Covenant News

Three Women Find God's Call to Sri Lanka

SRI LANKA (February 7, 2005) - Christine Buettgen, 20, decided to take a semester off from her studies at North Park University. Jasmine Molina, 24, felt the call to photograph "hope" in what appeared to be a hopeless situation. Heather Jensen, 18, received an immediate answer to prayer for God to do something that would stretch her faith.

All three Covenanters are answering the call they received from God to help survivors of the December tsunami that killed more than 36,000 in Sri Lanka. Some estimates suggest that two-thirds of the nation's coastal region was destroyed, including hundreds of thousands of homes.

The women are helping to unload and sort deliveries of goods that will then be loaded onto trucks to be distributed among Sri Lankans. The Sri Lankan government also has asked them to set up a program whereby Sri Lankan families would be "adopted" by American families who would send financial support.

Buettgen, a lifelong attendee of Winnetka Covenant Church in Wilmette, Illinois, and a junior at North Park University, told friends and relatives that God had called her to do more than send a check. When she received an email that had been sent from two people to former participants at the Urbana Student Missions Conference, Buettgen says she knew it was her answer.

"It's wonderful to see a young person who takes their call to discipleship and life in Christ seriously and has a faith that acts itself out," says Winnetka Pastor Pete Hawkinson. "She challenges us to respond to the call in our lives." Buettgen spent a year at Covenant Bible College in Ecuador, a time Hawkinson says "was really formative and life-changing for her with regards to having Christ at the center of her life."

"She's always been very volunteer-oriented," says her father, Tom Buettgen. "That's definitely where her heart is." Although initially reticent about having their daughter leave for Sri Lanka, especially before finishing college, the Buettgens are now enthusiastic. "I couldn't be more pleased with what she's doing," Tom says. There also is education that can't be learned in a university setting. "She's getting an idea about organizing on a grand scale," Tom said. "That's a whole level of organization skills that she wouldn't have had otherwise."

Although some may say Buettgen is putting her life on hold, Hawkinson says, "Her work there will shape the rest of her life. That's what mission does." Until arriving in Sri Lanka, Buettgen had never met Molina and Jensen. Molina and Jensen attend Bayside Covenant Church in Roseville, California.

An aspiring photographer, Molina says she is certain God wanted her to travel to Sri Lanka, so certain that she rejected an offer just a week earlier to assist relief efforts in Thailand, says Dave Brubaker, a friend and pastor of senior high students at Bayside. Molina disciples Jensen, who had been praying that God would increase her faith to be like that of her mentor, says Brubaker.

That day, one of the pastors received the same email that had reached Buettgen. "The next thing we know, we're putting Jasmine and Heather on an airplane," Brubaker says. Jensen had been scheduled for a mission trip to Brazil, but that fell through the day before the email arrived, he adds, noting that God has amazing timing.

The three women expect to be in Sri Lanka for at least several months and are staying with a family whose home was not destroyed and who had a contact with someone who had attended the Urbana conference. They are communicating with people in the states via web blogs.

"I can't forget what I've seen now," Molina writes in the Wednesday entry of her blog. "Now that I'm here, I realize how TV can't and doesn't do this place justice." Stories coming out of that area have not, in Molina's opinion, adequately reflected the love and hope present among the people. Desiring to tell that part of the story, Molina writes, "I've got the privilege of taking pictures of some beautiful things and some beautiful families that have such amazing hope for life after the tsunami. I have never seen anything like the love people in these communities have for each other and for the people coming to help them."

Molina's web blog can be visited at http://srilankamissions.blogspot.com - Buettgen's blog can be found at http://www.christininesrilanka.blogspot.com. More about the post-tsunami work can be learned by viewing a television interview with Buettgen at http://www.nbc5.com/news/4076665/detail.html (Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player 9 are necessary to view the video). Jensen does not yet have a blog site.

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