| Trekking in Burkina (2:37) |
John-Mark Bergen joined his parents, missionaries Phil and Carol Bergen, in Burkina Faso for his TREK assigment. Read more about his story below I’ve heard that some people go into college knowing exactly what they want to be. I was nothing like those people. Even as my sophomore year of college was coming to a close, I still didn’t know. Time was running out. Up to that point I had packed my semesters with General Education courses, doing my best to postpone the inevitable declaration of my major. Why? Because I literally had no idea what I wanted to do. Too bad Fresno Pacific doesn’t offer a Bachelor of Arts in General Education. There were too many options, and yet at the same time, too few. Liberal Studies, Business, Biology, Sociology, Psychology, Kinesiology… I read down that list of big words and got to the end without any of them jumping out to me and screaming, “Pick me! I am your future!” To be honest, I didn’t even know what half of them meant. I remember kneeling down on the floor one afternoon with a course book and asking God to make it clear what he wanted me to do. Suddenly I had an idea. I looked down the list of courses and without reading what category they fell under, I highlighted the ones that sounded interesting to me. Somewhere around 90% of the classes I had picked all fell under “Communications.” I drew up the papers that afternoon and that was that. For the next two years I studied language, story telling, and the ways we communicate with each other. Fascinating stuff. Through this process I discovered that what interested me the most was video. To me it seemed to be the culmination of all the methods of communication, and being a huge movie fan, I know how powerful a good film can be. My only qualm was that I had no idea how I could use this major once I graduated. I knew I didn’t want to use my skills as a videographer to make TV commercials. I wanted my work to be meaningful and I wanted it to glorify the Lord. Growing up as a missionary kid, I knew how important a good video was for my parents when they returned home. It could give a congregation a glimpse into our life overseas the way an hour-long presentation or picture slideshow never could. I wanted to make videos like that! In my Junior year I volunteered to help one of my teachers shoot a promo for the University. We shot it up in Yosemite National Park, and it was there that I got to know John Ervin. He was a professor at FPU at the time, but I had never had the opportunity of being in any of his classes. On the way back down to Fresno I rode with him in his car and we talked for a long time about his passion to begin a video ministry and his plans to see it become a reality. This conversation really inspired me, but it also discouraged me as I began to question my own calling. John’s path seemed so clear, and mine was still clouded with uncertainty. I had not yet fully given my future to the Lord. So when I graduated the next year, I decided to surrender my first year of freedom to Him and signed up for the TREK program. After a wonderful seven months in Burkina Faso on TREK, when I was again beginning to wonder what God was planning for the next chapter of my life, MBMSI approached me to see if I could help them with their video projects. Not only that, but they also told me that I would be working on some of the same projects as John Ervin! The Lord works in mysterious ways. On that drive back from Yosemite, a dream had sparked in my heart to work in video ministry. I could never have imaged that roughly two years later I would be where I am today, working on videos about how God is transforming lives in mission. God is God, Praise the Lord!Comment
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