FriendSpeak is a ministry that allows us to show love to people in our community who come from other places: love through friendship and love through English conversation practice. We will train you to be a conversation partner (we call this role “worker”), and you will be prepared to work with our non-native English speaking participants (we call them “readers”).

Most of our readers over the years have been international students and scholars at Purdue, and some have been immigrants. Over the years we have had the opportunity to build friendships with readers from such faraway places as South Korea, China, Colombia, India, Brazil, Iran, Mexico, and Taiwan.

For volunteers, here’s how the program works. First, you communicate to the Freudenthals or the Boyds that you’re interested in this ministry (you can email Josh right now if you wish!). Typically, training happens during the fall semester (September-November), and then you’ll be matched with your first reader during the spring semester (January-April).

Training and reading sessions take place on Sunday evenings at 6:00 at the Christian Student Center (CSC). If you’ve never been to the CSC, it’s a house located at 115 Waldron St. right in the middle of Purdue’s campus, situated between the classroom buildings of campus and the residence halls. Everyone (workers, readers, and workers-in-training) meets there for a meal. The workers take turns preparing home-cooked meals, with occasional potlucks. The great thing about the meal is not just that we can share food with our guests, but that we can all sit and eat together and get to know everyone. So our readers don’t only get their one-on-one conversation partner, they also (we hope) become part of our little Sunday evening community. Often there are questions about the community or services that someone in the group is able to help with.