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Scott stared around the room. Empty. He should have known. Talking about ways that local believers could encourage their churches to become more missions oriented wasn’t the kind of flashy or exciting topic that would draw in hundreds of attendees. Which is probably why Buck had pawned the responsibility off on him. Oh, well.
Scott always enjoyed the Urbana conference. He hadn’t missed one since he’d started working for Kingdom Builders twelve years ago. There was something so invigorating about surrounding himself with young people who loved the Lord and wanted to serve him overseas.
Of course, not everybody who got excited here would end up on the mission field. He figured that even if a third of the attendees at the conference made a commitment to pursue full-time ministry like the Urbana managers claimed, only a small fraction of those would actually turn into career missionaries. The distractions of the world were far too strong.
For years, Scott had looked down on those who graduated with him from Bible college, those who’d planned to serve God vocationally but ended up doing something else. Now, he had a deeper understanding of the ways God worked and knew a Christian could be involved in full-time ministry while still working a secular job. The fact that the world needed Christian missionaries didn’t negate the fact that it also needed Christian doctors and teachers and journalists and janitors and taxicab drivers.
So he had learned to stop judging others, but he did sometimes wonder what would happen if God called a Christian to a specific mission field and the believer didn’t follow through. Would God just raise somebody else up to minister in that region? If God was going to save everyone that he wanted to save as some Christians believed, if a Christian could ignore God’s call to the mission field and rest assured that the Lord would just invite somebody more willing, where was the sense of urgency? Why would he ask young people to sacrifice their futures, their comforts, their worldly dreams if eternal souls weren’t at risk of perishing without hearing the gospel message?
These were questions better fit for the four corners of his alma mater, but he still confronted them on occasion. Once, when he was speaking at a church just outside of Philadelphia to raise support for Kingdom Builders, an old man interrupted his speech to ask why he bothered traveling across the world with the gospel when there were so many hurting and needy people right in his own backyard.
Those kinds of confrontations always bothered him, reminding him of the way Hudson Taylor was discouraged from preaching the gospel in China because “when God pleases to convert the heathen, he’ll do it without the help of people like you and me.” Scott was in full support of local missions, but how could that be an excuse to ignore those in other parts of the world who had never even had the chance to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ?
He glanced again at the time. If nobody showed up in the next few minutes, he would probably call the session off.
A timid knock sounded on the door, and he hoped that whoever came to hear what he had to say brought a few friends along. There was nothing more awkward than standing in front of the room giving a speech meant for twenty or thirty people to an audience of one.
“Come in,” he called out without raising his eyes.
The little startled cry that followed made him look up.
“Am I in the right place?”
He would recognize that sound anywhere. He could have been riding in a crowded Moscow subway surrounded by two dozen sweaty Russian men, and he still would have known that voice.
He licked his lips, suddenly aware that he was dizzy. Did she recognize him too? Is that why she had gasped when she stepped through the doorway?
He was on his feet. Ignoring the way the room spun in circles around him. Watching her face to tell if she was happy to see him or not.
Maybe he was wrong. What would she be doing all the way out here? What about her sister?
That must be it. After he’d tried so hard to get her out of his head, after he’d prayed so fervently for God to help him get over the pain of losing her, his mind was playing tricks. There were twenty thousand people at this conference. How many of them would be young women with golden, flowing hair and large, trusting eyes?
Eyes that probed into his very soul.
He cleared his throat, reminding himself that he had a presentation to deliver. Convincing himself that Susannah Peters was back home with her sister in Orchard Grove.
“Are you here for the talk on starting a missions movement in your local church?” he asked.
Why was she staring at him like that? Why wouldn’t she sit down?
“Make yourself comfortable.” He pointed to one of the desks, but she didn’t move. She looked just like he imagined her all these months. The resemblance was uncanny. “What’s your name? Where are you from?”
She blinked up at him. Those large trusting eyes. “I’m Susannah. Have we met before?”