By Isaiah Ziersch
Aletheia Christian College has had a profound impact on my life. Since the age of 12, I’ve been given the opportunity to participate in college classes that deeply blessed my walk with the Lord. As a high schooler, I took Providential History, Apologetics, Ethics, and a Gospels class. Through these classes, my confidence in my faith grew exponentially. The moral argument we studied in apologetics through books like Mere Christianity, by CS Lewis, gave me so much confidence in the Lord. My final project in my Gospels class about the prophecies in the Old Testament of the coming Messiah also deepened my trust and confidence in the scriptures that I’ve believed in my whole life.
After high school, I continued to take Aletheia classes online. I’m currently in my third year of biblical Hebrew and participating in an Old Testament Survey class. Through my studies of biblical Hebrew, I have grown a love for the Torah that I suspect will continue to deepen for the rest of my life. I’ve learned how to do word studies and gotten a taste of what it is like to translate the bible. Because of this, I know my own walk with the Lord is forever impacted. OT Survey challenged my assumptions about the bible and grew my confidence in the Word. I’ve grown in appreciation for God’s work with other cultures in different times and different places. I believe these are key lessons that will be useful in my life as a missionary, whether it is in the Americas, Asia, or Egypt.
Through all these classes I am able to give the Lord more tools to use in my life. Whether I can give Him Hebrew studies, knowledge of culture, or sound logic in arguments for truth and righteousness, all of these things are items that I can put in His hands to use in my personal life or for His larger Kingdom, impacting the world around me.
Aletheia’s Summer camps have also been foundational in my life. I’ve had so many life-changing encounters with the Lord at these camps because of Aletheia’s faculty’s willingness to be used by God, their generosity, and their openness to the work of God in the lives of young people, no matter how messy or unexpected it might appear. I was blessed, having now gone to these camps for nearly a decade, to slowly learn how to lead others as a camp counselor. At times, that of course meant learning by making mistakes. I was able to lead the camp in games and activities that I personally designed to instruct and inspire the camp with spiritual realities and object lessons that were convicting. I was able to lead worship, and have a place to perform monologues and plays about the gospel. These experiences prepared me in so many ways and laid a foundation for ministry that I continue to build upon in my daily life. I am so thankful to the Aletheia community and their willingness to let God use young people and for their deep desire to disciple young people in truth and wisdom.
I am currently a performing missionary, touring in America and Asia with a nonprofit student-led theatre company called Living Pages Theatre. We perform Romans chapters 1- 8 word for word with acting, music, singing, and dance. God allowed me to start this company with a small group of 3 others from around the US, and Aletheia was essential in this process. The encouragement I have received from the teachers at Aletheia has been crucial in chasing this season of my life that God has called me to.
I am so excited to continue to grow in my studies, as well as use what I’ve learned across the world. I am thankful for the accountability, the mentors, and the advice that I have often gleaned from Aletheia and my teachers’ ministry in my life. I can’t wait to see how God uses these things in the ministry that God calls me to here in the US, in Mexico, Asia, and, next year, Cairo, Egypt.
Isaiah Ziersch
תודה אדוני על
ACC
(Thank you, God, for ACC.)
