老司机传媒

Nathan Gulzar (freshman, aviation)

What is your connection with missions?
My family is from Pakistan, but I was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo in Central Africa. My parents first arrived in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2002, and they were missionaries there for 19 years until they moved to the United States.

What was your experience growing up?
Since the beginning, my dad did evangelistic meetings for three weeks each year. Every time we would go to places where there weren’t churches and people worshiped outside. My dad usually found areas in the jungle where little villages formed. Sometimes, doctors would come, there would be free counseling for families, and usually evangelistic meetings. My dad preached a lot during the three weeks and stayed there with a translator. After the three weeks passed, my dad and his colleagues built a church at each location. I asked my dad, “How many churches did you build?” And he answered, “If I counted correctly, it'd be nine churches.” But during his time in the Congo, he's been to more than nine different places.

In 2017, my parents decided to start a free food program because students couldn’t afford a lot of stuff. They could barely afford school fees. So my parents thought that it would be a good idea to start a food program to feed one hundred students from the school. They selected one hundred students who didn’t have anything, and we would provide food at lunchtime from Monday to Friday. It was always rice and beans because that’s the easiest to cook.

I went to Congo in 2019 for the summer. It was really, really fun because it was my first time going while the food program was taking place. I was like, “Oh my god, that's so cool.” I spent my whole summer helping my parents. Sometimes, we would serve the underprivileged students and then, when we were done, we could talk with them, get to know them and share God's word and love. I thought it was a blessing for us as the providers, and they were being blessed too.

Where did you live?
The village I lived in was Lukanga. The university is named after the village. In English, it's Adventist University of Lukanga. But in French, it's L'Université Adventiste de Lukanga. It’s in an area called Nord-Kivu.

How long did you live in Congo?
I lived there for 15 years before I came to the US in 2017. I haven't been back for two years because of Covid. When I came here, I was by myself  in boarding school. My parents were still in Congo as missionaries. I usually went back every summer.

Are your parents here now?
They came in the summer of 2019. They didn't want to leave Congo. But that’s another story: my dad almost got shot twice.

The first time happened while The World Health Organization was staying in the guest house of the university where my dad worked. My dad was president of the university at the time. He hosted the WHO because Ebola was going on, and they could treat people with Ebola. There was this one group of people that didn't like the WHO because they were rich, were living a good life, and were taking advantage of the people in the Congo. This group came to the university one day, and they were going to attack the WHO people, but then they were like, “No, we gotta take down the President first, because he's the one who hosted them.” They're not well educated, so they thought that my dad was the one hosting them and went to our house to kill my dad first. But he survived.

Then the second time, my dad and I were traveling from the General Conference office to our house in a small village outside the city. You have to travel through the jungle to get to our village. As we were traveling there was this one military checkpoint where you have to pay them to go through. But when we stopped people came from out of the jungle and attacked the military. They started shooting at my dad. I was driving, so I just put the truck in gear and went. I didn't have anything else to do. So I just fled. It was a miracle we survived.

Do you have a favorite story from your time in Congo?
One morning, at seven o’clock, I went to school with my best friend. My mom cooked us some food for breakfast and packed our lunches. On our way to school we saw this one older lady who was going to work in the fields. We said hi to her and then offered her some food and she ate it. She was really happy. It was really nice to see her smiling face. 

What languages do you speak?
I speak French, Swahili, English, Urdu, and Punjabi. I can hold a conversation in all of them, but in some of them, I can't read and write. We spoke French and Swahili in school and with friends. At home, my parents made sure we learned our native language, so that when we visit our family we can speak with them because they don't know French or Swahili. We had to learn Urdu and Punjabi, but they didn't teach us how to read or write it. And then, I learned English when I came here.

How have missions impacted your life?
Missions have been my whole life. I’ve grown up watching my parents do missions. During the summer I worked here and instead of giving tithe, I usually sent it back home to help those who needed it, so it's kind of like mission is already implanted in me. It's just natural.

How do you want to apply missions to your life or your career?
I am planning on having a career first so I can make some money and can actually help people. I was thinking that I would go into the airlines first and then, later, when I have enough money to help other people, I could go out in the mission field.

Is there anything you want to say to the student body about missions?
I think everybody should try missionary work. You don't have to go somewhere far away to try it. Mission is mission. You can even do it here. If you get a chance, don't miss the opportunity to go outside and explore. I’ve heard stories where people went to Chad, Indonesia, or other places. They always said that when you go there, the experience is different from when you hear about it at home.  Every time you go there, you can literally make a new family. The people of different countries make you feel so welcome. My family was on a five year contract to do mission work, and then they were supposed to come back. Every five years, they say, “We gotta stay longer. No, we gotta stay longer.” And it’s been 19 or 18 years since they went there.