Relational Mission loves to hear from a wide range of voices, including those from different denominations. We have learned so much from brothers and sisters who are proclaiming the gospel wherever God has called them and have been hugely blessed by those who are ahead of us in different fields.

With that in mind, we have reached out to Bartow Wylie from Friends International to share the story of a Thai student who came to the UK for her PhD but left with something far more life-changing.

Stories like Bartow’s help us to see why international student ministry matters, and reminds us that, when God changes a life, the ripple effects can go on and on and on.

Faith That Follows You Home

By Bartow Wylie

Thai names are often pretty long which is why, when I first met Mai*, I knew her as Dhipyamongko. But like most Thais, she also had a short nickname entirely unrelated to her formal name. And so Dhipyamongko became Mai.

At the time of our introduction, Mai was studying for a PhD in the UK and had become good friends with a fellow student, Pamela, who was a Christian from Hong Kong. True to character, Pamela didn’t hesitate to invite Mai along to church and to a Bible study group.

Over time, their friendship deepened, and so did Mai’s interest in faith. Then, one evening after an evangelistic event, something remarkable happened—Mai prayed to invite Jesus into her life.

I still remember receiving an ecstatic message from Pamela, telling me all about it. But in the days that followed, Pamela’s excitement turned to confusion.

‘It’s wonderful that you’re a Christian now!’ she said to Mai one day.

To which Mai replied, quite sincerely, ‘Oh, am I? I thought I was a Buddhist.’

For most Thai people, being Thai and being Buddhist are inseparable; to be anything else is almost unthinkable. And while Mai’s encounter with Jesus was real, her understanding of the gospel was still unfolding, still finding its way past deeply rooted cultural assumptions.

That’s where I came in, hoping to offer some help.

When faith meets culture

I’d bumped into Mai a few times at various events, but it was Pamela who asked if I might sit down with her and talk more intentionally about the differences between Buddhism and Christianity. I was happy to oblige.

Over the next few months, Mai and I met regularly, usually at Starbucks, Bibles open between us. There were many times when I felt the urge to encourage her to make a clear commitment to Christ, but I held back.

‘I need to go back to Thailand first,’ Mai told me one day, ‘and see if it’s really possible to be a Christian there. I need to talk with my family and find out what they think.’

For some, my approach might sound like hesitation or delay. But I knew that pushing her to commit without considering her family and heritage would risk forcing her into a very Western pattern of thinking.

I’d seen it happen too often: international students making sincere decisions to follow Christ while in the UK, only to drift away when they returned home. The gospel had connected with their experience abroad, but never fully reached the deepest places of their identity and culture.

When one life impacts many

Mai completed her PhD, and not long after graduating, she returned home to Thailand. On her first Sunday back, she went along to a church near her home, taking some of her family members with her. To her surprise, and perhaps theirs too, they found themselves drawn in by what they heard and experienced. It wasn’t long before several of them came to faith, and Mai was baptised.

Back in Thailand, Mai began teaching at what is widely regarded as the country’s top university. Her life quickly filled with the demands of lecturing, supervising students, and pursuing her own academic research. But even with such a full schedule, Mai’s hunger to grow in her faith remained strong. She soon found her way to Bangkok Bible Seminary, where she enrolled in a part-time Masters course in Christian studies.

The fruit of her quiet, steady witness began to show. One of her research students came to faith through her influence, and when I had the joy of visiting Mai a couple of years later, she told me the wonderful news that her mother had just come to faith as well.

Passing it on

For Mai, the faithful, personal witness of her friend Pamela became a model for how she would share her own faith, both within her family and in her workplace. And the pattern of one-to-one Bible study that she experienced with me is now being replicated in her own ministry.

Honestly, one-to-one Bible study was very much on my mind as I prepared to visit her. I had fully expected to spend some of our time together explaining its value, hoping she might consider starting something similar with others.

As it turned out, I needn’t have worried. Mai was already serving as a mentor to the student group in her church and, to my delight, she told me she regularly met with as many as three different people each week for one-to-one Bible study.

Of course, not every student who comes to faith in the UK goes on to bear fruit in quite the same way. But stories like Mai’s—with different details, in different countries—are not uncommon. Through faithful people like her the gospel is transforming China, Germany, Japan, and many other parts of the world.

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Inspiring stories like these help to encourage and sustain mission organisations and individuals on days that feel slow or discouraging. We hope stories like these also inspire you.

While your support through donations or volunteering with Friends International would be greatly appreciated, perhaps the more pressing question is this: Who could you invest in? Who’s your ‘Mai’? Remember, one life transformed can impact many others.

*All names in this article have been changed to respect privacy.

By Bartow Wylie

Bartow is part of St Matthew’s Church in Cambridge. He came to Christ at university while training for a career in industrial chemistry.

Reaching out to international students in the UK has been at the heart of his ministry for most of the past 55 years, mainly through Friends International. The journey also took him to Peru for eight years of mission work.