Syeeda Echols shares how God shaped her character through seasons of waiting and service. Her story reveals that true leadership begins long before the platform appears.
I can remember sitting in my apartment in Cayalá, Guatemala City, and hearing the Lord tell me to move back to the United States. I had never clearly heard his voice before, but I knew this was not my own thought. Through much prayer and confirmation, I packed my things and returned home to Kansas without knowing why.
Before I could understand why God was calling me to leave, I had to look back at how he had led me there in the first place.
My journey began when I joined Teach For America and was sent to New York instead of my dream locations in Hawaii or Florida.
My journey began when I joined Teach For America and was sent to New York instead of my dream locations in Hawaii or Florida. I was a Kansas girl who had never lived in a city that large, but those two years became a season of deep learning and growth. The classroom stretched me, and my relationship with God deepened. Weekly check-ins with my supervisor required me to name what went well and where I needed to grow. That rhythm of reflection shaped my entire professional life.
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After two years, I moved to Venezuela to teach internationally, a season full of creativity, community, and joy. From there, I accepted a position in Guatemala. In that role, I experienced many highs and lows both professionally and personally. I served as the assistant coach for a high school girls’ basketball team that went on to win a conference championship and was later offered a promotion to Reading Instruction Coach. That position would have allowed me to train teachers from pre-K through grade five in literacy strategies for Spanish-speaking students at an international school. However, the position was set to begin the next school year, and before it started, God called me back to Kansas. Through prayer and Scripture, I began to hear God’s voice more clearly, and I obeyed.
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Back in Kansas, I went from being a full-time professional to living with my mom for a season while pursuing another bachelor’s degree in religion, philosophy, and Christian spiritual formation. Thank God for her emotional support as I worked campus jobs answering phones, maintaining the recruitment office inventory, and serving as a children’s church intern where I had to follow others’ directions instead of leading my own classroom. Those unseen moments shaped more of my character than any leadership position ever could.
From there, God opened doors to seminary at Baylor University in Texas, where I served in recruitment.
From there, God opened doors to seminary at Baylor University in Texas, where I served in recruitment. I planned orientations, managed supplies, and coordinated travel for conference and campus visits. At the same time, I pastored youth and young adults at a small historic Black Baptist church. Each assignment stretched different muscles: communication, organization, empathy, endurance. I did not see it then, but every role was preparing me for the one I now hold as Director of Religious Education.
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All along, God kept showing me young leaders in the Bible like Joshua. Long before Joshua led Israel across the Jordan and into the Promised Land, he served faithfully under Moses for forty years. When Moses met with God in the tent of meeting and came out radiant from God’s presence, his face glowing from time spent with the Lord, Joshua remained at the tent. Later he went with Moses up the mountain as he met with God. By the time Moses laid his hands on him, Joshua was already prepared in heart, proven in service, and strengthened by time in God’s presence. I found peace in the Lord’s words to Joshua: *“As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Joshua 1:5).
I have learned that character always comes before platform. What we build in private will either sustain or sink us in public. That is what God was doing in me. Every hidden task, every quiet yes, every season that felt small was his training ground. From classrooms to chapels, from international schools to bases where faith communities gather, he was never in a hurry to promote me. He was patient to prepare me.
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