Joi with her friends at the Dental School White coat Ceremony
When Daniel was taken captive and enrolled in the educational programs of Babylon, he purposed in his heart to not defile himself with the wine and meat from the king’s table. So, what does his example have to do with students? The academic life of pursuing a degree often eats away at students’ health. Joi McClellan frames the demands of dental school in context of God’s higher call for her to be a missionary and purposed in her heart that she would not abuse her body for academic achievement.
I interviewed Joi asking about her experience as an Adventist student attending the Dental School in the nation. She explained that suicide rates are high among dental schools, which speaks to the rigorous schedule and expectations of dental students.
Joi knew taking care of her body could only happen with God’s help and choosing to make it a priority. While a missionary, she had asked God to wake her up in the morning to have time with Him, and she would not set an alarm and would make sure to sleep at a healthy time. She knew acting by faith during the missionary training program was easier when there were not the deadlines and appointments of dental school. However, she trusted God and has not set an alarm to this date.
During the fall, she had a transactional view of how to relate to God in terms of her academic success. She knew having good grades would be a witness to her professors and classmates. However, through a series of events and conversations God reveled to her that He can use her to be a witness with higher grades or lower grades.
In the second semester, Joi’s prayers began change to “God, show me what ministry looks like here. I just want you to be glorified, I simply desire to be a vessel for people to see and know You.”
God is answering this prayer in simple ways. Although Joi does not have the time as she did in her undergrad, God is teaching her to be present to whomever happens to be in her path at that moment.
Joi went to ask a friend a question, and his seatmate said, ‘I am so tired.” She responded with ‘yea I understand.’ Yet, he pressed the message further giving Joi the impression that he was not doing well. She listened for a while, and they went back to their work. However, in the evening she was really impressed to pray for him, and in the morning, she found his email address and sent him a message telling him she was praying for him. He responded that it was the encouragement he needed.
Joi has been able share with a classmate about her decision to take care of her health and with another about the rest of the Sabbath. As a result of her focus to be being present and prayerful about the peers she encounters at school, Joi has been a testament to God’s faithfulness. God has blessed her grades, and her classmates, who are not religious, have asked her to pray for them and their studies.
If you are a student and find yourself tired and overwhelmed, consider stepping out in faith and asking God to help you to be faithful in taking care of your health and giving God the best part of your day. He desires to use you to be a blessing and to connect with you personally each day.
Traveling to college at the beginning of the year has its own adventure, and traveling to nine hours to Michigan Tech has a way of building endurance. In the case for Marcus, he had a story to tell that is still being written. Listen as he shares below of God’s providence with his 1987 Dodge Raider.
Gabrielle Umana shares how touched her life through a small group study while attending the University of Michigan. Her candid and sincere testimony will inspire you to trust God and wait on him to give you deliverance in times of trouble.
Pastor Israel Ramos continues his series, expounding on the comforting message found in the sermon on the mount. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” The idea of being thirsty and hungry are usually not associated with being happy. Pastor Israel gives us insights into what we receive when we hunger and thirst for righteousness.
by Anthony Petroff, Lansing Community College Student
My name is Anthony Petroff, I currently go to Lansing Community College, and I am studying Computer Networking and Cybersecurity. I currently live, and was born and raised, in East Lansing, Michigan. Getting to know Christ and His word has been a long journey for me, but a fulfilling one. Unlike many of my friends, I was not born and raised in a Christian household. My parents both adopted an agnostic but quasi-spiritual worldview after they both had terrible experiences with abuse and shunning from different Christian groups. They taught me this worldview when I was young, along with an anti-Christian sentiment. As I grew up they had pressed onto me that Christianity was nothing more than a scam to take money from those that were too stupid to know any better, that it was a means to comfort and control people, an “opiate of the masses.”
Yet as I grew into my early teens, I began to question the validity of their words. As I entered high school and met and became friends with several Christians, I started to wonder about what I had been told growing up? Were my friends really evil or being taken advantage of like my family stated? Was Christianity exactly like my parents had claimed it to be? At the same time, I found myself going through what felt like a crisis. All around me I saw senseless suffering. To everyone I knew, suffering was the baseline of their life, any joy or satisfaction seemed to be the exception, not the rule. In my own life, I could not help but feel unsatisfied, as if something wasn’t right, or that I was missing something. Every experience I chased after couldn’t fill this hole in my chest, only at best distract me from it for a time. What was I missing? What was the point of it all? Was it all meaningless? All of these thoughts raced around my mind as I went about my ordinary day.
While I was questioning these things, one day a friend of mine invited me to a Christian club that was being started at my school, the “Christian Student Union.” Not wanting to disappoint my friend, I accepted his invitation and went along with him. As I walked in and started talking amongst everyone, I couldn’t help but find myself not taking things seriously. How long did I have to be here to satiate my friend? Would it be too socially awkward if I left now? While I considered how to best escape, the meeting started, and someone lead out in prayer. Not wanting to ostracize myself, I mimicked everyone’s actions and listened along to the prayer. While I did this, I realized that I would need to take the group seriously, if I wanted to confirm whether or not my parent’s claims were valid, to see if Christianity really was what they said it was. As everyone was praying, I prayed that God would reveal himself to me, if He truly existed.
From that moment on throughout the rest of the meeting, I felt this presence around me, and had this strange experience of being loved by something. After some time, I realized that it must be God reaching out to me. As I sat and listened to the group go over the Bible, and describe the life of Jesus, and the reality of sin and suffering, everything that I had pondered began to make sense. Afterwards, as I grabbed a copy of the Bible and began to read through the New Testament, all of my fears, doubts, and questions were made clear by this overwhelming sense of reason and understanding. It was from that moment on, that I considered myself a Christian, and pursued God in every way I could.
Although my family was shocked by my revelation and prevented me from going to church, I diligently studied and learned as much as I could about the Bible in my spare time throughout high school. As I transitioned into college, I followed my peers and went to a First Assembly of God church while I was at MSU. It was there that I stumbled upon the SDA’s campus group while I was looking at all of the student groups at MSU’s Sparticipation, an event where all student clubs tried to entice freshmen to join. They caught my eye with a flyer they hung from the bleachers: “$5000 to whoever can point to where in the Bible it states the Sabbath is on Sunday.” This intrigued me, and I felt arrogant enough that I could answer them, thinking about Genesis and other sections I had studied. However, when I went to talk with the members present, I found myself being politely refuted with every argument I brought up, until I was left dumbfounded at the group’s wisdom when it came to the Bible. Although I felt embarrassed for being so thoroughly shown wrong, the group impressed me with their character and knowledge, and I took them up on their offer to meet with them afterwards.
Anthony with ACF Students this past winter
It was from repeated meetings and hangouts with the SDA student group that I slowly became friends with a few of them. As I got to know them, they began to speak to me often about the Sabbath, and the fallible doctrines of other groups. While I got to know them, I made some poor personal choices and fell into a deep depression, and kept my distance from them and everyone else. After a year, I ran into the group again, and spent time with them off and on, as I continued in my studies, not really taking them seriously. However, after a few years, I really started to question my faith, as it had stagnated, and wondered if there was truth to their words. After meeting with them, and taking their words seriously, the Sabbath really started to weigh on my heart. Was it a commandment that I was missing? Is it still something Christians are called to observe?
It was after several serious studies with one of my friends from SDA UChurch, that I felt convicted in my action of ignoring the Sabbath. After several more meetings with Pastor Jermaine at UChurch, I felt convicted to be baptized into the church, partly because I had never really been properly baptized, and partly as a sign of my commitment to God. Before I was baptized, I felt alone and isolated on MSU’s campus and in East Lansing, but now I have a group of family and friends who support me in life, and in my walk with Christ.
