A Vocational Journey: Akin Bailey
“Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’
(Matthew 25:34-40)
After finishing my final year as an intern at the Louisiana Tech Wesley Foundation, I really had just two things on my mind at the time: I had to find a job, and I had to get married. The latter seemed the easier of the two, at least at the time, since I was already engaged. The former, however, turned out to be a much easier and harder thing to do. My plan was to get a few part time jobs while preparing for the wedding and to hold us over until I was able to land something that could support us in the long term.
The first part was easy. I managed to acquire three or four jobs whose hours together were sufficient to keep me occupied and fill my needs at the time. The second part was where I was really put through the wringer. I think we all know that it can be immensely difficult to find a job right out of college. Let alone two years out of college with nothing to show for it except a handful of dear friends and a decent helping of faith which, though priceless in themselves, are not very attractive items on a resume. Lack of attractiveness didn’t stop me from trying, though, nor was it what finally did me in. The time I spent submitting application after application was grueling. The process felt like moving through mud. I thought this was simply the nature of my task. It’s not a lot of fun reading through endless job postings, selecting one I might fit into, then editing my resume and cover letter to fit each one. The cause of my reluctance seemed obvious. It was not until I started seeing the results of my efforts did I realize something was off.
I was called for many interviews. People were interested in me, it seemed, despite my decidedly unsexy resume. I could reasonably have gotten several rather well paying jobs, but when it came down to it I simply could not say yes to any of them. When it came to the point of actually taking concrete steps to pursue one job or another my reluctance hit a fever pitch, and the thought of working any of these jobs made me feel sick to my stomach. I knew the cause of my ailment immediately, but as I had exhausted already every means to its remedy I knew of, I was left to suffer with no apparent help or hope at hand.
During both of my years as an intern at Wesley, the Director, Ryan Ford, had been insistent that the interns under his charge make active efforts to discern for themselves a suitable vocation, to the end that once their term was up they would not simply be cast out into the working world and left to land wherever any wind of doctrine carried them. As I undertook this process for myself I was suddenly made aware, through my own inclinations as well as signs and portents from the Lord, that I was called to some sort of prison ministry. For my own part, I was becoming increasingly incensed with the criminal justice system and its apparent lack of anything that could be called justice, for once a person is released from its clutches, they are forever branded as unwanted, tossed aside and ignored. Likewise for God’s part, everyplace in my life was suddenly saturated with reference to prison ministry. From picking up a loaf of bread in the grocery store to a random pastor in East Tennessee deciding to speak at length on the subject to his students the one day I happened to be there. Never minding the fact that Jesus explicitly tells all of us to care for those in prison. Slowly but surely, it became clear that I was called. By the end of my discerning I had settled on an ideal vocation that would allow my personal passions and talents to meet together nicely with what God was calling me to. I wanted to help people who were just getting out of prison find stable work. This, to me, seemed the biggest and most unconscionable barrier to life outside for former inmates, and so that was the issue I wanted to tackle. Knowing that I was called to prison ministry, it felt physically impossible to ignore that calling and pursue something else. It was serving the incarcerated or bust for me, which really was not an issue. It was clear enough that God was calling me to this and I had already worked through any misgivings. I was prepared to accept what was before me. The real issue was that there was nothing before me.
Try as I might, I could not find a suitable job. There were plenty of volunteering opportunities, but nothing that would pay me anything like a living wage. Thus began my despair. I knew what God wanted me to do, but no one would let me do it. I felt lost and without help. About a year after starting my job search in earnest, I had reconciled myself to managing a restaurant until the Lord gave me more direction. I have a deep passion for the hospitality industry, but the nature of my work and the fact that I was not living into my vocation began to bear heavily upon me. One day while thrift shopping in El Dorado, AR, something of a pastime for my wife and I, I came across a flyer for a reentry program run by Goodwill. At the time, I had no idea that Goodwill did anything except operate thrift stores. I quickly looked up their job postings and found yet again that there were no openings in that particular program. Another wall. There was, however, another position available that would at least give me some experience finding people jobs, if not the population I wanted to serve. Desperate for any sort of change at this point, I applied. I recognized that if I got the position, I would still be in the vicinity of where I wanted to be, needing only a lateral move within the company to become available. To my surprise, not 24 working hours later I was scheduling an interview. I applied Friday afternoon, and on Monday morning received a call. In the span of about two and a half weeks I was interviewed twice and tendered a job offer. By now I was fairly ecstatic. I could not view these events as anything but God taking a direct hand in providing for me. He had presented what appeared to be a sign post in an otherwise barren vocational landscape, and the only thing I needed to do now was take the first next step. But God, with his robust sense of humor, was not done surprising me quite yet. All that remained for me was to sign the offer letter and drive to Shreveport for a day long training. I waited in vain for several days, attributing the lack of emails to my ignorance of the intricacies and sluggishness of HR. At the end of my patience, I called my would be manager to check on the situation. No answer. Not 5 minutes later I received a call back not from the program manager, but from the director, who proceeded to tell me that the reason I had not received any on-boarding documents was because funding for the program was cut, and that the job I had applied to, been offered, and accepted, no longer existed.
Reeling, I hear the rest of what she has to say as but a distant echo. I am outside myself and may as well be listening in on someone else’s conversation. On my way home, I call and tell my wife the news, and as we talk through it I slowly begin to register what the director had told me on the phone. She said that the job I applied for no longer exists, but that there is a similar position available in a different office, which would mean a significantly longer commute. However, there was a possibility of working some from home. The director sent me the job description. The job being offered to me now, put simply, was to find jobs for people who were just being released from prison.
I’m sure you can imagine my shock. Here all of a sudden before me was the opportunity to do exactly what I had been hoping and praying that I could do for so long, and it happened in such a way that can only be described as divine intervention. God knew that I would not have found this opportunity otherwise, and likely, if I had, I probably would not have been given such ideal work options as spending two days working from home each week. In the midst of my hoping against hope, the Lord saw fit to grant me the desires of my heart.
Since starting a couple of months ago I have thoroughly enjoyed my work. The best descriptor that I have found for it so far is “restful.” I don’t feel anything of a burden about going to work. I look forward to the end of each workday with relish,f not from mere anticipation of the cessation of work, but from the knowledge that I have done good work that the Lord approves of. There is a special kind of pleasure that comes from knowing that God wholeheartedly approves of what you spend your time doing. And it’s a joy that I hope to never be without again.
Akin Bailey is a graduate of LA Tech and former Wesley intern. He enjoys wandering around the woods, cooking good food, spending time with his wife Camellia, and reading books. As mentioned in his post, he now works as a Placement Specialist for Goodwill’s EXIT-318 Program. He is a joy, a delight, a faithful servant and disciple of Jesus, and an indescribable blessing to our community.