Greeting,

Hello, my name is Bulent Ünalan. First, I would like to thank Dan for giving me this opportunity to speak with you. Also, I would like to thank all of those in the Friendship House community who have made a lot of effort to open Friendship House’s doors to us as foreigners.

My journey with Friendship House started in 2016 when we moved to East Lansing from Turkey. My wife was a visiting researcher at MSU, and we spent more than one year in East Lansing. In the beginning, I was not working, and of course, everything was new to me. I did not have friends or family, except my wife and at my job. It was very hard to start a new journey in the United States and establish a life, even for a short time, with a little English.

When I was trying to fill the gaps in my life in Lansing, I heard about Friendship House from an international student at MSU. This was the day I started to enjoy my life and learn a lot. Then, I went to Friendship House and met Rich, who was the former director, his Friendship House family. Rich was very welcoming to introduce me to Friendship House and I will always be thankful to him for opening the doors to me. From that day, I have felt that I am part of the Friendship House family.

At Friendship House, my teachers always provided a perfect atmosphere to learn English. We had a friendly group of students, and we were very motivated and keen to learn more and more every day. At every lesson, we learned different and interesting topics about American culture and history, English grammar, and also the Bible. I made a lot of friends and had meetings in and outside the house. Friendship House also organized events and activities in other places, for example, visiting museums, visiting the teachers’ houses, and Thanksgiving dinners, and so on. All those things made us very close and connected to each other.

I have a memory that I will never forget. On my first day at Friendship House, I had a class about the life of Jesus. The teacher gave us a paragraph to read and asked us to ask for words that you do not know. The first question I asked is what does “Bible” mean? Because I had not heard the word before. The teacher showed me the Bible with a little smile. After that, I joined and am still joining online Bible classes of the teachers Clyde, Jan, and Jo about Jesus and the Bible. Now I have a quite knowledge about Christian life, which I find very interesting.

What am I doing now? I live in Denmark with my wife and my two kids. But even if we are not physically present in the United States, it is incredible to still have the opportunity to join all the classes online at Friendship House. We are very busy in Denmark with two small kids and without any support from our families because they live in Turkey. However, I am trying my best to join these online classes as much as possible and I am very appreciative and thankful to Dan and all my teachers for being with us online, teaching us, and also guiding us during the coronavirus days. I will never ever forget this in my life and tell this journey to my kids when they are older.

I want to say goodbye to you with my favorite word (Immanuel)

About the author:

Bulent Unalan is from Turkey and received his master’s degree in Real Estate Development and Management from the University of Ankara, in Turkey. He worked for 17 years in Kocaeli Metropolitan Municipality in Turkey. He and his family moved to Denmark in September 2020, and have been living in Aarhus, Denmark ever since. Before moving to Denmark, they lived in a different part of the world…Italy, the UK, the USA, and Switzerland as his wife was studying and working in several research institutions. They have two small children, aged 2 and 4 years old. His wife works at Aarhus University as an Assistant Professor in the field of Food Packaging. He is not currently working outside of the home but is following the intensive Danish language courses and has also joined the online English Language classes at the Friendship House via Zoom.