EDMOND—Alayna Blanchat became the Philadelphia Church of God mail department’s newest full-time staff member on August 12, putting her Herbert W. Armstrong College training to work answering and processing requests from live calls, after-hours voicemails, mail and theTrumpet.com.

Having worked as a call center operator before college and during her four years attending hwac, Blanchat says she was already familiar with the requirements of her new job. After graduation in May, she worked as a part-time bakery clerk at Uptown Grocery on the outskirts of Edmond, but all the while, she was pursuing full-time employment. “I sent Mr. Locher an e-mail saying, ‘I’m available if you need help,’” she said.

A couple weeks after Blanchat’s July e-mail, chief financial officer Locher e-mailed her back with the full-time offer she was hoping for. She was hired on August 10 and started work on August 12. She says she got the job just a couple days after she began praying more earnestly about it. “It was neat to have God give you a clear open door,” she said.

Blanchat said the mail department brought her on board because “[t]hey honestly just need people who can be here all day. It’s hard to work around a student schedule.” She said many callers who leave voicemails say they would rather speak to a real person, but students have to leave the phones because of classes.

“Alayna is the kind of employee who can step in and fill a big responsibility when it is needed—without worry from the supervisors,” call center supervisor Harley Breth said. “She is reliable and responsible. Also, Alayna will move ahead and help in ways that you do not ask of her. She will go above and beyond.”

Blanchat said that working as an operator means representing God’s Church as the first point of contact. “You always have to be friendly to the callers,” she said. “If we answer the phone, that’s how they see the Church of God. If we’re cranky, they [might] never call again.”

Besides her experience as an operator, Blanchat also worked in Food Services and Publishing during college. Prior to that, she worked at a call center in Kansas—where Breth, a fellow Kansas native, also worked—and as a food server at a retirement home.

In her work experience, Blanchat said she saw a glaring contrast between worldly businesses and the Church. “It feels like people in the world are trying to get paid for doing the least amount of work,” she said. “In God’s Work, we’re always seeing how much we can do.”

Blanchat says she learned after graduation to “appreciate where you are more. Until I lost the opportunity of working for God’s Church, I didn’t realize what a blessing it was. I’m so grateful for this.”