Hi there!
My name is Isaac and I’m 23 years old. I live in the San Juan Islands in Washington State. As of May 2012, I am a college graduate of George Fox University in Oregon, where I spent the last four years studying elementary education and Spanish.
I love adventure and travel, and some of my hobbies include bicycling, hiking, mountaineering, running, and photography. I like to invest in relationships, take chances in life, and eat crazy foods that sane people wouldn’t even consider. You'll find that I am a very random and spontaneous person.
Left: Biking from Seattle to Portland
Right: Kayaking at twilight in the San Juans
Random facts about me:
- I live on a small island (population 2,400) and have to catch a ferry to leave. My graduating class only had 26 people and it was a big class for our high school.
- I can see Canada from where I live because we’re only about 10 miles away from the border.
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During the summer, I work at a bike and kayak rental shop on the waterfront. Basically, I interact with tourists all day and show them a good time in the San Juans.
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I was held back in sixth grade and have been through all school systems: private elementary school, homeschooling in middle school, and a public high school.
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I played football, basketball, and golf in high school, but I was also a mathlete. I knew pi to 80 decimal places and won a project competition for a study on the Mozart Effect. (We were the only group competing.)
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I enjoy doing graphic and web design. I have also worked as a phone assistant for an IT Desk.
- I have never drunk a can of soda in my life. I have always disliked the taste of carbonated drinks and still don’t get why people like them.
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Traditional voicemail messages bore me, so I created this one.
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I have opened a 25-year-old jar of mayonnaise.
Here’s a deeper snapshot of me:
I grew up in a Christian family but I can’t pinpoint a single deciding moment to become one. However, high school was when I began to realize the importance of a personal relationship with Jesus. During that time, I learned that I didn’t want to be Christian in name only; I wanted to be transformed by the incredible relationship God could offer.
Other high school turning points for me were travelling to Japan and realizing how much I loved other cultures, and spending nearly four months in bed with mono. During my senior year, I had no clue what the next step was for me, but God pointed me to George Fox University. I felt called to be a teacher through the process of recovering from mono and working with elementary school students.
My college years at George Fox have been both amazing and transformative. In the middle of my freshman year (New Year's 2009), I offered God a challenge to “bring it on” in my life and use me however he saw fit. I wanted to go through whatever it would take to form me into the person I was meant to be. I had grown tired of living for myself and wanted to take on a higher calling. This began a period of tremendous growth and since then I have kept a journal about my life and spiritual walk.
I then applied to be an RA, which totally changed my life. The following school year, I lived in a freshman dorm with 25 men, mentoring them and witnessing their personal, mental, and spiritual growth for a year. I was able to grow close to many of them and play a role in their life through positive relationships. This ignited my desire to pursue relationships and be in a leadership role where I was able to serve others. Before this, I knew about kingdom work and relational ministry through leading YoungLife and WyldLife.
After that, I studied abroad in Ecuador for four months, which intensified my love for culture. I had roommates from Venezuela and Colombia to learn from, and I travelled through the Andes, Amazon, and Galapagos Islands. I climbed the highest active volcano in the world, ran a 10k at 10k elevation, jumped off a sketchy bridge, and met one of the warriors that speared Jim Elliot’s missionary party in the 1950s. Our group also did volunteer work with children at an urban landfill and spent a week in a poor indigenous city. I just couldn’t get enough.
Left: Spending time with the local kids in Santo Domingo
Right: Showing my Venezuelan roommate snow for the first time
I missed being an RA while I was abroad, so after returning I applied to be an AAC (Assistant Area Coordinator). This position partners alongside a full time director to lead a group of RAs. As an AAC this year, I have taken care of logistics and communication while supporting and mentoring the RAs on my staff. Residence Life jobs like this are focused on serving others and engaging in deeper community. I really enjoy doing this kind of work and have been strongly considering a career in student development. However, I am finishing up my education degree and student teaching this year as well. I really enjoy being in the classroom, but I am looking into both careers and still learning what God has in store.
After high school, I wanted to take a gap year abroad to figure things out, but my parents were smart and told me to finish college first. They assumed I would not want to go back to school if I went abroad, which is probably what would have happened. (Thanks Mom and Dad!) So now I am nearly done with school, and have had two strong desires on my heart: relational ministry and cultural immersion. This is where the World Race comes in!
Over Thanksgiving break, I was searching for gap year opportunities and trying to figure things out. I wanted to do something awesome, so I looked out for internships in travel writing and adventure tourism, but it felt like I was searching without a purpose except to fulfill my own interests and desires. I looked up short-term missions trips as well, but I realized it would be important to see where God wanted me, rather than where I wanted myself.
I had trusted God to lead my life in awesome directions through his intricate plan of excitement and mystery, and I realized this is what he still wanted me to do. I prayed for future direction and came across the<a World Race website. The program gave me such a strong sense of joy and peace that I kept praying about and looking into.
For the next month I waited on God. I wanted to focus on him and be transformed to see if this was what he wanted for me (Romans 12:2). I was really excited about the possibility of travelling and serving others, but I wanted the door slammed shut if the program was not meant for me. This culminated into a 24-hour isolation fast in the woods after Christmas, but I was so sure of this direction and my family was getting excited about it as well. Shortly afterward, I applied to the program and was officially accepted.
I have found that if we are passionate about God, he gives us some pretty incredible passions that we can trust him with. Like Psalm 37:4 promises, we can take delight in the Lord and receive the desires of our hearts. Now my desires of relational ministry, cultural immersion, travel writing, and adventure have all brought me to where I am now: preparing for a year of service around the world.</a
