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Share your story of how you came to be where you are in Christian education. Have you shared this story with your students?
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I grew up as a Muslim in Hayward, CA. The majority of my family is Muslim as well. However, after I left for college at UCSB, I began to fall away from Islam and became involved in the party lifestyle. After a few years at UCSB, I began to explore meditation and Buddhism. Throughout this process, I enjoyed the meditation process of calming my anxiousness in music performance.
One day at a temple, we were doing our meditation walk, and at the end of the ritual, I bowed down to a buddha statue. However, I heard a voice say, “That’s not God.” Since that day, I stopped going to the temple. I soon after began dating this girl in southern California. She invited me to my first church service at the end of 2015. The service really intrigued me and I felt a connection with God for the first time. It was an opportunity to have a relationship with God, not just a routine. From there, I moved to Iowa for grad school. The second day in Iowa, someone invited me to church. I began attending weekly and was given a bible. Through reading, church, and the love of God, I became a follower of Christ. The members at the congregation really shared the love of God with me by patiently discipling me week by week and becoming like my second family. After a year of studying the word and attending church, I felt a nudge from the Holy Spirit to give my life to Christ. I was baptized in a Church of Christ in Iowa, in January 2017. Since then, I have been walking with Christ steadily. God has slowly grown my faith and understanding of His heart over the years.
It wasn’t until 2019 when God called me into teaching. I had been performing music and God really caught my heart to surrender my vocation and to really pursue teaching. To really pour into the next generation of youth. I have shared this with my students as well. -
I began formal Christian education when I enrolled my children in private Christian school. I began Christian education at home with my own children from birth.
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I have taught in public and private schools(Christian and non Christian). I left teaching elementary schools and started teaching preschool. I was teaching preschool for a while in Florida. God relocated us from Florida to Virginia. I was an aide at a Christian school that I stared working at after we moved. They were looking for teachers and they asked me. I prayed and felt that God was leading me to teach again in Christian education.
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I never would have ended up at my school if God had not put all the steps in place. I was working previously in a public school where my daughter attended, and became very disillusioned with some of what they were teaching. My daughter asked to switch to a Christian school, and we slowly warmed up to the idea and enrolled her, though we did not know how we would pay for it. At the same time, I was starting my teacher training program, and noticed a job posting at the Christian school my daughter was soon to be attending, that had been there for a while. The job posting was for exactly the position I would want to be in – middle school social studies. Since the position had been open for months, I eventually inquired as to whether or not they would hire me though I did not yet have my teaching degree. The rest is history! I never would have valued the importance of a Christian education if I had not seen firsthand what was happening in the public schools in my area. So God was working it all together for a reason.
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After more than 20 years in public schools. I was targeted by an unsupportive boss who was intent on showing me the door. I reluctantly left teaching at spring break the year before the Covid pandemic hit. After three years at a desk job I found mind-numbing, God opened a door. An application that I submitted much earlier drew the attention of the principal at my sons’ Christian school. It happened very quickly, but it was clear that now was the time and place that God chose. I have not shared this story with my students, but I will prayerfully consider doing so (in some form).
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Hi Jeri! I am right behind you in completing my ACSI requirements. Happy to have you as my across the hall buddy!
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