March 5, 2019
This is what I need to do, Christina (pseudonym) thought. I really, really want to do this.
She poured over the brochure that she’d just gotten in Urbana’s exhibit hall, outlining the opportunity to teach English overseas. As a junior from Concord University in West Virginia, Christina was already drawn to serving the nations and assumed that she had to go overseas to fulfill this call. She went to Urbana 06 to seek God’s will for her life. Staring down at the brochure in her hand, she thought she’d just found it.
And she had—though not quite on the timeline or in the way she expected.
Following Urbana, Christina had an interview with the exhibitor she’d met. “But I just knew in my heart that I wasn’t supposed to go yet,” she said. “I knew that I was supposed to save that brochure, and that it was supposed to stay in my heart for the future.”
Christina’s participation in Urbana’s International Student Track proved to be another key part of her experience. There, she heard firsthand stories of international students coming to Christ and the persecution they’d endured. She encountered new cultural perspectives on Scripture and experienced powerful ethnic reconciliation.
“Urbana started the trajectory for my path after college,” Christina said. “It was really a direct catalyst for my missions service.”
Christina left Urbana having discovered her passion for international student ministry. She originally planned to serve one year on staff with InterVarsity’s International Student Ministry (ISM) at the University of Kentucky before going overseas. But one year quickly became seven. “It’s been the most fulfilling dream job I could ask for,” Christina said. “I’ve been amazed to see some of our Christian international students come to Urbana and become equipped or receive a vision for what God is calling them to do and then return to their home countries with this missions heart.”
In 2015—nine years after Christina first came across that brochure on teaching English in Asia—she left to make her dream a reality. “When I got overseas, I realized why God had me do ISM first,” she said. “ISM gave me so much experience and cultural knowledge and so much understanding of how to help students understand the gospel.”
Wanting to encourage others who have sensed their calling at Urbana, Christina said, “You don’t have to have everything figured out. You may get an idea while you’re there, have a vision, feel a spark in your heart, have a conversation with someone in the exhibit hall, but it might not take root for many more years.
“Moving from my home to the University of Kentucky to work with international students, and then moving from there to Asia—it was the perfect combination of steps that I couldn’t have planned myself. God planned that. And all of the awesome experiences and work that he has allowed me to do in this past decade would not have happened without Urbana.”