GYC 2025: Seeing the Invisible

NOTE: Sessions 2, 3, and 4, of this series are not available.

Conversations on Exodus

Michel Lee

Thando Amankwah

Sikhu Daco

Esther Kim

Amy Ratsara

Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Hope and Perseverance Between Egypt and Eternity

So the Exodus story, which by the way, involves more than Moses, right?

Like here it's referring in the plural, and we've talked about some of those people like Miriam and Shifra and Pua.

Those things were not just written for Wikipedia factual accuracy, but they were written for our instruction.

So what are some of the things that stand out to all you ladies from this passage of things that we can take?

Not necessarily on the things we can take but just another observation broadly.

1 of the things that I like, love about the New Testament is, you know we talk about the Bible interprets itself.

1 of the things like reading the New Testament and seeing how New Testament authors interpret the Old Testament is 1 of the ways you learn how to read the Old Testament.

Just kind of like reading Spirit of Prophecy is a way to learn how to read Scripture.

And here, Paul is writing and the way that he interprets the experiences that they went through, and he's like, you know, they were baptized with the same baptism, and they were baptized?

And he's like, no, when they went through the Red Sea, It was like a metaphor for their baptism experience.

Also, like when you read in the Old Testament, there's kind of, like seeing how they interpret in the New Testament, the experiences that the Israelites went through were actually experiences with Jesus.

You know, like the experiences that we go through with Jesus.

So then now when we're reading the Old Testament, when we're reading the Israelites' experience, we can with confidence relate that to our experience because we have an example of that in the New Testament.

I thought it was a fun, hermeneutical piece.

Yeah, no, it's cool to watch an ancient people interacting with a more ancient text, and they're like, it's cool to see how they're using it, and then you zoom in and you're like, oh, I can do the same thing that those New Testament early church people were doing.

Other things that stand out to you, Esther?

Yeah, 1 of the things I noticed, especially in this passage, it talks a lot about transgressions, right?

We know that the story of Exodus should be being free from oppression, right?

Being free from the things that they were tied down.

And this tells us that freedom is not just being free, but it also exposes a part of them, a part of us, right?

So a lot of, I think a lot of times we think of God freeing Israelites from Egypt just to gain freedom, but I think there's a repeat of this that you see in Exodus, God brings it up over and over again, you know, let my people go so that they will serve me in the wilderness, so that they will celebrate this first spring in the wilderness.

So to kind of think of that in a way, it also kind of affects our society too.

We want to fight for freedom, we want to advocate for freedom, but what is the intention behind it?

Is it because just freedom is going to expose the dirty parts of our society?

Yes, Freedom from ourselves versus freedom from institutional structures.

So kind of moving in the direction of like, okay, we want freedom, but at the same time being prepared to receive that and to serve God in the wilderness.

And I love as well how it centers Christ and really brings us back to their experience with Jesus in the Exodus as well.

You know, so they ate the same spiritual food.

And, you know, when Jesus speaks about the manna in the wilderness, As your fathers ate manna in the wilderness, I am the bread of life." Right?

Even those parallels that Jesus draws between their wilderness experience and our experience, that manna they ate, that was pointing to Christ, the bread of life, right?

They drank the same spiritual drink, that rock was Christ, right?

And so just their experience, the bread they ate, the water they drank, all of that was Christ sustaining them.

And that those lessons of how it is that Jesus, you know, is the bread of life and is the 1 who sustains and carries us.

I think that that's just so powerful how that Exodus Christ was with them as well and that's the same way that he walks with us and is our sustenance as well in our own journey through.

Yeah I think what we're getting at is that we also are people on an exodus, right?

And that we have this example of someone doing a group of people, like an entire ethnic group, going through something literally that we are now going through.

We are also going through it literally, but symbolically as well.

And the Exodus represents our journey on this earth.

I can think as a historian of many other people who have viewed themselves as being on some sort of Exodus, and I think that just shows the power of the Exodus story.

In our notes, we talked about Harriet Tubman and enslaved black people in the antebellum South who often used Exodus and mosaic wording to talk about the journeys that they would take to freedom, and Those were often codes even for where to go and when to go there.

Martin Luther King Jr., someone else who advocated for civil rights and for freedom and equality, used language from Exodus.

The Jewish people have referenced Exodus as a marker of identity, as a marker of their history, not a marker as their history.

Latin American liberation theology, we think of people, various oppressed people groups throughout history have used Exodus language.

How can we learn the themes of testing, perseverance, obedience, trust in God's leading from particular parts of the exodus?

How might the Exodus story encourage us in times of testing, perseverance, obedience?

I think we're getting there already, but I'm inviting the panel to say more on that.

Just talking about the Red Sea experience, if I could start there.

The first thing that comes to mind, like chronologically, it wasn't the first thing that I thought of, but chronologically is the first thing, is when God redeems Israel and brings him out of Egypt.

Deuteronomy chapter 7 says how 7 verse 7 There.

The Lord did not set his love upon you nor choose you because you were more in number than any people, for you were the fewest of all people.

But because the Lord loved you and because he would keep the oath which you had sworn unto your fathers, that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

That, I guess, prefacing the whole Exodus experience is why God selects the Israelites, like why these are his special people, and the way that Deuteronomy phrases it is don't be tempted to think that you're something that you're not, right?

Like, you are God's special people, but not because you're something special.

And he said, and in terms of thinking of the examples for us, and I know you talked about us going through perplexity and trials, but I think just having a right conception of who we are, a right perspective on our identity as we go through, whether they're victories or trials, whether they're successes or failures, just having the right outlook on our identity as we're going through these things.

And I thought of that because you're referencing the people groups who have seen the exodus as part of their narrative, which it is part of our narrative.

Like the first premise in that is that God chooses us for salvation not because we're amazing, right?

But because, actually, because we're whack, right?

And I don't want to end up in slummer mode, but I remember Eugene Pruitt way, way back when I was going through a missionary program.

Eugene Pruitt is a missionary, like he goes and he does mission work all over the world, and he was teaching a class and he said, 1 of the things to think about when you think of the great controversy is God had Lucifer right next to him.

And he put Lucifer right next to him knowing that this is, because God knows, right?

Knowing that this is going to be the seed of what we're in right now.

And he's like, not that this is a conclusive answer, but probably part of the puzzle.

That God knowing this, puts Lucifer right next to him to give him the greatest opportunity for salvation.

Like the best possible chance for him not to rebel would be to know God as intimately as you could possibly know him.

And he was saying that to say when God puts you in a position of authority, of responsibility, it's not because you're amazing.

It's because if he doesn't do that, you're probably the 1 who will be the first to fall.

Like this is God's best attempt at your salvation, is to draw you the closest to him.

So when you see the president of GYC, he's not here, okay.

When you see him, it's because he's the worst of us.

Like the way that God, when God draws us close to him, God is like, I chose you not because you're the best, but because you're the smallest, you're the weakest.

Redeeming Egyptian Education for God’s Cause

I see a lot of head nodding, Tando, you've got something to say about scholarships.

So that was my reason for attending a secular university as well.

I mean, I was an international student, so growing up in SIT and having just finished my international baccalaureate diploma, I didn't consider Avenue Schools actually because of the financial sort of barrier.

So the schools I did apply to were schools that had financial aid and help and ended up getting into Harvard early and getting a full scholarship.

I think my parents were, you know, you don't even have, this is not a decision you even have to consider.

It's just, you have a full right to have it, just go.

I think what I didn't expect, though, was the ways in which I would both be a wilderness experience, but also where my faith grew the most.

And I think, I look back on that and I think, you know, God, I made the decision to go there preferably because God opened the door with the scholarship, but he really did send me there to grow my faith in ways I completely did not expect.

So I think it was such a blessing, getting involved in the campus ministry there, meeting some of these wonderful ladies, and it was just really the place where I grew personally and spiritually the most in my life.

We don't have pictures from when we first, first met, because Amy and I met in 2003, 434, well we were at that same GWA.

Yeah, February 2004, because as she said, she was part of a campus ministry, and they would do mission trips to other non-Aventist schools to be missionaries there, and I don't know, minister?

And so they came from University of Michigan to the Boston area and that's when I first met Amy as part of that mission trip.

Josephine who is not here was also there and that's when we first met.

So we don't go that far back to 2004, but we have, that is on the left, left is that side.

So that's me and Tondo right at the end of that picture when we were involved with a ministry called Alive.

And she was still a student and I had graduated.

And then the 1 on the right is, you see, if you look closely, you'll find me, all the way on the end in the blue, Tando in the back with a black shirt.

And you'll see Josephine is 2 people away from me.

And Michelle, no, Michelle, aren't you here?

OK, and then we went canvassing together.

These are just some shots from how we know each other.

All the way on the left, we went canvassing together in 2007.

Summer 2007 for the epic canvassing trip.

If any of you know Sebastian, that's him right in the center.

And you see Amy with the pose, and then I'm behind her, and Josephine is all the way at the front over here.

And then the picture down at the bottom, if you heard the morning devotional speaker, that's the guy right there.

And that's me hiding in the back, Josephine in the front, Amy over there, and then Tando next to Justin's lookalike, Albert.

Amy, Josephine, And Tando took a gap, took a year off of school to do a missionary training program where they train to be more effective missionaries on university campuses.

It's a program called Campus Missionary Training Program.

And the former leader of that program is sitting all the way in the back, Israel Ramos.

And if anyone has an interest in getting more training, I think they're still doing training, amen, Israel?

Amen, all right, see, I plugged you guys.

Michelle did the program as well, different years.

And that's them on a mission trip to California, where she was a student.

And they did the same thing they did when they came to Massachusetts.

0, okay, because we've got to bring Esther in.

I served on the board on the E-Com for GYC with Amy, and she stayed on and served with Tando and Josephine, I mean Tando and Michelle, and then we're fast forwarding a bunch of years, and that is I spoke at a new conference, a new is kind of a campus ministry network of students on the East Coast, and Esther here is in that picture somewhere, as am I.

But Esther, like, I couldn't find you, but I know you're there.

She's there in the masses, And she's the president of ANU, currently.

Yes, she's currently the president of ANU.

So we're kind of, we're connected through public campus ministry.

God has used this in our lives for spiritual benefit.

Scan the QR code if you'd like and you can type any questions or comments in there to be part of our conversation.

You said something, Amy, about a sermon you heard just before you went to University of Michigan about being a light.

And I'm curious if anyone here also had a sense of mission as they were going to their non-adventist school.

I know that I did, like I had a very distinct, it was for money that I went there, But in the process, before I got there, I remember I was on the flight from Zim to Massachusetts, and I journaled about the Waldensians, because I'd just read The Great Controversy the previous year.

And I journaled how God sent the Waldensians.

They would go out into these universities as missionaries.

And I remember journaling, no, I just, I reread the journal entry.

It was like, God, you're sending me to Wellesley to be a missionary on this campus.

Make me a Weldensian on this university campus.

And God abundantly answered that question, that request.

Yeah, I also felt that way going to Stanford.

I also wanted to go to Andrews and didn't.

So I guess we have that in common with each other.

But I also, you know, I felt that sense of mission.

I read those passages about the Waldensians in Alan White's writings, and in some ways it felt very true experientially to be alone in a secular setting, and that was 1 of the things that I probably struggled with the most.

And so looking back, I think 1 of the biggest lessons that I take away from that time is that mission needs to happen in community.

And the reason I decided to go to a school like Stanford is actually because I met Tondo and you and Josephine.

I was taking summer classes at Harvard when I was a high school junior or senior, and I'd never really been outside of my little village as it were and got to Boston and met these brilliant godly woman and I was like wow you can be godly and smart and look at what they're doing Like I went to some of the campus ministry meetings at Harvard and thought this is incredible.

Like Adventists actually can be in a non-Adventist space.

And so when I started applying for colleges the following year, I thought well, I was also doing the international baccalaureate program like Siku, like Tondo, and I thought, well, if I can apply, I will apply to these non-adventist schools.

And it really was my experience in Boston that summer before that inspired me to even consider that as an option.

Because I knew I wanted to grow spiritually in college.

I knew that I wanted to evolve and that I wanted to dedicate my life to God's work.

Like sometimes we think of being in secular spaces as being quite alone and lonely, and that is very true, and I think we should talk about how to address that.

At the same time, I think the inspiration for things like that and what really keeps us afloat is our network, even if we have friends who are far away and not in our immediate vicinity.

I'm gonna ask something that also coming out of your comedy.

The Lineage Journey Podcast 2022

Adam Ramdin

Lineage Journey

The Sabbath in History

Seventh-day Baptists came out to California during the gold rush and they would just be scattered alone, keeping the Sabbath alone in their remote locations.

No church, very little community, and a minister would travel up and down the coast once a year to visit each of them.

And so I just realized not only how different Seventh-day Baptists are now from Seventh-day Adventists, but also just what the ecumenical power of the Sabbath is.

You could believe all sorts of things, and yet there's something about the Sabbath that ties people together across geographical distance, across doctrinal differences.

That was just so striking to me, and it totally changed my perspective on the Sabbath and that became a major theme in my work.

Unscripted conversations that aim to help you on the journey of discovering your lineage.

Join us as we take a deeper look into past lineage episodes and see the lessons we can learn for today.

Michelle Lee is a native of California and has received her education at some of the finest schools in America including Stanford University in the Bay Area.

It was there that she met my wife and where they worked together doing ministry on campus.

She was later in my wedding party as a bridesmaid, but that's not why she is with us today.

She is possibly a rarity, a female historian.

Recently she obtained her doctorate in history from the University of Texas at Austin and has conducted some fascinating research that we are going to discuss today.

A young female historian with much to offer, and we are glad to have her with us.

So with us today in the studio we have Michelle Lee, or should I say Dr.

I believe you recently graduated with a PhD.

Maybe you could, we're going to discuss a little bit about your studies in history, who you are, what the process has been like, etc.

But just briefly, like background, where did you get your PhD from and how recently ago did you get it?

My name is Michelle and I recently graduated in 2019 with my PhD in Religious Studies with a focus on the history of religion in the Americas from the University of Texas at Austin.

So prior to that I earned my master's and my bachelor's at Stanford University in history as well.

So you've done history bachelor's, history master's, and history and PhD.

Where did you get this passion for history from?

Because I like history but I don't often meet any many other people that have studied it at all those levels.

That's a great question and it's part of my testimony.

I, like most students at Stanford, I started off as a pre-med and then I had a conversion experience through secular campus ministries.

And I decided to take a year off of school to go to a, basically a campus missionary training program.

And there I was taking a class on Bible prophecy and I had actually never really been exposed in great detail to Bible prophecy.

And as I was studying it, I just remember chills going down my spine and just thinking, I wonder if I could share God through history.

And that thought continued to grow and that conviction continued to deepen.

I had grown up telling myself that I would never get a PhD in history.

It was actually something specifically that I said I would never do.

I also told myself if I ever get a PhD, it will never be in religious studies.

So I started- You won the course pre-med.

I wasn't sure what to do, but everyone was doing pre-med.

And then during this year off, which was actually a huge step of faith for me because it was off the beaten path.

You know, I thought I was gonna go to Stanford, be there for 4 years and then go to medical school.

And here I was taking leave of absence for a year.

They thought that I had lost my marbles, but eventually they came around to it.

I was actually so convicted that God wanted me to study history and share him through history that without taking a single history class, I declared a history major.

And then God had several miracles in line for me to show me that that was what he wanted me to do.

And I knew that once I committed to studying history as an undergrad, that I would go all the way and get a PhD as well.

And that it would become my mission to share, to become a historian and that I would take it as far as I could go.

Was there a particular period you studied in your undergrad?

I studied American history for my undergrad.

I also got, so I was a double major in East Asian studies.

And so I developed that competency as well.

Stanford has kind of a strength in East Asian studies.

And so I was able to combine those 2 interests.

Then I stayed for another year to earn my master's and that was in East Asian history.

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Michel Lee

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Hope and Perseverance Between Egypt and Eternity

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Redeeming Egyptian Education for God’s Cause

46m

The Sabbath in History

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The Sabbath in History

49m

Hope and Perseverance Between Egypt and Eternity

50m

Redeeming Egyptian Education for God’s Cause

46m

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Conversations on Exodus

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The Lineage Journey Podcast 2022

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Dec 31, 2025 – Jan 4, 2026

GYC 2025: Seeing the Invisible

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