Issue link: http://denverseminary.uberflip.com/i/977325
HOLY INTERRUPTION 6 SPRING 2018 Elissa Ewald WAITING FOR THE DAWN: GOD'S CALLING TO THE BELOVED By D.G. Wynn ELISSA EWALD IS PURSUING A MASTER OF ARTS IN CHRISTIAN FORMATION AND SOUL CARE AND TAKES WHAT SHE LEARNS WITH HER EVERY DAY TO HER JOB IN HEALTHCARE AND TO HER MINISTRY AROUND THE WORLD. Y "You are going to Kenya," the Lord said to Elissa Ewald when she was in college. She had never been out of the country—not even for a mission trip. Immediately, Elissa decided to prepare herself for the moment when the Lord would open the door for her to go. She began to study Swahili, and the Lord spoke to her again: "You are my beloved, and that is the most real thing about you." "The message was so profound, so central to my being that I tattooed it on my foot in Swahili: 'mpendwa,'" said Elissa. "I chose my foot, because I tend to look down when I feel ashamed. I want to see that I am God's beloved when I need it most." After Elissa's first trip to Kenya, she knew she needed to return for a longer period of time. "I wanted to be there long enough for the honeymoon to wear off," she said. Pursuing the calling the Lord had laid on her heart, she went back for a six-month stay. However, after two-and-a-half months, her house was robbed in the middle of the night. She awoke to six men standing around her bed. The experience traumatized her. Processing that experience without letting it define her time there was beyond challenging. "I learned that my calling may still include heartache," she said. "It didn't mean I was in the wrong place, or doing it wrong, or not listening to the Lord." Now she knows in her heart what it is to wait for the dawn and to hang on. "That's what we are all doing as we wait for Christ's return, right? Waiting for the dawn," she said. Elissa has been back to Kenya several more times since that six-month span, but for quite some time the idea of seminary remained in the back of her mind. She knows what it is to grow through challenges and wants to help others do that as well. Consequently, she was drawn to the Christian Formation and Soul Care Program at Denver Seminary. Finally, in 2017, the Lord cleared Elissa's path to seminary by removing financial hurdles. Now Elissa is thriving in her classes. She reflected, "Hard times will come to everyone, and how we handle them is how we can honor God." With each class, she learns to help shape others—and herself—into followers of Christ who grow in God in the hard moments of life. Elissa Ewald