s a student at Canadian University College (CaUC), Johnson Washington has worked hard to complete his first two years of prerequisites for engineering. During the summer he works just as hard as a self-supporting missionary to his fellow Tamils in Toronto and Europe.

"If there'd been no war [in Sri Lanka]," says Deva Doss, a math professor at CaUC, "Johnson would be a medical doctor at home." Washington had been admitted to medical school in India, but when Tamil unrest resulted in all-out war, that career path closed. In 1997 Washington found his way to CaUC (his younger brother Homahan had earlier been sent by their parents to France).

With firsthand knowledge of the struggles immigrants face, Washington helped Doss start a math clinic in Toronto for Tamil youth in the summer of 1999.

In January 2000 Washington's brother Homahan, a well-known Tamil TV and radio personality and a member of the Catholic Church, was baptized. The three missionaries began translating and recording the book of Daniel, and had dreams of a media ministry for the Tamil immigrants, for whom cinema is a passion.

Then came the miracle they'd been praying for.

During the summer of 2000 Johnson and Homahan were the only North Americans granted admission (and scholarships) to the Conway School of Broadcasting and Communication in Hamilton, Ontario-an intensive program intended to equip ethnic minorities to produce Christian programming for their own cultures.

Besides providing the technical training the brothers craved, the program selected them as part of a special six-person team to work with Crossroads Television Systems at Expo 2000 in Hanover, Germany, which broadcasted live Christian programming daily in six languages to every continent.

On their days off duty from the world exposition the brothers preached at Tamil gatherings in Holland and Germany. They were interviewed by a secular station in Paris about their work at Expo, and a Paris station gave them free airtime for their own productions.

As a result of their TV production experience and connections made in Europe, the Washingtons and Doss spent last summer with a full itinerary of evangelistic meetings in Europe, arranged by Tamils who wanted them to come and preach in their communities. They spent time in Norway, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, France, and England. Aside from transportation costs, the evangelists took no money from their hosts, even when it was offered. "We receive freely from Jesus Christ," says Johnson, "and so we want them to know we freely give."

It wasn't an easy way to spend the summer. Besides the tight schedules and jet lag, as a self-supporting student Johnson felt the same financial pressures as others who struggle to get an education.

But his first work, he feels, is to share the gospel with his Tamil brothers and sisters-allowing God to work in and through him. It is, after all, the real reason for choosing an Adventist Christian education.