25 years ago today: Urbana 81

Yesterday I received an e-mail from Diane of St. Louis, Missouri that said that she helped at the registration of Urbana 2006. It was a reminder to be of my attendance 25 years ago at Urbana 81. I remember it being snowy and cold as I tracked around the University of Illinois-Champaign those 5 days. It was also a long bus ride from New Jersey during my Christmas break as a first year Bible college student.

I'm not sure what motivated me to go. It might have been my buddy Greg Vadala who traveled with me. Certainly God was in it as well. For it was at Urbana 81 when I first seriously considered involvement in world mission. I stopped by one of the booths to visit my friend Fred Zabel, who represented one of the organizations. He spent an hour with me looking at different possibilities in Africa. I also was struck by the imbalanced number of trained workers in the U.S. in contrast to other places. The singer Keith Green also was struck by this and one of his final messages before his fatal plane crash was about why everyone should strongly consider being a missionary.

When I left Urbana in the early hours of January 1, 1982 for New Jersey, I had a specific future in mind. That call to the nations still burns in me 25 years later. Of course, back then I had no expectation that 25 years later, I would have lived for 2 years in West Africa and for 13 1/2 years in France. The road has been full of interesting twists with people from many different nations. While not always the most settled of careers, it has been rich in friendships and in seeing in different places and camps how God is working. I've also gotten fluent in French.

If I knew back then what I knew now, would I have changed careers? I don't think so.