Missions Stories

Johanna Linschoten glanced out the window at the lanes of cars racing past her. Every few miles, massive billboards and signs crowded the edges of the interstate. Beyond them was a wall of trees, sunlight glinting off the neon-green leaves. She found herself wishing for a glimpse of the ocean and its white sandy beaches—only a 15-minute trip away no matter where she was back home in Hawaii. But the ocean, like home, was a long, long ways away.

God, they’re gonna rip me apart. This is career suicide, Peter (pseudonym) thought.

Just obey me. Share.

Peter had been enjoying the business track at Urbana 12. The speakers had decades of experience, and he’d encountered a robust, new theology of work.

But then he started feeling convicted to share his faith with his co-workers. “They’re very hostile toward religion. I was like there’s no way I can share. I was a wreck,” Peter remembered.

The first day back at work he had a lump in his throat no amount of coffee could wash away.

I felt God saying that the work was his before I got there and it will be his long after I’ve left. God’s kingdom coming to Mokkattam wasn’t contingent upon my presence there. Heartbroken, I committed the work back to him. In faith, I committed the work back to him. I am not the savior. Nor am I the solution. God alone is. And I can trust him.