GYC 2025: Seeing the Invisible

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

Conversations on Exodus

Esther Kim

Thando Amankwah

Sikhu Daco

Michel Lee

Amy Ratsara

Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

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.

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Esther Kim

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Dec 31, 2025 – Jan 4, 2026

GYC 2025: Seeing the Invisible

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