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"[The
people at Huntington] have profoundly shaped my life, and I would not be
who I am without their encouragement or their
challenging words." |
From securing student visas with the Belizean
government to herding stray cattle off campus, Jared Friesen’s
many responsibilities couldn’t all be found in his job
description.
As a program director for Creation Care Study Program,
Jared’s day-to-day tasks were numerous and diverse. For a year,
he and his wife, Meghan, lived and worked at Creation Care’s
campus in Nabitunich, Belize. “I wore many hats, some that I had
no idea I would wear prior to coming to Belize.” But Jared adds,
“I never got bored working and living there.”
Jared returned to the States in the summer of 2008 and now
serves as the director of residential life at Northland College
in Ashland, Wis.
“My hope is to carry some of the things I learned in Belize
to this position as I continue to work with college-age students
and walk alongside them as they transition from child to adult,”
Jared says.
At Northland, Jared oversees the selection and training of
resident assistants as well as the overall on-campus housing
operation at the college. He also works with student judicial
cases and educational programming. After having been employed by
two Christian colleges and a Christian organization, Jared is
learning to adjust to the differences of a non-Christian
institution.
“It has been a
challenge to work in a non-Christian environment, but I am able
to live out my faith in many ways in particular in caring for
others through support and challenge,” Jared says.
A 1998 Huntington psychology
graduate, Jared went on to earn a master’s degree in student
affairs from Ball State University in 2002. He then worked in
residence life at Taylor University and Calvin College, two
experiences that he found rewarding, yet humbling. He especially
enjoyed living and working with college students.
But ever since Jared could remember he has wanted to live and
travel abroad. “I am drawn to the challenge and experience of
living and working in another country,” Jared explains. “There
are different ways of doing things, different problems, and
different joys.” His desire to live abroad was strengthened when
he spent five months in Ireland on a post-graduation trip with a
college friend. Jared and Meghan frequently had discussed living
and working abroad, but the more he enjoyed his job working with
college students, the more unlikely that seemed.
Then, after returning from a mission trip to Belize, Meghan
told him about the work of the Creation Care Study Program. CCSP
provides an academic semester abroad experience for Christian
college students who wish to learn more about connecting their
faith to modern environmental issues. Jared and Meghan prayed,
discussed the job, and submitted their résumés—even though no
jobs were available at the time.
Six months later, the Friesens were hired as program
directors. It was a job well-suited for Jared because it
combined his passion for college students with his interest in
living abroad. He worked to provide a safe and healthy learning
environment for the students, ensuring that they got the most
out of their experience. Jared spent a great deal of time with
the students, often eating meals with them, sitting in on
lectures, exploring the nearby Mayan ruins, or playing a game of
Frisbee golf.
Faced with the various challenges he tackled on the job,
Jared knew his overall experience at Huntington prepared him
well to reach out to others to form meaningful relationships. As
a freshman, Jared connected to a group of friends to whom he
grew very close. He continues to maintain those friendships.
“These people have profoundly shaped my life, and I would not
be who I am without their encouragement or their challenging
words,” Jared says. “While we were in college, we started to ask
each other tough questions about life, relationships and faith,
and we struggled together at times as well. We also encouraged
each other and prayed for each other, and in doing so, I became
aware of a different and new way of living—a way of life that
was more rich, spirit-filled, and sacred in many ways.”
Jared hopes that participants in the Belize program came away
“with a sense of the concept of Shalom (peace).” Not only does
the experience challenge students views on Christian community,
but also forces them to re-evaluate their walk with God and
their assumptions about global politics and the environment. As
the program encourages students to be stewards of God’s
creation, Jared sought to make the campus a living example of
how to better care for the earth.
In his role at
Northland, Jared continues to have opportunities to share his
knowledge of and love for the environment. He describes the
college as “extremely environmentally conscious.”
“Many of the
students have majors such as outdoor education, natural
resources management, and ecology,” he says. “Some of the
buildings on campus receive electric power from wind turbines
and solar panels. There is a garden on campus and work study
positions to collect and compost food scraps from the dining
hall.”
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