Even when writing in times of national crisis (9/11) and personal loss, words never abandoned me as they have now. I’m not sure what to write because I don’t know what our lives will be like by the time you read this.
It’s your birthday. The phone rings. While it could be a family member or a friend wishing you well on your special day, the last thing you might expect to hear is a 99-year-old man on the other end of the call singing “Happy Birthday” to you.
But that’s exactly what happens to those who attend Westminster Presbyterian Church in Greensboro, North Carolina, where Carl Webb has found his purpose, his “call” so to speak, in serving God. And that “call” is to be the birthday crooner of the church.
It has been 10 years since I stepped off an Ethiopian Airlines flight and placed my feet on Kenyan soil. However, the impact of my Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) experience has left me feeling, at times, as if it were yesterday. I don’t remember how I came to know about the YAV program. I vaguely remember filling out an application. What I do remember is my interview with Phyllis Byrd and my excitement about the possibility of serving for a year on the continent of Africa. I vividly remember her stern and stoic demeanor and my desire to convey how much I needed this experience.
Work is an important part of vocation, but an equally important part of living out my calling is my new home. My current home as a Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) is an intentional Christian community in Boston, where my fellow YAVs and I seek to build faithful relationships with one another, with our neighbors and with God. My year of service is teaching me that “being in mission” is a way of living that starts in the place where I eat, rest, reflect and pray with those closest to me.
Today, African-American mission co-workers continue the transforming work of God’s mission, answering the call to service through Presbyterian World Mission. Leisa Wagstaff, currently serving in South Sudan, shares her personal reflection on this irresistible call. Like the mission workers who served a century before her, Leisa has found herself personally transformed. That is the essence of God’s mission.
Donna has packed her luggage, figuratively, more than once to answer God’s call to mission—a call she has felt since she was 9 years old, growing up in Campbell, Ohio. Donna recalls that when a teacher at Campbell Christian Center asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, she said, “I want to be a missionary nurse.”
