Confirming a Calling through Daystar University

What is a real calling like?

You’ve seen people who you know are in their field because it suits them – maybe it’s the business man who just seems to take all the right risks to make his business soar. Maybe it’s that nurse you met who is so gentle with her patients and has the right touch to comfort the injured. Perhaps you know an artist who communicates so poetically and profoundly. Are you in a profession like that? Or have you watched your child blossom into a career that suits them in every way?

Some careers seem like they need a calling and others feel like many different people could do them. I have had a lot of different jobs over the years, but they all have something in common: I love to help people – see them succeed in whatever they are doing. So I’ve had jobs that serve others, but some don’t always tick all the boxes.

A few years ago Joshua had everything lined up to go into a nursing program in the U.S. His father suffered with diabetes and other health issues, this is what prompted Joshua to want to be a nurse. Even though his father was a subsistence farmer, he told Joshua that he would do his best to support him in college. Yet, his health was failing and as he was in the hospital with kidney failure Joshua could see that what his father really needed was a person to talk to about facing death. He could see that his father needed a professional counselor to help him through what he was facing.

This is where Joshua first saw his own calling. Listening to his dad, knowing he needed the right kind of counsel but not knowing what to tell him, Joshua sought help for his father. When his father passed away, Joshua knew he could no longer pursue a degree in the States. His family worked together to get him started at Daystar, but none of them had the resources to put him through a degree. He had already delayed his education – even though nursing would have been a likely choice at Daystar, he enrolled in Psychology and Counseling with an emphasis in International Relations.

Joshua has enjoyed his time at Daystar. He has grown in his faith, been involved in the Daystar Christian Fellowship (DCF) and been a part of the Daystar Chorale singing group. Last August he participated in a national singing competition where he sang a solo piece of Mozart’s Within the Sacred Bowers. He placed second! This was his first competition and a great honor for him.

All this is exciting. While he enjoys music and singing, that is not his main calling. Joshua is serious about helping others through counseling. He has finished his coursework at Daystar. Now he needs 500 hours of counseling practice to become a certified Kenyan counselor. He found a practicum at an organization in Nairobi called Windle. But Joshua isn’t sitting in an office block in a fancy part of town. Joshua has been placed in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Turkana district in the north of Kenya. He’s not far from the tumultuous borders with northern Uganda and South Sudan.

Kakuma Refugee Camp was established in the early 1990s to care for unaccompanied minors from Sudan. At that time there were more than 12,000 “lost boys and girls” whose parents were killed during the conflicts in neighboring countries. Children escaped on foot with only their lives. Today there is still civil war in South Sudan resulting in more refugees. This part of Kenya is a desert, already a challenging place without the influx of so many others.

Joshua has been placed in one of the most challenging and hopeless places in East Africa. Cuts to world aid makes the situation even more desperate in recent months. He said that refugees pour in weekly; the camp is expecting an influx of more than 60,000 South Sundanese in the coming weeks. “I wanted to get out of my comfort zone. Here I am.” He has engaged in the classwork at Daystar over the last few years and realized, “Once you have learned these things you must take care of people.” For Joshua this is definitely a calling. “I am here with a purpose.”

Joshua has just recently arrived there at Kakuma. He explained that he went into the small town there to buy some laundry soap and toothpaste. A small 7-year-old boy asked him, “Brother, would you please buy me something to eat.” As Joshua talked with the boy, he revealed that he has three younger brothers in his care and they were refugees from Burundi. In the end, Joshua bought the boy a little charcoal, cooking oil, flour, etc. to help him and his siblings. Joshua felt that his education at Daystar helped him to listen to the boy and not turn away when asked for help. He said that as he listened to the boy he seemed very genuine.

Joshua is sharing in schools and community events there, and hearing devastating stories every day.

Joshua reflected on his journey to this calling. “When my father died I was so down. I had lost my dad, my chance to study in the U.S. and I didn’t know what was next. I had no way of paying fees for Daystar. Yet, I knew that God must have a plan for me.” He was clinging to Ephesians 3:20 “to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think…”