IN THE PIPELINE
Want to meet the person who may be your next pastor or Christian day school teacher?
This series profiles the men and women who are in their final year of preparation for the public teaching or
preaching ministry at Immanuel Lutheran College and Seminary in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
Age: 25
Program: College—
Teaching Track
Year in School: Senior
Where were you born?
Olympia, Washington
Where did you grow up?
In the Pacific Northwest—Tacoma, Washington, to be exact.
Married? Unmarried? Tell us about your family.
Unmarried. I’m the middle child of five, with two older brothers (Nick and Drew) and two younger sisters (Claire and Jane).
What hobbies, sports or extracurriculars interest you?
I enjoy puzzles of all kinds, thrifting, and hanging out with family and friends.
Tell us one thing about yourself that most people don’t know.
Though never much for organized athletics, I’ve always been an excellent badminton player!
Which academic subjects especially interest you?
Math and English have always been some of my strongest subjects.
How did you first come to consider the public teaching or preaching ministry as a career?
When I graduated from ILHS, I was considering becoming a dental hygienist, but I don’t enjoy chemistry very much, and dental hygiene programs involve quite a few chemistry classes. My cousin Michaela Winters and I are very close, and she called me one day as she was nearing her graduation from the Education program at ILC. When she spoke about how excited she was to get into her own classroom, her enthusiasm was contagious, and I couldn’t help feeling that I wanted to see for myself if this was the right track for me.
What have you appreciated most about your time at ILC?
The Christian community that surrounds each student here. In high school, I remember some classmates complaining that there’s “too much Jesus talk” at ILC. After I graduated from high school in 2014, I found myself very much missing all that talk about Jesus at chapels, in the classroom, around campus, etc. Christ is made the central focus of all aspects of education and life on campus, and that atmosphere is very encouraging and edifying for young Christians at a time in their lives when they are extremely impressionable.
What qualities do you think will most be needed by the future leaders of the church?
1 Corinthians 13:1-3,13: “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”