We like to post tips so you know about different things to do in your travels. Recently, we discovered Festivals of Speed, which is held in four different locations in Florida. We learned about it through an offer to get in for half price with a Living Social coupon.

We drove up to the quiet town of Howey-in-the-Hills, where dozens of “exotic cars” were on display on the beautiful Mission Inn’s golf course. (We never did see Howey.)

“Hi!  I don’t know how to get in.”

Jenn stood in the apartment house entry and buzzed the room.  She’d been invited to dinner near a different campus, the University of Freiburg.  The students hosting the dinner are involved with Campus für Christus and were expecting her, but assumed she was a German student.  When they heard her speaking English, they realized an American was coming to their event; Jenn became an instant novelty.

After a warm welcome, the hostesses treated Jenn and the other four guests to a great dinner of turkey, salad, and different spreads to put on bread slices.  Afterwards, the students met the other dinner groups for dessert downtown.  About fifty students from different campuses in Freiburg attended the event and Jenn enjoyed meeting lots of new people.

Jenn plans to return to the Thursday night meetings of Campus für Christus, the German student ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, International.  (Campus für Christus has had a ministry in Germany since 1966.)

NOTE: Jenn’s tee-shirt was a handmade gift from a friend and says basically (in German), “I’m an English major, you do the math.”  She was attending a May Day picnic (a typical activity for this German holiday) when the picture was taken.

"Thanks, as always, for your time and commitment to helping others. You are doing that!" ~ Andrea Buczynski, CCC VP, Global LDHR

“You’ve multiplied yourself,” Andrea said.  She was telling me about another staff member, Bob, who began blogging after I had helped Andrea start her blog two weeks before; she then encouraged Bob to consider writing about his leadership tips (see Bob’s blog, Leading with Questions).

Those words struck a chord in me.   In 2009, I began working in Judy Douglass’ office to help women use technology for ministry.  One of my motivations has been to “multiply” myself.  That is, I wanted to help others to learn technology so they could use these tools in ministry.  Since then, I’ve had the privilege of offering training in a variety of new skills to many of our Campus Crusade for Christ staff.

Andrea Buczynski, Campus Crusade’s Vice President for Global Leadership Development, is one of these. (She’s also a Penn State alum, by the way.)  Andrea explained the focus of her work to me as “developing effective leaders who are growing people and building healthy teams.”  In 2010, the Leadership Development and Human Resources office trained 195 teams globally under her leadership.

She had been considering how to minister more effectively and asked me to meet with her.  In our first meeting, she decided that a blog would be one of the tools she’d like to use, so she started AB Reflections.  I also explained how she should link her blog to her Facebook and Twitter accounts.  She wasn’t using Twitter very often, so I explained about a tool called Hootsuite to help her manage the time she would spend on social networks.

When I met with her again last week, she was very enthusiastic about “blogging and tweeting.”  In just the first two months of the blog, she’s had over 2,300 page views from people in 47 countries.  Her statistics indicate she’s reaching between 1,300 to 1,500 people. These are very good numbers for a brand new blog. She was also invited to an “invitation only” leadership group on Twitter and was asked to write a monthly blog post for this group of 9,000 people.  We both agreed that God was helping her reach more people through these internet tools… and in a very short time.

You might enjoy following Andrea’s blog, AB Reflections. She writes about Jesus, living life, and leadership.

A week later, we were returning home on a 757 and I was sitting by the window again. As usual, I preferred to do some things during the flight, but at the same time I didn’t want to repeat what happened on the previous flight. We watched as dozens of travelers walked past us and the third seat remained empty. More than twenty minutes later, Sananda arrived. We introduced ourselves, but I stayed in my seat, with my husband sitting between Sananda and myself. Shortly after we were in the air, both Sananda and my husband got up, so God graciously gave me another opportunity. I knew He forgave me for my self-centeredness and for my lack of love for someone created in His image, but I didn’t want to disobey Him again.

When Sananda came back to her seat, I offered, “Would you like the window seat?”

Sananda broke into a huge smile of delight. “Are you sure?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I had the window seat on the flight up.”

After Sananda settled in, we offered her some food, which she gratefully accepted. She’d been detained from her connection and hadn’t been able to buy a dinner in the airport.

Normally, I keep tracts with me, but because of the space limitations, all my tracts were in my carry-on bag in the overhead bin, so I knew I would need to trust God to do things differently. I had some needlework with me, making quilt patterns on plastic canvas, so I pulled them out to work on them. I could tell Sananda was watching what I was doing.

I already knew Sanada had been visiting family in Canada and was originally from Guyana, so I asked her if she knew about the history of quilts in the underground railroad. I explained how the different quilt patterns contained hidden messages for slaves escaping to Canada.

I had extra supplies, so I taught her how to do plastic canvas needlepoint. She practiced stitching while we talked about her job and her three sons. The conversation wasn’t changing to spiritual topics and we were approaching our destination.

“Are you interested in spiritual things, Sananda?” I finally asked.

She already knew I am a missionary, so she said she knew some Christians, and that she was Hindu. “My sisters are Christians. In our culture, you take the religion of your husband.”

“So, your husband is Hindu?”

“Yes, we come from the same village in Guyana.”

My heart went out to her that she would be discouraged from making her own personal choice and that she could strain her relationship with her husband if she considered Jesus Christ.

By the end of the flight Sananda considered me her friend and wanted to stay in touch. We exchanged emails and I promised I would look for her on Facebook.

My husband pulled my carry-on bag down for me and I pulled out a Passage tract to give her. I opened the booklet and read the first sentence to her. “In pre-Civil War America, thousands of African Americans escaped to freedom by way of the underground railroad, a secret network of relationships and safe houses.” I handed the tract to her and encouraged her to write me if she has any questions about Christianity.

I hope I learned my lesson as “a slave of Christ” to freely and joyfully allow God to dictate how I should spend my time, especially when I am around others. What He asks of me is better than what I might choose. For me, I was in bondage, selfishly clinging to “my time” as we flew north even to an area that was significant during the time of the underground railroad. What a difference to know freedom in Christ as I obeyed Him on our flight home.