My calling – Part 2

Things finally started moving when my boss, knowing my real passion, put us in contact with someone who worked in mental health within Dairy NZ. It turned out they also had a farm and required a farm assistant, which my husband could do. This would enable him to become the main visa holder and to support me on an open visa. This was not as easy as we thought it would be though and required a big leap of faith. We had another year left on our current visas but it was near the end of the dairy season so I had to decide whether to stay on or hand my notice in before any details were finalized for my husband, and without any actual job opening for me – just a new contact. I decided to do it anyway and handed in my notice, but shortly afterwards it looked like things might fall through with the other farm! We hung in there though and the job did come through but then it looked like we might not get accommodation on the farm as my step son was also living with us at that point. With a lot of praying and trusting in God, everything worked out in the end in regards to my husband’s job and us living together on the farm.

In the meantime I had felt led to join a Toastmasters public speaking group in preparation for the possibility of working for Dairy NZ, which would probably involve doing presentations. As it turned out though, God was actually using it as a way for me to share my faith with an unsuspecting audience that normally avoids speeches on faith/religion! Some of my earlier posts such as ‘Crazy cat lady’ and ‘God spoke to my mum and dad through dog poo’ were written as speeches for this group. They were received well and I also talked about mental health and spirituality before leaving the group less than a year later.

My new visa took longer to come through due to all the mental health stuff being dragged up and investigated again (as I’ve come to expect each time now), and I had to stay a bit longer in dairy farming by helping with the calf rearing before finally moving into my calling. My husband was supposed to be doing this but he injured his back for a while so I had to cover for him. This was a huge challenge for me and God’s way of teaching me some more lessons. I hated the work and I had huge conflicts with the other calf-rearer on top of this. I did and said some awful things which made me feel like a terrible Christian! In my lunch breaks and after work I was frequently praying for forgiveness and to get through each day without completely losing it! I’d never been like this at work before and it felt so unlike me. Maybe it was some kind of spiritual attack?

A job with Dairy NZ never did materialize in the end and I began to apply for other jobs in mental health in the city (Christchurch). I was convinced it needed to be in peer support or in a Christian organization though so I tried desperately to get my foot in the doors to the ones I knew of, applying for many jobs and contacting them by email. The doors remained firmly closed though, without me getting any interviews and my emails being ignored.

During this time I also signed up for some voluntary positions and a course in peer support to prepare myself. One of the volunteer things was as an ‘art tutor’ in the local men’s prison. This was definitely another ‘God thing’ as I had no experience, knowledge or desire to be teaching art whatsoever, but just had a very strong desire to be able to share my faith to prisoners in whatever way possible. During the induction process I met the head prison chaplain and found out that they also have volunteers going into the prisons. I told him that’s what I actually wanted to be doing and thankfully I only had to do one shadowed art session before the chaplains poached me! It turns out the girl who’d been taking the art classes was trying to find a replacement so she could also join the chaplains! I am still doing prison ministry almost 3 years later and loving it.

I reluctantly started to apply for non-Christian or peer-related roles and a door opened up very quickly. There were lots of people at the interview but I managed to get one of the 2 full-time positions (there were also part time and casual roles). I got the job on the last day of the peer support course I’d been doing so I never got to volunteer in that area in the end, but I had shared my faith a lot during the course. I think it was during this time that I learned about praying for God to open or close doors according to His will, which is a type of prayer I often use now for big decisions. Of course this type of prayer requires that you actually walk through those open doors in faith even if you don’t feel like it!

The job I took was as a community support worker for people with quite severe mental illnesses, and I was the only open Christian in the department. I quickly found my niche in meeting the spiritual needs of the clients by talking to them about spiritual things, taking them to different churches and praying for them whenever the opportunities arose. I even helped one to attend an alpha course and get baptized. I also shared my faith and my personal experiences of mental illness appropriately to clients and staff as the company valued the lived experience of staff. I did experience some push-backs in these areas at times from staff/managers as I’d anticipated, but there was never any big conflict or ‘persecution’ as many Christians fear. I found out there was another Christian working there who did not admit it for exactly that fear, and was one of the main ones pushing back against taking clients to church, which really frustrated me! I did enjoy our private discussions though and was able to encourage him.

I stayed in this job for nearly 2 years and really enjoyed it, until God unexpectedly moved me again due to visa requirements. I am now working as a residential support worker in a small Christian organization! I will go more into how this happened in another post about my journey towards residency, but I know that even this job is just another stepping stone towards something bigger that God has planned for me. He has given me a vague vision but I have no idea exactly what it will be yet or how it will come to pass, which makes it all quite exciting.

So through this whole journey of work, God has shown me that you can have a ‘ministry’ for Him in many different areas and without it having to be your paid work. If your paid work is not in some kind of ministry, He can still use you to share your faith and make a difference – maybe even more so in non-Christian workplaces and platforms. Even if you are in a Christian workplace, it is not always what you think it will be and there are still limitations. I think the most important thing for me has been to be authentic and curious, not forceful or judgmental, and to trust God as much as possible. His timing and His ways are higher than our ways.