Collegiate missionary defines success in one word: Obedience

John Swain

Jonathan Pettigrew counsels with a student at IUPUI where he is establishing the first Southern Baptist student organization on the 28,000 student campus.

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. - Jonathan Pettigrew doesn't remember anything about his 100-foot fall down a Colorado mountain in December 2002.

Now, less than three years since his near-fatal descent of Cheyenne Canyon, near Colorado Springs, Pettigrew, the Baptist Collegiate Ministry (BCM) director at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis (IUPUI), shares with college students many of the lessons he's learned throughout his miraculous recovery.

Pettigrew, a US/C-2 missionary with the North American Mission Board (NAMB), is being featured during the 2005 Week of Prayer for North American Missions, March 6-13. He is among nearly 5,200 missionaries in the United States and Canada supported by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions. The theme for this year is "Answer His Call."

A "life-shaping" fall

"If you look at everything that happened, I should be dead, or I should be brain damaged, or I should be paralyzed," Pettigrew says. "Those are the only options that are common from these types of injuries and this type of trauma."

When Pettigrew landed face down on the canyon floor, he had shattered his right hip and broken his neck, pelvis, right leg and left kneecap.

The cold air that enveloped the mountain range after sundown likely lowered Pettigrew's body temperature, preventing him from bleeding to death. After a two-hour rescue mission, however, he might have died of hypothermia had rescuers arrived any later.

Doctors predicted it might take two years for Pettigrew to walk again under his own power. But five months later, including a 12-hour semester course load, he walked across a stage to receive his diploma from Angelo State University in Texas.

Still, the 23-year-old, who had been training for competition in a triathlon prior to the accident, is hesitant to describe the perilous turn of events as "life changing." Instead, he prefers to explain his improbable journey as "life shaping."

"I want people to rejoice and understand that we serve an all-powerful God who is sovereign over details, like medical things and circumstances, and I want that to motivate others to trust God, to trust Him explicitly in everything."

It's that same conviction and mindset that shapes Pettigrew's ministry on the 28,000-student IUPUI campus where he leads the school's first Southern Baptist student organization.

The only requirement

Pettigrew spends a lot of his time establishing and leading small group Bible studies and conducting religious opinion surveys with students on campus. Conducting surveys helps Pettigrew meet students and share his faith in Christ.

And Pettigrew is quick to challenge anyone who assumes God's call on his life is more profound than any other Christian.

"The only thing that is required of us as believers is to obey God," Pettigrew continues. "That is love, and Christ equates the two. He says you love Me if you obey My commandments.

"I have that peace and joy, and so I know I have answered God's call in my life," he said.

"Everything I do is funded by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering and the Cooperative Program," Pettigrew continued. "If it was not for that support I would not be serving here."