Sometimes you can look back on your life and see a specific moment in time that determined the course of your life. A dot on your timeline that pointed you in one direction or the other. Robert Jarvik, inventor of the artificial heart (whose love story I read in Parade magazine Sunday morning as I ate my French toast) talks about a moment as “'an inflection point' in his life, a mathematical term referring to a point on a curve at which the line of the curvature changes."
In March of 1986 I was a silly, boy-crazy freshman at Ouachita Baptist University, recently stung with the rejection of not being chosen by any of the women's social clubs on campus during rush week (another moment I now see as the hand of God in my life!). I had made friends with my next-door-neighbor Angie, a missionary kid who loved Jesus and people in an open and natural way like I had never seen before in someone my age. We hung out more and more, turning into best friend/sisters-for-life. That March, OBU celebrated its 100th birthday with "Global Focus Week," bringing in missionaries from all over the world to speak in a daily chapel and in smaller break-out sessions throughout the week. I attended a session led by Jerry and Barbara Schleiff, missionaries in Zimbabwe, because a) I had represented Zimbabwe at a model United Nations and 2) I had a schoolgirl crush on their son. Just being honest. What they said in that session blew my mind. And stirred something in my heart, something that made me want to talk to them more. I met with Aunt Barbara (as I soon learned to call her) on the steps of Berry Chapel, and told her that lately I didn't see the point in praying anymore because I felt like God wasn't hearing my prayers; they were just bouncing off the ceiling. The first thing she asked me was if I was sure that I had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and when I said yes, she asked me to tell her about it. I told her how one Sunday night when I was eight years old I had sat on my bed crying over my sins, and prayed with my parents, asking Jesus to forgive me and giving my life to Him. Her next question was, "Are you having a daily quiet time?" I said something like, "A wha...??" She went on to talk about the importance of spending time every day in God's Word and in serious prayer, not just praying the same thing before I went to sleep each night like I had been doing. (Side note: thinking about this now, after working with college students and my own teenage daughters, I realize that I had been taught these things before, by my parents, Sunday School teachers, pastors, etc. It just hadn't clicked with me until that moment.) She prayed with me, and from that moment on held me accountable, always asking me how my quiet time is going. She and Uncle Jerry started treating me like one of their special girls. Angie and I had them over to her dorm room for a visit--I don't remember if we fed them anything, like Cheezits or frozen pie, but I do remember all of us laughing a lot!
From that week until today, I have felt loved by them. We exchanged a few letters from opposite sides of the world. They rejoiced with me when Mike and I got married, and sent a wedding gift hand-made by ladies in Zimbabwe. When they moved to Arkadelphia and we moved to Magnolia, we met them at Burger Barn for lunch one day so they could meet Mike and the girls, and then Mike loved them, too.
Jerry and Barbara Schleiff had no reason to spend time with me 29 years ago. No reason to reach out to me and make me feel special. I'm not related to them. I was not an MK and had not felt a call to foreign missions. I had just met them and their daughter Kiki that week. But they took time to listen to me and teach me and love me, and it changed my life. I do spend time each day (or almost every day) reading God's Word and talking to Him. I made a commitment that week to take advantage of any mission opportunity that came my way, and to follow Him wherever He led. He led me to Ecuador, Houston, Clearwater Beach, inner city Fort Worth, Indio, West Virginia, New Orleans, Idaho, Phoenix, south Arkansas, Mozambique, Slovenia, Brenham, and this summer to Hawaii and Columbus, Ohio. Without that commitment, I may not have even married Mike Sandusky! (On one of our dates, he asked me if I would ever consider living in Idaho, and I said, "Well, I wouldn't go there alone!" But knowing he wanted to serve the Lord anywhere, anyhow was one of the things that made me fall in love with him.)
On Sunday I read that Jerry Schleiff will be seeing Jesus face to face very soon. As Angie said, his faith will be sight. I rejoice for him. I hurt for his family.And I am so thankful to have known him. This world is not the same because of him.
