Greg Steward’s Miscellanies

On Saturday, October 25, FOCUS had a harvest party for some of the new international students.

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Thirty-eight international students met at the PSU park blocks from where we carpooled to a farm near Oregon City.  There we picked apples, for some a first.  A few reported that they had never seen an apple tree before.

We then headed over to Al and Arlette Dunham’s to make apple cider (thanks to David and Lola Mae Hatfield), apple pies (under the able tutelege of David and Elizabeth Case with assists from Cleo Leigh), and ice cream (courtesy of Steve and Debbie Gomes).  Many other members of Cedar Mill Bible Church helped in various ways. Between internationals, FOCUS staff and associates, and CMBC members, we had over sixty in the Dunham house.

At any given time there were people cranking ice cream, pressing cider, baking pies, playing volley ball or ping-pong, or singing some traditional American folk music.

After dining on Caribbean stew, rice, and salad (provided by CMBC volunteers), we all gathered to sing some folk songs, followed by a brief talk by Jonathan Guest on what Christians believe. This was followed by apple pie, ice cream, and brownies (yum, Sue-Ann).

Thanks to all who made this possible and to Jonathan for putting this together.  Thanks again to Al and Arlette for opening their home and for Arlette’s organizing the CMBC volunteers who helped in so many ways.

FOCUS Associate, Kevin Chan, came up with the excellent idea of offering new international students at PSU a walking tour of Portland.

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Twenty-five new international students headed off from the PSU park blocks, walked down Broadway to Pioneer Square, and took the MAX to PGE Park. From there we walked to Eat Pizza. (Kevin must dine there often.) There was a demonstration of pizza-making and then, courtesy of the owner, we feasted on five pizzas.

We crossed Burnside to the Nob Hill district, walking along NW 23rd to Lovejoy, where we caught a Trimet street car to Jamison Square in the Pearl district.  There we enjoyed some ice cream at Cool Moon Ice Cream.

Then it was on to the first FOCUS Coffee House.

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Imagine going to a foreign county and moving into an empty room. Do you just hop in your car and head to the store? What car? Which store? Where? Each year as part of new student orientation, FOCUS and Greater Portland Bible Church sponsor a giveaway for the new international students.

Don’t quote me on this, but each year I think we have around fifty to eighty students take part in this event.  We pick them up at PSU, take them to GPBC, lay out a few ground rules, and then let them go find what they need.

Items are donated by various individuals. Unfortunately, FOCUS has no warehouse space to collect items throughout the year. As a result, we ask anyone with items for donation to hold on to them until the week of the giveaway, normally the last weekend in September, just prior to the start of classes. Often in June, we have students contact us and want to give items back to FOCUS, but we have no place to keep them.

Organization of the event is led by Russ and Claire Rusunen, FOCUS Associates and GPBC members. Hats off to FOCUS staff Andy Peloquin and Jonathan Guest who did a good job of organizing the transport of goods (along with students) back to campus. As usual, the event is the work of many people.  Thanks to all.

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This year almost 500 new international students came to Portland to study. Fortunately, not all of them contacted FOCUS to pick them up at the airport; but 83 did request an airport pickup.  The two busiest days were the Saturday and Monday before PSU’s New Student Orientation.  There were approximately twenty pickups each of those two days.  Curiously, only one requested a pickup on that Sunday. Thanks to FOCUS Associate Karen Mundt for coordinating this effort and to all the FOCUS drivers.

Some stats:

Date distribution

18 – Aug 7 – Sept 12
20 – Sept 13 – Sept 19
41 – Sept 20 – Sept 22 (Saturday – Monday prior to Tuesdays orientation at PSU)
4 – Sept 23 – Sept 24

Countries

32 – China
24 – India
12 – Korea
4 – France
3 – Japan
2 – Taiwan
2 – Thailand
1 – Turkey
1 – Ecuador
1 – Nigerai
1 – Vietnam

It really is a lot of fun to be there with a sign and welcome these new arrivals. Lately I have been taking a slight detour on the way back to campus, going over the Steel Bridge and doing a short tour through Old Town/Downtown before heading to campus.  It doesn’t add that much time and the students seem to enjoy it.

FOCUS held its annual Christmas Banquet on December 7, 2007. Once again we were hosted by Greater Portland Bible Church. There were approximately 300 in attendance including FOCUS staff and associates, kitchen crew, table hosts, and international students and scholars. The evening included a turkey dinner, “The Christmas Event” as enacted by internationals, the FOCUS Gospel Choir, and the audience-participation rendition of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” Please enjoy a tasty serving below! Thanks to all who made this possible!

(You can also view the individual photos.)

On June 7, 2007, FOCUS was privileged to meet Dr. Azharul Islam, Vice-Chancellor, and Abu Reza Nadwi, Associate Professor, Department of Da’wah and Islamic Studies, both at International Islamic University Chittagong in Bangladesh. They were at Portland State University to talk about exchange programs with PSU and several universities in Bangladesh.

They had three days of meetings June 5-7 at PSU, and on Thursday evening FOCUS hosted them for a reception at John and Pauline Garney’s home. They were accompanied by Rehman Ashraf and Sazzad Hossain, both doctoral candidates at PSU. Sazzad was helping to coordinate their visit at PSU and was eager for the visitors to meet some of the FOCUS community.

I meet them at PSU around 4:30 and we visited the Rose Garden in Washington Park and then did a brief tour of NW Portland. Then we drove to the Garney’s where we had dinner. After dinner and dessert, we had a brief time to share about FOCUS and what FOCUS has to offer international students and scholars who come to PSU to study and do research.

Also in attendence were FOCUS staff and volunteers Ron Riesinger, Andy and Jooae Peloquin, myself (Greg Steward), Carol Starr, Karen Mundt, Bill and Janice Fry and their homestay, Celine from Taiwan, Maarten Schreuder, and Garney’s son, James.

For the 2006 tax year (that is, returns due April 17, 2007), FOCUS conducted three tax workshops at Portland State University for international students and scholars. These were held on three consecutive Tuesdays beginning March 27 .

In the past, students just showed up with their documents (such as W-2’s) and they filled out the forms and then we helped them with the financial parts. This year we tried something different. We advertised that they should fill out the forms ahead of time using a tax help website that I put together to given them assistance. They could then bring the (mostly) completed forms for review. Of the 195 that came to our workshops, very few did that.

We had twelve volunteers for the tax workshops this year. Gary Ferrill, recently retired from the IRS, had previously provided the training for our volunteers. It was great to have his expertise on hand at all three sessions. In addition to Gary and me, Kay Anderson and Burt Jarvis were also present at all three workshops.

Autumn Bauwens assisted me with “triage” (welcoming the students and getting them started with filling out their forms). Helping with one or more workshops were Jim Saunders, Fred Wagner, Wilbur Wood, and first-timers John Garney, Dean Rowley, Georgia Dan, Laura Hashimoto.

We had a great team of volunteers this year.

Below is a preliminary count (by country) of who came to our workshops.

1 Burkina Faso
1 Canada
27 China
1 Columbia
2 Costa Rica
2 Ecuador
2 England
2 France
4 Germany
2 Hong Kong
74 India
2 Indonesia
22 Japan
1 Kazakhstan
14 Korea
2 Malaysia
2 Mexico
1 Morocco
2 Myanmar
2 Nepal
2 Pakistan
1 Poland
2 Russia
2 Saudi Arabia
1 Spain
1 Sri Lanka
1 Sweden
2 Taiwan
5 Thailand
2 Tiawan
2 Turkey
1 Uganda
1 Venezuala
6 Vietnam
195 Grand Total