Spreading Hope Amid a Pandemic: Leanne, Marketing and Communications Intern

Growing up in Malaysia and raised in a Christian home, Leanne Tan always knew she would attend a university abroad. Both her parents attended college overseas, and they wanted their children to be given the same experience.

Leanne’s two older brothers studied in the United States, and she followed in their footsteps, settling on Pennsylvania-based Messiah University.

This summer, Leanne has served as a marketing and communications intern at TWR’s international offices in Cary, North Carolina. Now a rising senior majoring in journalism and minoring in sociology at Messiah, she looks forward to finishing her college career and then seeing what God has in store for her next.

Q: How did you hear about TWR?
I first came across TWR at a career fair during my first semester at college.

Q: What brought you to intern with TWR this summer?
I wanted to learn to integrate faith and work, and I thought TWR was a good place to do just that.

Q: What have you worked on over the summer?
Most of my assignments have revolved heavily around writing and proofreading. I have crafted written content for the TWR website, magazine and mass e-mails that go out to TWR donors and supporters.

Q: How does your internship align with your passions and calling?
One of my goals in life is to use whatever I have to bring honor and glory to God – however that may look like. I think being able to utilize my writing skills to help advance TWR’s mission of speaking hope to the world lines up with that goal pretty well.

Q: What is the biggest challenge you’ve encountered in your internship, and how have you overcome it?
A challenge I’ve faced multiple times over the course of my internship is figuring out how to write or express ideas in a way that’s interesting without being overly cheesy or cliché. During moments like this, I’ve found myself looking to God for guidance, and every time, he has led me to answers and opened my eyes to ways of writing that I never previously considered.

Q: What is one thing you have learned this summer?
I’ve come to realize how rewarding it is to work alongside others toward a common goal that is bigger than what I can achieve alone. At TWR, every person contributes their time and talent to bring the gospel to the darkest corners of the world. It is a daunting task and sometimes, it is easy to get caught up with our inadequacies and think we’re not capable of accomplishing the work that lies ahead of us. But that’s why we have God and each other. Working with other people means we’re not in it alone, and God equips people as he sees fit. I think if we divert the attention we’ve placed on what we cannot do to what we and others can do, maybe we’ll find that our shortcomings aren’t that significant in the grand scheme of things.

Q: Tell us a little-known or fun fact about yourself!
My friend and I once took a three-hour Uber ride from D.C. all the way to our college in Pennsylvania after our bus ride fell through at the very last minute. It was surprisingly cheaper than taking the train.