It was the summer before my junior year in high school, and
I was working at a pizza restaurant owned by two Muslim men, Ali and Ehab. Now this was definitely not the ideal
job. I was only making minimum wage, yet
I was practically running the place. One
good thing about the job, though, was the fact that it did not get very much
business. This left me plenty of time to
do my homework, as well as talk with the owners. Because Ali and Ehab are very extroverted
people, our conversations often consisted of lectures about how I must convert
to Islam. Hearing this day after day got
to be extremely exhausting. I was
trusting God that he had placed me in this job for a reason, but it could be
very difficult when it felt that I was constantly having to defend my
faith.
After I
had been working there for a couple months, I began to develop a closer
relationship with Ali and Ehab. One day
I was going about my business when Ehab asked me why I was so different from
all other teenagers he saw come into the restaurant. He said that he had stereotyped all teenagers
as rude and irresponsible, but I was not like that. I responded by saying it was my relationship
with Jesus Christ that made me different.
This seemed to really intrigue him, and from that moment on he began
asking me more and more questions about my faith.
I wish
I could say that Ali and Ehab both accepted Christ into their lives. However, eventually the restaurant went out
of business and we went our separate ways.
While I continue to pray for them, I have no idea what is currently
going on with them. I do know that my
experience of working at this small restaurant has thoroughly shaped who I am
now. It was through my daily
conversations about Christ that I began to realize there was so much more to
life then all the petty things in which I invest so much of my time. There was nothing better then feeling God
work through me to share about Christ. God
really began to work in my heart, and I began to hear him calling me into a
life of missions. My first reaction was
to completely ignore this idea. How
could working at a restaurant two miles from my house lead me to a life in the
mission field, way outside of my comfort zone?
After a few months passed and God’s voice did not go away, I finally gave
in. It was such an awesome feeling to
know I was where God wanted me to be, and I began preparing to go on my first
summer long mission trip. What I learned
from this whole experience was that God can use the most ordinary situations to
completely change our lives, and I believe that God often teaches us our most
important lessons in ways we would never expect.
