Rick Sample
Field Personnel in San Francisco Bay Area, California
I didn’t grow up knowing that I wanted to be a missionary. In fact, as a sophomore at Samford University, I decided to try summer missions for one summer only. Afterward, I ended up being a summer missionary for five years. That first summer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was challenging to me. I had to go door-to-door witnessing! For this introvert, it was torturous to knock on 1200+ doors that summer. All summer long, I thought that it would be my only missionary service in my lifetime.
What I really liked was a sports club I started with some teenage boys in the neighborhood, playing baseball or basketball three afternoons each week. After each game, I led a brief devotional and prayer in the park. On the last night of the summer, I invited all the boys out for ice cream. After the ice cream, I presented each youth with a small New Testament hoping they would read the Bible after the summer. What happened next crushed me.
These teenagers whom I had spent the summer ministering to and praying for mocked me for being a Christian, and, before running off never to see me again, they ripped some pages out of the Bibles and threw them in the gutter. I started to cry and as I bent down to pick up the torn sheaves of Scripture, something struck deep within my soul. It was in that moment that I knew God was calling me to be a missionary for life. What was momentarily an unexpectedly tragic moment was a threshold I stepped over that became a lifelong BLESSING.
The next summer, I was part of a Samford mission team. Four of us spent the summer in LeFrak City, an inner-city enclave in Queens, New York City. And today, in my third decade serving with CBF Global Missions, I can say that my lifelong BLESSING is renewed every day. At the end of my summer in Queens, I penned a poem based on the 23rd Psalm.
A Summer Missionary’s 23rd Psalm
By Rick Sample, summer missionary 1983, Queens, New York City
The Lord is my Supervisor, I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down on my plywood and foam; He leadeth me through the playground and down 57th Avenue.
He restoreth my soul with laughter; He leadeth me in the paths of Vacation Bible School for His name’s sake.
Yea, though I ride through the subways at night, and transfer at Times Square, I will fear no muggers: for Thou art with me; the smiles of the children they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of 10 pairs of eyes peering in at the terrace door; Thou anointest my walls with graffiti; my cup runneth over with people to love.
Surely thoughts of Artif, Caleb, Charles, Joseph, Freddy and Robert will follow me all the days of my life: and I will be a richer person because of New York City.