Even My Gold Press Card

Hope for the Student World
by Paul Tokunaga

Twenty-one years ago, I was a freshman at Cal Poly. Cal Poly is in San Louis Obispo. San Louis is a quiet and quaint sleepy town on the central coast of California. But for me, that freshman year Cal Poly was anything but quiet and quaint or kind or gentle. It was the big bad university and I was scared. There were 3,000 freshmen. I was the only one from Campbell High School. I wrote 200 letters home back home to friends in San Jose, I was so lonely. That was during first quarter.

I was intimidated by upper class men in letter jackets, I was intimidated by registration. I was intimidated by the card catalogue in the library. I majored in business because I thought it would make dad happy. And it did, until my grades came out - especially the D in math. The Asian whiz kid I was not. My weight was up, my self confidence was down, and pimples were taking over home plate. So what did I do to cope? I went to the campus bookstore, and I bought a letter jacket. Go, division II Mustangs!

I had converted from Buddhism to Christianity as a senior in high school. But it wasn't until my sophomore year at Cal Poly that I really started to fall in love with God and with the campus. That year, God grabbed my heart, gripped it tight, and yanked hard. The turning point was one bright sunny afternoon. University Union, courtyard, upper deck. I was catching some rays between classes, just minding my own business.

Down below, a chaotic, political demonstration was taking place, and as I watched, "Lord, these are sheep, lots of them, they need a shepherd. They need you.” As I thought what it was like to be a student, without the hope of Jesus Christ, I began to cry. It wasn't religion that I was crying over. I had been raised on the moral teachings of the Buddha. It was for forgiveness for their sin. It was for the power to forgive other people. It was love, true love, for the unlovable, and I was crying for their souls. "Lord, can you, will you love the campus through me?"

I was involved in the InterVarsity fellowship, and there were some awfully nice folk in that group of about 60 or 70. But in terms of being a force to be reckoned with on campus, we were pretty harmless. Then several of us naive underclassmen, Billy, Alexis, Pam, Mark, and others, caught a vision, and the vision was that God sent his only Son to live and die for Cal Poly. We wanted more than anything, more than great GPAs, more than a stunning resume, more than a mate to marry, even more than a winning division II football team, we wanted to see Cal Poly, the whole campus, wrestle with the greatness of Jesus Christ. We wanted to reduce the population of hell and we wanted to increase the population of heaven. We wanted Cal Poly to look like the kingdom of God.

We didn't have a blueprint, or any king of grand scheme. We started right where we lived, literally. We shared with our roommates our popcorn poppers, our sweaters, our letter jackets, we also tried to be good listeners and compassionate friends. We studied with classmates, and when it seemed right, we explained the relationship between Jesus and business ethics, Jesus and animal husbandry, Jesus and theater. We were involved in all kinds of campus groups. Some of us joined Tomo Dachi Kai, the Japanese club. Guess who? And we challenged segments of the campus with racial injustice issues that rang true with the gospel.

Six of us became writers and editors for the newspaper, the Mustang Daily. We helped build honest journalism into the fabric of the paper, and in return we were given incredible freedom to report from a Christian perspective. The Lord was growing our fellowship in size and in boldness, and we could join with the apostle Paul when he said, I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings. Our identity was now in the Lord. He, not letter jackets, was giving us our identity and worth. "Lord," we asked, "how can we love Cal Poly even more?"

The fall of my sophomore year I met with the college president. These were violent times on California campuses. "Sir, I'm a Christian, and I'm committed to non violence and peace on campus. If there's anything I can do to protect Cal Poly, feel free to call."

Several months later on a Sunday afternoon I was working hard on a nap. It was the eve of a potentially violent major campus rally. It was Mayday 1971. It was the day in our history when the radicals of our country were committed to shutting down our entire country. "Paul, this is the president. About that rally on Thursday, I'm scared. What do you think I should do?"

Is this a dream? Wait a minute, I thought. You're the college president. You're supposed to have the answers. I am just a sophomore. The president asked for the Christians, not the National Guard, to protect his campus. If we said yes to the college president, we were putting our lives in danger. But we had gone too far. By that point, we were victims of love. We loved Cal Poly too much to turn our backs on our campus. No longer was the campus our adversary. It had become our friend. And we had become its lover.

Thursday came. We were ready. The auditorium was jammed with over a thousand students. There I was, aisle seat, third row, leaning, ready to lurch forward to grab the mic as soon as the radical leader yelled, "Lets tear apart the administration building." Oh, Lord! Pudgy, Japanese Americans with thick glasses and acne. We don't usually do these kinds of things. But, if you're in it, I'm in.

Our biggest guys were ready to block the exits. More importantly, over a thousand fellow Christian students throughout California were praying for us. By the end of the meeting, Tom Hayden, who is generally a rousing speaker, had literally put some students to sleep. Our God Reigns.

What else, God, we asked. Several InterVarsity leaders ran for student body office on Christ centered platforms. We got smeared. In the middle of the campaign, one of my opponents for president took me aside. "Paul, I thought I was a Christian. But I've watched your party's campaign. You guys really love each other. And you love us! Your Enemies! How can I really know this Jesus that you're talking about all the time?"

Well, after three pots of coffee at Denny's, I had the privilege of introducing the new student body president to Jesus Christ. Now he, in turn, hired me to be his public relations director. And one of my jobs, not in my written job description, mind you, was to disciple him as a new Christian.

And so our senior year we met Monday through Friday at 7:30 to study the Bible and to pray for the events of the day. We got smeared but God won. We really gave ourselves to loving Cal Poly. And I was only one of many, and InterVarsity was only one of several strong Christian groups. When we graduated we were able to say that much of the campus had indeed wrestled with the greatness of Jesus Christ.

Today the Cal Poly chapter numbers over 400, and the campus is still wrestling with the greatness of Jesus Christ. Are there any Cal Poly students here? You are our great great great grandchildren in Christ.

God did great things, but it was costly for some of us. At the end of my freshman year I changed majors from business to journalism. And I began writing for the college paper and the editor started grooming me with some choice assignments. My head began to enlarge before my very eyes. And I made a vow; I am going to be the best writer, period. And there ain't nothin that's gonna stop me, and I set my course and I figured out exactly what I needed to do.

My sophomore year, I was invited to Sacramento, the state capital for the California Inter collegiate Press Association Convention. I was pitted against the best collegiate writers in California. The awards banquet was held on the last evening. The winner of the on site feature writing competition from Cal Poly: Paul Tokunaga.

I went forward, and Miss California handed me my Gold Press Card. I gave her a firm handshake. But I gripped that Gold Press Card, and I gleefully stared at my reflection in it. I felt like Rocky Balboa who had just knocked out Apollo Creed. This is it, I thought, I am a legit talent, at least Miss California thinks so. And I poured myself into writing. I was determined to be the very best.

But then a funny thing happened on the way to the Pulitzer Prize. People got in the way. People, fellow students, who needed Jesus Christ in their lives. And God was asking for a decision. "What's it gonna be, Toke? Your selfish ambition and goals, or mine? Being the best writer in order to glorify yourself, or giving your life to me and to people?"

Even my Gold Press Card, Lord? Mom and dad had worked hard so I could go to college. More than anything else, I wanted to make my family proud of me. Coming from a Buddhist home, living for Jesus was not going to help my cause much. It felt like death to put aside my dreams. Putting aside the Gold Press Card and all that it stood for in my life was one of the hardest choices I ever made, but maybe it was the most important.

In a few weeks, most of you are going to be back on the campus. How deep is your love for your school? Jesus loves you so much he died for your flaws, your foibles, and your faux pas - and mine. He also died for the sins of every jock on your campus, every skinhead, every Greek, every black, every student from high society, every student from the housing projects, every agnostic professor who eats Christian students for lunch, every gay and lesbian, every white, every phi beta kappa, every I hata classa - he loves everyone on your campus.

Do you honestly believe that? This is not a rhetorical question. Do you believe that?

You see, no campus is an easy mission field, but no country is either. If you think that you can cruise through college oblivious to the needs around you and then go to the mission field, you're fooling yourself. The best missionary later is the best missionary now. The patterns that we establish for ourselves now will likely be our life style patterns when we're thirty, forty, and ninety. If you're a driven student now who only has time for studies, in twenty years you'll probably be a driven business person with ulcers. On the other hand, perhaps you didn't buy that Wynans tape or Randy Stonehill CD, in order to help get a friend to Urbana. In 20 years, you'll find it easier to give lots of money to your missionary friends.

Give yourself away to the campus now, and you'll have an easier time loving your future country later, wherever that might be. It's hard to love our campuses.

But you know, perhaps the biggest struggle that we have is not with the stuff out there like we saw in the video, but here in the mind and in the heart. I think I understand some of those struggles. Loving people has never come easy for me. By nature I'm an introvert. Give me the choice between reading the USA Today and starting a conversation with a new person and I am knee deep in the sports section.

I wrestle with deep insecurity. If I drop my mask, would you really want to get to know me? I struggle with rejection. I often don't share about Jesus because I don't want people to laugh at me and to mock what I believe.

Then there's the sin in my life. I've never cheated on my wife, but sometimes I struggle with lust. I've never killed a person but I've destroyed people with my tongue, usually behind their back. I've never told anyone that I hated them but there are several people that I struggle to forgive. I am a sinner. And sometimes I ask myself, "Am I that much different than that guy in the next booth at Taco Bell?" "Can God really use me to love the campus?" For you see that's the beauty of following God.

As C.S. Lewis once said, "The Good News of the Gospel is that he draws straight lines with crooked sticks. That he accepts us as we are, and he wants to use us to love other people, just as we are."

Roger was one crooked stick. He was born with a serious defect. The doctors told his mom and dad that he had only a 10% chance of living beyond a year. He made it. But one set of vocal chords was paralyzed. The doctors said he'd never talk, but he did. Roger grew up with a scratchy, croaky voice, hard to understand at times. He became a follower of Jesus right before he came to Florida State University as a freshman. He immediately got involved in the InterVarsity group there. Boy, did this guy ever want to grow. I love being on staff with InterVarsity. I love meeting personally with students. Roger and I met every week. We studied the Bible. We prayed for each other. We talked about being a Christian on a secular campus. As his freshman year was drawing to a close, he said, "Paul, I believe God wants me to be a church planter in another country. I'm transferring to Bible College."

"Roger, can I give you a plan B?" Stay at Florida State, which is a great mission field. Train hard academically. Train hard in campus ministry. And I grabbed a napkin from that snack bar table and I charted out a course of action for the next three years. "Do this, Roger, then go to seminary, and I think that you will be a better church planter." But I have to say, deep down I wondered, Lord, how is he going to preach without a full voice?

Well, Roger stayed at Florida State and he went after the napkin with gusto. He became a communications major. He had regular quiet times. Urbana - his freshman and senior years. A summer missions project in Honduras. He shared his faith all the time. When Cliff Knechtle, our open-air evangelist for InterVarsity, would come to Florida State, Roger would go out to the courtyard with him and give his testimony, and as people would walk by they would snicker and laugh because of his voice but Roger didn't care because he was sharing about the Christ he loved so much. He became the InterVarsity Bible study coordinator, and then the president.

Roger, a crooked stick like you and me. Two strikes against him, but he refused to give up. Like the Apostle Paul, Roger could say about his college career, "I want to know Christ, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings."

He never lost his ultimate dream. "Just think, Paul," he used to tell me as a senior, "if I could serve forty years as a missionary, and they say it takes six years to start a church, I could start seven churches in my lifetime!" He graduated from FSU, he became a deacon at Westminster Church, he married a terrific woman, and then he entered Columbia biblical seminary in South Carolina. During his last term at seminary, Roger met a renowned Christian ear, nose, and throat specialist. A new technology to fix his vocal chords had just been discovered, and he offered to take on Roger at no cost, as his guinea pig.

A few months later, my phone rang at home. "Hi Paul, this is Roger." Roger who? His voice was deep. Roger will be able to preach the gospel. Roger and Gene are now planting a church in Southern California, and it's missionary training. In a few years, God willing, they'll be living in Chile, planting churches.

What will your legacy be to your college? What will you be remembered for after you're gone? Jesus loves your campus. Will you love your campus? Jesus died for your campus. Will you die for your campus?

In the farthest corner of your heart of hearts, do you have a Gold Press Card? Will you give it to Jesus Christ? Amen.

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Even My Gold Press Card

God's Word

Urbana Stories

35 days until

December 27-31, 2009