Leah’s journey so far

Today Leah Kostamo, co-founder of A Rocha in Canada, shares lessons from her life journey

When I was twenty-one years old I heard God’s call. I was sitting on the grass outside the University of Arizona library, when I heard (with the ears of my heart, yet no less clearly than if it had been the ears of my ears!), “Go ye on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ.” And my heart sank right into my toes. This is not what I wanted to do. Firstly, because I wanted to go feed starving people in Africa. Secondly, because I wasn’t the “crusading” type.

But after three pretty miraculous confirmations, I packed my bags and headed off to the University of Idaho to fulfill Christ’s Great Commission of making disciples of all nations. Cue the big bass drum…Dum, dum, dum!

Look for that intersection between your greatest gifts and the world’s greatest needs

And it was good. But six years and countless evangelistic tracts later, I started to feel restless, like I had overstayed my welcome at a party. I asked God for direction. I prayed. I even fasted for three whole days. I walked outside into the wheat fields, held my hands to the sky and asked the wind of the Spirit to blow me like a weather vane to my true north. But, nothing, not even a puff of direction. So I did what I wanted – I went to graduate school to study theology.

And I felt like I had come home. If I could have, I would have pulled up an armchair at the hearth of that school and stayed forever. But graduate school is a fast moving train and in what seemed like a nanosecond I had disembarked and was standing at another crossroads.

This time around I barely had time to pray, let alone fast. Within the span of a week, a sure-fire job fell through, a roommate made an offhand comment about a wonderful school overseas, I called the administrators of said school who said they were looking for someone with my exact qualifications, and three people independently offered to fund my posting. Et, voila! A few weeks later I was on a plane to teach at a college on the shores of the Baltic Ocean.

And again I felt like I had come home.

So, to recap:

Existential call of God, which I heed as an act of obedience – feels good.
Silence of God, so I follow my heart – feels like home.
Circumstances and miraculous provision dictate call – again, home.

But the big daddy of vocational callings was still on the horizon. At thirty-two I got married and moved back to Canada where my husband Markku and I held our vocational future up to the heavens for guidance and blessing. We stood in this posture for nearly two years (long enough for our arms to get good and tired!).

By the end of that time it was clear that money was not to be a deciding factor in whatever we did. And barring a miraculous call, we would follow Frederick Buechner’s advice and look for that intersection between our greatest gifts and the world’s greatest needs.

Enter A Rocha. Weird name, I know. It means “the rock” in Portuguese and began as a Christian environmental centre on the coast of Portugal nearly 20 years previous. Imagine the Sierra Club, meets a youth hostel, ground the whole idea in Christian community, and you have a flavour of the thing.

A Rocha’s ministry of extending God’s love to all of creation was like the knitting of all the strands of our lives together. From our training in ecology and entrepreneurial leadership (Markku) and campus ministry and education (Leah) to our love for other cultures and community, the work of A Rocha was like a pair of old jeans we stepped into and found that they fit perfectly.

Even so, birthing A Rocha in Canada felt like the labour it was. There were salaries to raise, an environmental centre to acquire, staff to be found, meals to be cooked, and on and on. We shed many a tear of frustration. But more often, our eyes filled with tears of gratitude, especially as we watched the humble, but deeply good work of earthkeeping unfolding all around us; whether that looked like restoring a salmon stream or opening the eyes of a child to the beauty of creation or sitting with a struggling intern.

We watched, astounded, as the tiny seed of an idea grew into a glorious tree in which the birds of the air had come to roost (literally!).

So, to recap once again:

No rulebook for how God calls — sometimes via a megaphone, sometimes a whisper, sometimes the call just looks like our lives.
No rulebook for how to confirm God’s vocational calling — it always feels like home, but sometimes that home needs to be built from the ground up with blood, sweat and tears.

So, if there’s no rulebook, what is there?

Well, there’s God’s overarching call – a call to every human being on planet earth to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8). There’s obviously lots of room for vocational creativity within that calling. Farming, parenting, painting, pastoring, frog and fungi studying — wherever and however we care for people and places with our unique gifts and skills and with an eye toward justice and love, we are sitting in the centre of our calling.

If God blasts you with a megaphone, great. If not, take a step back and take in the wonderful vocational tapestry God has been weaving with the strands of your life already. It will look like what you’re good at and what the world needs.

Leah Kostamo is the author of Planted: A Story of Creation, Calling and Community. She likes to read (and write) wise and winsome stories that inspire people to be the change they want to see in the world. She can be found online at leahkostamo.com. She ministers with A Rocha, a Christian conservation organization.

Seeking a new perspective

It would have been better to read Os Guinness’s book the way he intended: only one chapter per day. Blazing through The Call: Finding and Fulfilling The Central Purpose of Your Life in a couple days was too much. Reflecting on ten pages each day over twenty-six days would have worked much better. My brain is overloaded and I’m feeling a bit numb.

An illustration perhaps that discovering something as substantial as your core life purpose doesn’t usually happen overnight. No, these things take time – a whole lot of precious time.

Not that I came away with nothing of value. There was, of course, the initial reminded that a deep sense of personal value and worth – not to mention a clear sense of calling – isn’t emphasized in every culture, philosophy or religion. While many people assume that this conviction is common everywhere, sadly, it just isn’t.

Unfortunately, large groups of people are taught to deny their true individuality, and talk about personal dignity and unique potential is routinely brushed aside. At the same time, many individuals carry on as if their lives matter although when pressed to give a reason are unsure exactly why; they live, coasting along, without compelling answers to critical life questions.

For the record, Dr. Guinness writes passionately about personal purpose as a committed Christian. And this is not a coincidence. Could it be that Christ’s arrival on the earth did more to affirm the value of each human being than anything else? For that matter, how much positive energy on this planet could finally be traced back to this source? Pausing to gaze east out of a western window, I wonder.

What else stood out during this supersonic survey?

Well, even a quick glance at the title of this book suggests that each person is called in some sense. It isn’t The Call: Becoming a Pastor or a Priest or The Call: Leaving your Family and Friends to Serve in Another Country or Culture Forever and Ever. Not at all. Who knows? It might even be perfectly normal to feel “called” to read a specific book and then write about it, or to do whatever you were doing before you decided to visit this website.

There is a word of caution here for all who desire to feel profoundly called and deeply inspired each and every moment of their lives. But at the same time, this book is written for all who aspire to have a greater sense of calling. And all of life is in view here – not just a small part of it.

Each chapter begins with a story, usually about somebody famous: William Wilberforce, Vaclav Havel, Andrew Carnegie, Pablo Picasso, Wolfgang Mozart, Ferdinand Magellan, and many others come up in the conversation. But Dr. Guinness also takes the time to tell about his family history and talk about his own story to introduce an aspect of calling. And yes, if “Guinness” sounds like the name of a famous Irish brew, you might be on to something.

Dr. Guinness has studied at Oxford, worked at L’Abri, reported for the BBC, and written or edited over 30 books. He has also served as a Senior Fellow at the Trinity Forum in the USA for many years. And yet, after reading his book, I am reminded that while calling certainly involves what we each do for a living, it also includes much more than just that. Calling is complicated, mysterious, all-encompassing and very much connected to the Caller.

One final observation: Discovering a greater sense of purpose often involves learning to view your life from a whole new perspective.