on God with other believers. After the school begins, Bridges organizes activities weekly. They have bible study with American students every Wednesday night in Ohio Union. The American student leaders lead everybody to sing some worship songs at first and then play a group game to get to know each other a little bit. After that, we are going to have a small group discussion about bible and Christianity. October 2^nd, we went to Gallery Hop in downtown on Saturday night, it was cold and rainy but we all had a great time. During the time with Bridges, I made some American friends and some international friends, and we hang out sometimes to go shopping and parties and watch football games, meanwhile, we have our spiritual growth together. When I am walking on the campus, I see American student stay together and the other countries’ students stay together and they talk to each other rarely. This is the very common phenomenon happened on campus and I do not like it. As a member of Bridges I have opportunities to meet different countries’ students and I can feel my life in OSU is not lonely but blessed.