May 21, 2015

UTD Graduations 2015

Last year I talked about going to graduation for 2 of our international friends, and I was excited to get to celebrate with a few other friends this year.  Our friend Teng was matched with David through the International Friendship Partner program in September 2013 when he first came to Dallas.  It's been fun building a friendship with him.  Over the past {almost} 2 years Teng has joined us for Football watching, the State Fair, Christmas celebrating, Chili cooking, a Roadtrip, and lots of evenings sharing dinner.  So we were honored and excited when he invited us to celebrate his graduation with him--and we are grateful he will be staying around after graduation so we can keep hanging out!

A sea of caps and gowns

 Teng crossing the stage
 We were glad to meet Teng's parents after graduation!  They have traveled from China and are spending a month here.  They were in town for graduation and then he will take them to travel around the country.  We'll get to see them again next week for dinner and we are looking forward to it!

Friday morning I woke up to an email from our friend Qinfang saying that had tickets for graduation and would love for anyone who could to join her. Since I was up at UTD for Teng's ceremony right before hers, I decided to stay and celebrate with her
So proud as she gets her diploma

Qinfang has been in our ICF bible study for the last 2 years off and on, but her husband lives in California, so she will be heading there to join him.  He came in for graduation so it was nice to get to meet him

I went around campus with her to take some pictures

 And we ran into some other sweet friends who were celebrating Ivy's graduation.

I'm always so impressed with our friends who work so hard on their Master's degrees here.  It's fun to get to know them during their time in America and I loved getting to celebrate this huge accomplishment with them!

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