Religion Class Prepared Student for Summer Mission

Abigail McMaster, an International Business and Hospitality Management major, Spanish minor, and student in the Honors Program, discovered that a religion class proved useful in her summer of mission work. Here is her account of what happened:

Abigail (center) with EM cross-cultural interns
 in Atlanta

Comfort zones are funny. They seem so confining and terrifying; however, when you step out of them and say “yes” to what God wants to use you for it opens you up to many amazing experiences. When God opened the door for me to work as a Cross-Cultural Intern with Experience Mission (EM), I had no idea what I would be stepping into. One of the fun parts of being on EM’s summer staff is that you accept your position without knowing where you will be serving. I found out that I would be serving in Atlanta, Georgia, and Harlem in New York City. When I received the email I was excited, but at the same time absolutely terrified. I am from a small town in Ohio and have attended college at AU, so big cities were not really my cup of tea. I sent a text to a friend and mentor, “I have no idea how to live in a big city, but I guess I will figure it out.”

As I found out about the demographics of the people that I would be serving, I realized that I would actually be in the racial minority for the first time in my life. During the spring semester of 2018, I had taken a class called Religion and the Civil Rights Movement. In this class, I learned that the white Christians in the 1960s really did not stand up for African Americans in their struggle for civil rights. During this class, I came to the realization that I too had been able to ignore a lot of the modern day race relations problems. This really changed how I viewed the modern day race relations. I knew that living in Atlanta and Harlem was not going to make any major changes in these issues but I did see how God had been preparing me for this move, without me knowing it.

The knowledge I learned from this class was super helpful in Atlanta. Atlanta, Georgia is the birthplace of Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. and home of the King Center. Every Monday morning the first thing we did with our teams of high schoolers who came was to take them to the King Center. This was so that they knew more about the area that they were serving in and also more about the Civil Rights Movement. I know I appreciated these visits more because of this class. Also, the pastor of our church would often sit our teams down and talk about how to build bridges instead of walls when it came to the tough subjects of race, religion, and politics. In Harlem, one of my coworkers quickly discovered we lived across the street from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Again, we took teams there, so that they would be more educated and again, I appreciated the visit more because of this class.

I did not actually realize some of the other ways that God had prepared me to go until after I came home. I realized that God had prepared me for city street evangelism by taking me to Ashville, North Carolina on a mission trip over spring break. God prepared me for the sheer business of New York City by first letting me serve in Atlanta. I realized that my business classes could actually be helpful on the mission field as I worked on budgets. My event planning skills from working at a country club came through with the attention to detail I was able to implement into our schedules.

My summer was hard, I cried, and at times I wanted to quit. I saw things I wish I could unsee, but at the same time know that I do not want to unsee because I know it has changed me to be a better person. I know that God will use all that I experienced this summer in my future and that nothing is wasted with God. I am amazed at what God can do when we are willing to have our comfort zones shattered.