Nom nom nom com.

It was the middle of my sophomore year when InterVarsity's Nomination Committee (Nom Com) invited me to serve on our Binghamton chapter's Exec Board as the Administrator for the 2009 calendar year.  I almost thought they were crazy.  Me?  Serve on E-board?  I saw my sister serve on E-board and knew how intense and how much commitment it would be to serve on the team, considering they had meetings that lasted two hours every week and got together for days on end to plan during the winter break.  And Administrator?  Really?  I didn't even know what the Administrator did.

It was risky for me.  I came into college as a very burnt out freshman; I had a track record of not being able to say no to anything, and served or led in everything I wanted to do or felt like I should do and didn't know how to rest well.  I was tired of leading and was wary of jumping back in.

At the same time, I didn't feel like I was qualified - I didn't know what was expected of me, I didn't know what my role would look like, I didn't know if I could live up to it all.  But I soon found out that being a leader in InterVarsity was a matter of saying 'yes' to Jesus and being humbly open to learn whatever Jesus wanted to teach me.

It's been 3 years since I've served my last term on E-board, and I am where I am because I chose to say 'yes' to Jesus at that time.  My leadership, visions and decisions in life are all influenced by my experience serving on E-board.  It was a hard but refining process that allowed me to fall on my face, get back up, sacrifice everything I knew, and take risks beyond my understanding, but it is an experience that drew me into a deeper dependence on God and opened my eyes to ways I was blind, and I believe that it was worth it all.

Now, as a staff worker sitting on the other side of the leader selection process, I'm excited to see what God will do in the lives of these students who are willing to say 'yes' to Him.  It's exciting because what it boils down to is not simply what abilities, vision capacity, or leadership skills they have that qualifies them for leadership.  It's exciting because leadership is about how much these students are willing to learn and sacrifice in order to follow Jesus, serve and love like Jesus, and empower others for mission like Jesus.   

And it's particularly exciting for me because Jesus invites me to be a part of the process of what He's doing in and through them.