What happens when you decide to follow God and work with teenagers? Ask Janice Lundquist, she would know.

I didn’t take her up on that exact question more than four years ago when I interviewed her for this short little piece for my composition class, but I am sure she has some great stories to tell about how God has been using her life to meet teenagers where they are.

Thankfully in her 30 years of service at Teens For Christ, Janice came into my life and I have been overblessified by it. From Bible study to shopping trips, Janice opened her life to not only to me, but hundreds of teenagers, and she isn’t done. :)

Don’t mind the less mature, high school writer who typed this years ago. Thankfully, she has improved. But, it must not be too shabby; it was picked for a submission book. Regardless, enjoy learning how Janice came to be at TFC. (She can tell you more if you ask, even though I didn’t clear that with her, she’s pretty nice. And if all else fails, bring her chocolate, she likes that, too.)

Happy 30 years, Janice!

Spreading the Love

The chairs circle around. No, the Knights of the Round Table aren’t advancing, just hopeful Teens For Christ workers looking to include special education teacher Janice Lundquist, now a full-time TFC staff member.

“When they pulled up the chairs to talk to me, all I was thinking was, this is weird,” Lundquist said, remembering the shock.

The group congregated to approach Lundquist about joining the TFC staff, a group with a stated mission to spread God’s love to students in northern Kansas and southern Nebraska. This opportunity dropped out of the clear blue sky and plunged into her thoughts. She NEVER thought that ministering to teenagers would encompass her as like it does now, but two decades later she still bakes the treats and prepares lesson plans multiple times a week to spread.

“I had just finished college and was trying to find my niche, I guess you would say,” Lundquist said with a shrug.

An interesting year of teaching special education at the middle school in Phillipsburg followed college. A quick nip on the nose left a lasting memory but, thankfully, not a lasting mark.

“I was pointing at a kid in my class telling him to straighten up. Then he just bit my finger, right on the tender cuticle part. I pulled on his hair and tried to get him off. Nature finally just kicked in, and I bit back. The only thing I saw to bite was his nose. He then let go of my finger and put his head on his desk the rest of the day,” she said with a chuckle as she reenacted the memory. “The principal just roared with laughter when I told him the story because he said he’d never had anything like that ever happen.”

That very next year she signed a contract with TFC; but before the pen marked the paper, there was prayer, prayer, and more prayer.

“I asked the wise people in my world (my friends and family) about the situation and prayed about what to do,” Lundquist said.

Some things scared her about the decision. She asked herself, what else does my life have in store? Can I do this all my life? How am I going to raise support? The dollars weren’t going to just show up at the door, but 300-plus letters over the past 25 years have flown through the mail to supporters to learn and join in Lundquist’s ministering life.

”I had listed the pros and cons and looked at them, and the pros outweighed the cons by far for joining (the staff of TFC),” she said.

The defining moment came only a few days before contract time.

“I had been praying the whole day and had asked God to show me by that night what I should do,” Lundquist said. “ On my way to church that night, I walked by another church and inside I could hear them singing ‘Trust and obey, there’s no other way,’ and that’s when I decided yes!”

Since that pivotal “yes,” her life has segued from teaching at a desk. She ventures out on the home front every day and sometimes away from the home front, too. Mission trips to Mexico, Mississippi, and the Navajo Indian Reservation in Arizona have graced her summers since 1986 to the present. She has never missed a one. Through her work, Lundquist said she has watched many teenagers change their lives.

“Even though this was totally not in my plan, obviously God changed my heart toward teenagers,” she exclaimed. “Not that there weren’t a few that I wanted to bite the noses of.”

Photo: Janice with me before I got married this summer.