"I Believe that like the Apostle Paul, every Christian is called to be poured out as a drink offering." - Liz Crusey, MBU Director of International Student Services

Each day, as we die to self through surrender and service, accolade and acclaim are brought to our great God. This surrender and service is borne out in how we choose to interact with other people – believers and unbelievers alike. I believe that a cup of hot tea offered in love can be as important as sharing the Gospel. I believe that taking the time to listen to a student’s story and praying with her on the spot is as valuable as starting a staff meeting at the top of the hour, if not more so. I believe that coaching a step team for 10 Caribbean students is as critical to their personal development as helping them maintain their academic and financial status.

Allow me to share two stories from my life that illustrate how I have come to believe that God calls us to minister to whole people. The first is from my childhood. My grandmother, Anita Sands, was a fourth grade public school teacher for more than 30 years. By inviting her personal friends, the Naganos, into her classroom, she sought to teach her students to value people from other cultures and countries. The Naganos were second-generation Japanese Americans who, despite being well-educated (he as an architectural engineer, she as a microbiologist and pianist) still suffered injustice and mistreatment during the Second World War. My grandmother wanted her students to know the Naganos, to hear them describe their farm, and to see them as real people with inherent dignity and value. She also taught many classes of fourth graders to care for the natural world by leading field trips to the estuary and showing them how to plant trees in deforested areas. After she retired, you could find her either at her kitchen table, teaching informal ESL classes to Filipino and Mexican farm workers and their children, or at the local “free store” she and other volunteers operated out of the basement of  their church.

The next vignette is from my own college experience.  In the fall semester of my sophomore year, I was very ill just before final exams. While my friends were prancing off to our school’s holiday Madrigals Feast, I was stuck in bed with bronchitis and a fever. One of my professors, Dr. Daphne Haddad, inquired with my roommate about how I was doing. When she learned that I was ill, she found out which residence building, hall, and room I lived in. And then, being a good Brit, she brought me a cup of hot tea, some spare tea bags and a package of digestives. If you are not familiar with such tasty treats, you must make a trip to a local international food store and pick up a package. They are delicious! Thinking back on this experience, I am struck by how brave and selfess a gesture this was.

You should know though, that this can be a terribly inconvenient way to live. It is inconvenient to stay at work late to listen to a lonely, confused student. It is inconvenient to give your neighbor a ride to the other side of town before work for a last-minute job interview. It is inconvenient to wake up extra early to meet up with the visitor who stopped into church last Sunday searching for meaning in his life. In all of this though, the hope of the Gospel shines clearly. And by being poured out in this way, accolade and acclaim are brought to our great God.