Where You lead, I will follow

How I got to now:
I went to the University of Virginia for college, graduating in May of '07 with Psychology and Religious Studies majors. I had entered college like the typical UVa student: med-school - bound. Within a semester I knew that wasn't for me, but it wasn't until my fourth year that I started narrowing in on a career. I had toyed with the idea of going to law school in typical Jackson style, only I would've probably ended up doing some sort of family law. In the end, though, education was calling me. I had a thought of doing school counseling/guidance counseling work, and friends continued to tell me that this would be a perfect fit. I had had my share of obstacles throughout college, though, so I wasn't interested in entering a Master's program directly following graduation. What I found instead has been a huge blessing to me in so many ways: The UVa College Guides Program. This program, receiving most of its funding through Americorps, places recent UVa grads across Virginia in high schools that have been identified as underserved, very low college-going, widely low SES, and highly first-generation. My job is to work alongside the guidance offices to help fill the holes caused by them losing some contact with students due to all the high-stakes testing going on these days; basically, this means I am an added resource for students, educating them about and then aiding them in the search for some form of post-secondary education (not necessarily 4- or even 2-year colleges) and the financial aid to pay it...and it's effective because they recognize me as a near-peer, someone who is viewed as more approachable and who may have more in common with them then the older staff members.

When I first found out that my placement had me about 2 hours from the nearest College Guide (and 4 hours from UVa), I was absolutely terrified. I mean, what did I know about Virginia outside of Charlottesville (I’m originally from the Chicago area)? Let me tell you, though, God really had a hand in all of it. I quickly got hooked up with some local Young Life leaders from Emory and Henry College who have become my family here, and now I am a volunteer Young Life leader at one of the two schools at which I am placed with the Guides. My first year with the program turned into an overhaul of my faith-attitude, world view, and plans for what comes next.

My job placement has certainly affected me more than I could have expected at the outset. Working in the schools and with students who are hurting moves me on a daily basis. At least 50% at both of my high schools are on free or reduced lunch, and a large portion of those students very obviously come from families who live either below the poverty line or whose parents aren't involved in their children's lives at all, or both. I feel like I was blind before -- especially in high school -- but now I can recognize when a student has no one around them who loves them, no one to assure them that their lives mean something and that they can have hope -- both in this life and in that to come. And I am exceedingly grateful when I look back at my own teenage years and see all of those people I had actively caring for me, praying for me, taking an interest in my life. As I remember them, they were cool, relatable role models in my life, something I hope I have been able to replicate in my time so far with the College Guides. I hope I can give my students an idea of what it is to actively live your faith and to love like Jesus.

I know I have done the best I can, and I hope I have planted some seeds in Southwest Virginia that someday will blossom. In the meantime, I have grown exceedingly in my own faith and witness through my efforts to be Christ to others. At this point in my own journey, I don’t feel enormously compelled to go back for graduate school right away in 2009 but rather see opportunity for a new wave of personal strides by pursing a missions opportunity. Accordingly, next year I will be working through TeachOverseas.org (Educational Services International) in a high school or language center in either Hungary or the Czech Republic. Working as a TESOL or TEFL teacher makes sense given my already deeply-rooted interest in education, and this sort of position will be a perfect marriage of my career field with my adventure-seeking tendencies. Mostly, though, by serving as an English teacher in Central Europe, I will once again have the opportunity to be Jesus in high school students’ lives. Granted, the environmental factors and individualities of Southwest Virginia and Central Europe are very different, but the need for love and hope is the same. I wish for these students to have people in their lives caring for them for them deeply – hopefully deeply enough to show and share Jesus – and I am at a stage in my life when I am readily available to serve as that person. I am excited to be that person as I help teach them a skill – English – that will be life-long and will assist in the globalization and economic development of Central Europe! I know the challenges will be great and there will be scary days and seemingly impossible obstacles, but I know from my own experience that even the most insurmountable barriers can bow down to God and His ultimate plan. By relying on Jesus and trusting Him as I learn a new culture and become a full-time teacher for the first time in my life, I hope I can develop a servant’s heart more fully, something that I will be able to take with me through life – as a teacher, a counselor, a volunteer, a wife, a mother, a whatever-role-God-gives-me.

What I Believe (or The Source of My Hope)

I believe salvation to be necessary because, at our creation, Man chose to question God’s perfect plan for life on Earth; doubt and the disobedience (sin) were replicated by person after person, perpetuating through generations and establishing trends of sin that entrenched even the holiest of individuals and separated them from God. After all, it is always easier to act in the same way as those surrounding you than in accordance to a higher ideal for which there is no clear example here on Earth. God spoke to the holier of men and sent prophets – Abraham, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah – but still, something greater was needed in order to inspire in Man a full desire to know and obey God. Thus, God sent His Son, Jesus, to Earth to be that clear, sinless example for us on Earth, to establish God as someone tangible in our lives, and to express the incomparable, undying love God has for us – made known by Jesus dying on the cross for us. Therefore, when we say that we believe He has paid our debt, we welcome God’s gesture of love to us, that He loved us so much that He came into our lives and made the ultimate sacrifice, one that none of us could imagine ourselves committing, even in the service of our most beloved friends. We say Jesus has paid our debt and paved our way to salvation because we see how we previously ignored the fullness of God’s work in our lives and His personal interest in us and therefore could not live in God’s eternal kingdom-made-perfect; but by accepting God’s gift of love for us, we recognize His enormous love, omnipotence, and hand in our creation, and, because of our deference for and returned love to God, are offered eternal life in his perfect Heaven. God Himself went down to the depths of Hell in this most awesome act, and all we have to do is say “yes!”

Of course, we all know plenty of people who believe in God as the sole, real deity, pray for salvation through faith in Jesus, and are welcomed, unquestioningly, by God into His kingdom without doing anything further in their daily lives. It saddens me because I see them as shortchanged by their idea of salvation: To qualify it as something whose benefits are only visible after our earthly death is to limit it, to almost miss the point. Salvation is something that not only provides promise for life after death, but also life in life! When Jesus came to Earth, He provided the perfect example for us about how to maximize each of our days; He gave us a glimpse of what Earth was created to be; He provided for us the instruction we needed in order to experience a fullness in life previously unseen to us. So while some may find application of Scriptural instructions too difficult or too much of a nuisance, those who choose to be Jesus’s disciples on a daily basis find salvation in each of those days. They experience renewed hope, vision, love, and communion with God and His creation.

I do not believe there to be any other route to daily salvation than that through Jesus Christ. However, I do believe that any individual actively seeking spiritual connection – especially through a Heavenly God (as opposed to an idol god) – has recognized the undeniable presence of a higher power and has sought communion with God in whatever way they know how. In this way, an individual – be him Muslim or Jewish or Hindu (directing their interaction toward one of the faces of God) or otherwise – is searching for and praying to the very same God we worship; they simply have not recognized the sacrifice of Jesus or the existence of the Trinity and are therefore left misdirected and incomplete in their faith. I do not mean to say that their faith is enough for salvation, but I do understand them to be seeking God – the same God as Christians – in whatever way they know how. There are certain instances in which I believe their faith doctrines are enough: If no one has ever shared the Gospel and the sacrifice of Jesus with them, then there is no way in which our gracious God can punish them throughout eternity for not believing something to which they were never exposed. In addition, I believe our most gracious God will redeem His people Israel, and it is what gives me hope for my Jewish friends and neighbors who have too often been given good reason to be cynical toward the idea of Jesus as Messiah in our culture of materialism and daily distancing from Jesus-like living.