After I finished my 3-year commitment as CCO staff in Erie in 1981, Barb and I got married and we moved to near Boston, where I worked on finishing a Master’s Degree in Cross-Cultural Christian Ministry, and she worked as a nurse. The end of my year of studies there involved spending the summer in another part of the world. We decided to go with a group of 10 others to Calcutta, India. Our plan was that, after our time in India, we would move to Pasadena, California, where I could get another Master’s, in Teaching English as a Second Language, at a Christian Grad School there. In a world eager to learn English, a TESL degree seemed the ‘ticket’ for living almost anywhere.

           

While we were in Calcutta I was able to spend a day with a career missionary who had come there to lead a seminar for local pastors and other Christian leaders. As he and I talked that day, he strongly encouraged me not to do the TESL where I had planned, but rather, knowing I was from Pennsylvania, he suggested that perhaps Penn State had such a program.    

           

That evening while we were eating dinner at the youth hostel where we were staying, I told Barb about that conversation. A woman at a nearby table, who we didn’t know and never saw before or afterward, interrupted us to say that Penn State did indeed have such a program, as she had a friend in it! So, on the plane back home we thought of the possibility of me going back on CCO staff, this time at Penn State to minister to international students (“the world at our doorstep”), and then gradually work on getting that TESL degree. Meanwhile, Barb would work as a nurse, at least until we could have children.

           

So we moved to State College. After just a few weeks of getting to know some international students, I realized I didn’t need or want a TESL degree. In fact, I found myself saying to the Lord that I would be glad to spend the remainder of my working career in loving, serving, and sharing the Good News of Jesus with PSU international students.