It's amazing to see how God has worked in the past 10 years since I graduated from New Tribes Bible Institute (NTBI)! I remember at that time thinking I was doing pretty well, but the truth is I still had a lot of growing to do. The summer after I graduated I went on a short-term missions trip with Pioneers to Buryatia in Siberia, Russia, and I thought maybe I would be a full-time missionary there, but I needed to pursue further education first. After working as a cook at NTBI Jackson for a year, I went to Appalachian Bible College (ABC) in West Virginia, where I met my future wife, Angelina, and got my Bachelor's degree. Over those years the church in Buryatia had been growing—praise the Lord!—and maybe I wasn't as suited for that ministry as I thought I was...
While I was at ABC I went on a couple missions trips to Utah, and I saw that as a mostly unreached place dominated by the LDS, so my wife and I thought maybe that would be the place for us—but we had to pay off our school loans first. We settled in Columbus, Ohio to wait for the Lord to direct us to the next place. I got a job at Wal-mart nearby our apartment, so I rode a bicycle to work. Six weeks after Angie and I were married, I was hit by a Ford F-250 truck as I was riding my bike. I needed immediate brain surgery, but there were people praying for me all over the world, and after 3 weeks I was able to go home. I wasn't able to work at all for about 6 months after that, but God provided for us in many amazing ways, and I had a lot of time to think. Even though I didn't suffer much injury in the rest of my body, the head trauma did present me with some limitations I didn't have before, so I had to learn what I could do and serve God with that. I realized that much of what I had planned on doing was because I thought it was what I should do, and I didn't really think about whether it was what I was designed to do. Angie helped me a lot with that, and getting hit by a truck helped me get my head on straight, so to speak.
I was so focused on life in church groups and Bible Colleges that I really didn't know anything about real life—and there's a lot more to ministry than getting good grades. God used the "accident" to help me slow down and see what is going on in the world. I learned that I am an intellectual, information guy, and while Angie helps me to care about people more than I used to, I needed to use the skills God produced in me. It was time for me to become a librarian.
Looking back, I could see how God had been directing me towards this all along—I had worked in the library at ABC all 3 years I was there, never knowing what it was preparing me for. I worked for Legal Services for the state of Ohio, and during that time I developed some handy computer skills. I went to Clarion University of Pennsylvania to get my Master’s in Library Science, and I was kind of expecting to become a Young Adult Librarian at a public library somewhere. I worked in the public library while I was in graduate school, and I was amazed at the opportunities I had to share the gospel being a part of that community. Then God worked it out that it was time for ABC to look into getting a new librarian, and everything fit together. I am now the Associate Librarian at Appalachian Bible College, assisting students as they prepare to go into ministry all over the world! I never could have seen this coming—God is totally in control!
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