I’m leaving the best job in the whole world

 

    Today is my last day in our office that I served for almost ten years of my life. This is the best job not because of the salary (how I wish) but because of a lot of things that I gained that money cannot buy. It sounds cliché but if you will have the time to talk to me you will know how much I enjoyed and have been blessed working here in International Graduate School of Leadership (IGSL). So to give you a glimpse why I am raving about my job here let me share to you my testimony that I gave to our students 4 years ago about my job in IGSL.

            When I applied for a job in IGSL (ISOT-Asia then), I was clueless. First of all, I didn’t have any idea what IGSL was. Though I was very involved with Campus Crusade for Christ during college, I never knew that CCC has a seminary.  What I knew was that I just wanted to serve God by working in a Christian organization. I could say that God really brought me here because of the circumstances that I went through before applying here---that is another story to tell. I became the assistant of the Scholarship Coordinator, but I didn’t know that she is also the Student Services Coordinator, and all the positions in IGSL have that word “coordinator” in them. I told myself that this would be exciting. At first I was having a hard time memorizing names, recognizing faces and understanding the people because for me some Indonesians look like Filipinos, some Indians look like Nepalese, and some Nepalese look like Burmese. There was this situation that reminded me on how I was struggling on our students’ names. It was Monday and Ate Theresa had PIM on the first period. When I arrived at our office, she left an envelope with a note that said “ to Remember’s mailbox”. So I thought “What should I put in the mailbox? “What should I remember?” Did I forget an errand that she told me to do? What mailbox and whose mailbox? From 8:30 am to 12:30 my mind was boggling with these thoughts. I didn’t have the courage to ask Ate Theresa because she would discover that I forgot to do the errand. After her ISG I had the courage to ask her what I should remember with the mailbox. Then Ate Theresa started to laugh and told me that one of our student’s name is Remember---Remember Rimai. How could one forget his name?   After a couple of months I realized that exciting was the least word to describe my work in IGSL. I soon began to memorize our students’ names, understanding different cultures and recognizing faces. I could even understand that a shake of the head would mean yes to some of our students. I started enjoying my work.

God has blessed me in so many ways here in IGSL especially at the Student Services Department. Of course aside from gaining true friends, I have a very patient supervisor. Most of our students call her Mother Theresa, but for us in the office she has given us more than motherly care but showed us on how we should give priority to our relationship with God.  I also saw how rich, as in literally rich our God is in providing millions for our students’ expenses. The money doesn’t come like a fountain, but it comes when we least expect it. As they say God is a God of surprises. In our society recognition is very important like you should always address people by their profession, like attorney, doctor, president and so on. Here in IGSL, recognition is not important, except of course when citing an author to our papers. Like with our professors and supervisors whom we just call them Kuyas and Ates. Aside from them, there are also people who don’t need to be named for their generosity. I learned that our “Brothers and Sisters in Christ” are not just helping IGSL but first of all they love and obey God. Because of that I was challenged to be faithful in my tithes to God because there are people who are giving millions from what they have worked hard for. Why can’t I do that in just 10% of my earnings?

If you stay in our office, you will see stories unfold. It was like watching a movie marathon. In fact, I have the best seat a cineaste could have. I remember our action filled days at St. Luke’s Medical Center when we still don’t have a nurse to help our students. Actually our office could pass as doctors because of the knowledge of different kinds and unique sicknesses we have encountered.  I also saw how God answered our prayers with our never-ending saga with our students’ visas; the dramatic transformation of a student’s goals and heart toward God; the amazing way how students start to learn English from scratch. Imagine Citadel and I helping them answer a bio-data form using sign language until they become students getting A’s in Greek; the suspenseful way of God’s provision to people; how God makes us laugh getting to know different kinds of experiences that people encounter here at IGSL. If Ate Theresa wrote a book about IGSL’s story it will really surpass Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.

 

Most of the staff members here at IGSL don’t work for the salary especially not for the prestige. If you get to know them better, you will know that they have reasons why they are here.   For me, it is some kind of strategy that I have adopted from Ate Theresa. You see, I cannot reach the whole 10/40 window in my lifetime, but through IGSL, the world becomes small. By serving the students, I am reaching out to different places and countries. It is like going to Cagayan de Oro, Davao, India, Africa, the highest peak of Mt. Everest, Cambodia, Tibet and other countries or places without paying for an airfare. A good slogan for my work can be “Reaching Asia and the world for God in the comfort of my office”.

         The ministry is not only the reason why the staff are here, IGSL is also the place where we the staff have found a family. The staff is one big close-knit family. We don’t treat each other as co-workers but as brothers and sisters. We help each other through thick and thin. For good times and bad times we are there for each other. When one of the members of my family got killed 2 years ago, I might never have carried the heaviness of the tragedy if not from our family here at IGSL. The IGSL family really ministered to me especially to my own family. I have been working here for almost 8 years now; I can say that it is a privilege that God allowed me to experience and see the moving of His hands in the lives of the students, faculty and staff.  Aside from gaining spiritual growth, I really praise Him that He allowed me to gain here at IGSL a wonderful husband.

Though most of us are here to serve God, some of the staff are here to grow spiritually. There were staff members who just came to know the Lord or have begun their spiritual growth here in IGSL. We may never have the opportunity to get to know Grudem, Turabian, BDB or Erickson but all of you here in IGSL are the staff’s Systematic Theology, our Greek or our Hebrew. Through our students lives God is talking to us. What I have learned here in IGSL is the application on what you also have learned here in the seminary which doesn’t start after graduation; I think application in the ministry starts here in IGSL.

 

Until now that is what my heart would still like to do. So why leave the best job in the world then? Actually my husband and I are not really leaving IGSL for good but we are leaving to serve IGSL better.

 
            Early last year Carlo and I felt that God is telling us that He is going to do something new for us (I will write another blog about this journey). At first we don’t know what, where and how. But as we pray more about it and just waiting patiently for Him, months, days, and a year had past we saw ourselves going to the direction that He wants us to do that is to be a full time faculty in IGSL. To be a full time faculty, you need to be a full time missionary and to be a full time missionary you need to have an organization. We prayed about it and couldn’t think of any organization that we can fit into but Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC). I was a CCC baby and have lots of dear friends in CCC and IGSL is a CCC seminary so it all fit together.

 

            So I am not saying goodbye to the best job in the world but is looking forward 10 months after our training to go back to this best job that I have. Please pray for us, as we will begin a new journey in our married life, ministry life and especially in our Christian life. We are excited on what God has in store for us, don’t worry I will be blogging our journey so you will hear more from us. If you are a close friend of mine, you are going to hear from me as in hear from me literally – you know what I mean.

 

           

So this is it! Woot! Woot!