the wesley alumni around the world

Alumni gains strength from experiences at Wesley

Christina Castelli made her faith her own at the Wesley and learned skills that have helped her in her new career in Singapore.

The Wesley Foundation helped shape my college experience and, by extension, my whole outlook on life. Growing up I spent eight years in a Lutheran primary school, so I already knew all the textbook answers, all the important Bible verses and all the obscure Biblical characters. What I had never experienced before was a community of people all seeking to learn more about their beliefs, talk openly about them with others, and to aim to truly put them in to practice. While I don’t claim to have every aspect of my faith absolutely nailed down, at the Wesley it became my faith and no one else’s.

Besides regularly attending Vespers and assorted Bible Studies and singing in the choir, I became most actively involved in the Chinese Ministry centered at Wesley. I double majored in linguistics and East Asian (Chinese) studies at OU. Pastor Fuxia Wang arrived my sophomore year and was looking for English teachers—and conveniently, I was looking for people to help me practice Chinese! Over the years I became very close to many of the Chinese and Taiwanese students who came to Wesley for food and fellowship. I was blessed enough to see some of those students accept Christ, and even those who didn’t accept Him had a positive and welcoming experience at the Wesley, which helped shape their time in America and positively influence their perceptions of Christians and Christianity.

I am currently living and working in Singapore. If you’re like most people, you don’t actually know where Singapore is — maybe you think it’s a city in China. Actually, Singapore is a city as well as its own country (16th smallest in the world) with a population of 5 million people. It is located in Southeast Asia, much further south than China or Japan. And it’s a very modern country, just as developed and probably cleaner and easier to get around in than most US cities! And they speak English here, in addition to Chinese.

It has been an interesting challenge adapting to a new country and lifestyle. It is difficult sometimes to continue with my prayers, church attendance, and quiet times now that I am no longer surrounded by the constant fellowship and encouragement of the Wesley Foundation. But with prayer and through the grace of God, the foundation laid at the Wesley will allow me to continue to grow my faith and to be a shining light to others here in Singapore.
I am grateful for the training, support, teaching, and encouragement I received at the Wesley that has shaped me into who I am. I am also grateful to every individual and family that donated to the ministry so that students like me could be blessed. It is an honor to now be able to give back with my prayers and finances to help a ministry that poured so much into me!

Wesley Alumni Share Their Witness in Bolivia

Husband and wife team, Andy and Cassie share about their work in Bolvia as they share their witness and make disciples of Christ.

Hi Wesley family!

Looking back on our first year of service, we are thankful for the successes and new experiences we’ve enjoyed, and for the opening of my perspective brought from the tough times. We see now how different our challenges and comforts are than when we first came. No longer are the Spanish language and basics of living in a new culture a problem – we know by sight every truck worth hitchhiking on, and we no longer have to explain with more than one or two words what we’re looking for at the corner tienda. We have become comfortable with many aspects of our lives here, but the challenges that we face today are not things that will pass so easily with time. These challenges include helping project participants come to consensus to share and protect natural resources, and participating in the faith community by being healers instead of agitators of the tense relationships between Catholics and Protestants.

A recent devotion has given me a different perspective on our challenges here. Micah 6:8 asks the question: “And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.”

This simple list plays out in very complex ways in our daily lives. Our work requires us to make challenging decisions about which communities will benefit from our projects and which ones will be left out for now. As foreigners with access to lots of resources, we are automatically in a position of power that we are commanded to wield justly. We try to make just decisions, but sometimes we feel the best we can do is just what the verse says: act justly. That is, our every intention is to be just, but without a lot more wisdom, we surely fall short.

In the midst of failure and lack of perfect wisdom, we have seek guidance from Micah 6:8. When friendship is elusive and our Christian brothers and sisters disagree, we attempt loving mercy. This doesn’t however give us an easy answer to blunt questions of “Which is better, Catholicism or Protestantism?”

Even as our two countries fight, and the resources we bring at times causes others to argue and disparage one another, we know that as followers of Christ we are commanded to act justly. We can avoid entering or fueling decades-old feuds among neighboring families, and we can try to use the resources we are put in charge of to build solidarity and unity among community members rather than letting them become instruments for spiting or one-upping one’s neighbor. Even as we are praised (and at times falsely-befriended) by others for the resources that we can access, we can humble ourselves to the power that gives us our purpose.

In spite of the seemingly unending challenges and frequent feelings of failure, at the end of the day we know that we are living out our faith in an active way, carrying out Christ’s call to care for the poor and oppressed, and we pray that our efforts will lighten burdens and strengthen this community even if we don’t see the full effect in our time here.

Thanks for your support, and we ask for sustained prayers for our relationships, health, and work.

You're on our minds in Bolivia!

Lots of Love!

Andy and Cassie

Cassie and Andy were active at the Welsey Foundation from 2000-2006, They are currently serving with the Mennonite Central Committee in Bolivia, on a 3-year assignment building water systems, latrines, and working at agricultural improvements. MCCs charge is to demonstrate Gods love by working for peace, justice, and dignity by living among suffering people, and sharing our resources, experiences, and faith.

Giving Back To The Wesley At OU

Sean Walker, Wesley alumnus, is determined to give back to the organization that gave so much to him while he was a student.

My name is Sean Walker, and I graduated from the University of Oklahoma in May 2002 with a degree in Meteorology. When I came to OU in the Fall of 19 98 my best friend, Jonathan Bryan, and I knew that we wanted to check out the wesley.

We were both really active in our youth group at First United Methodist Church – Moore and had heard that the wesley was the United Methodist Campus Ministry and that would be a great place to stay plugged in like a youth group. This was an understatement; the wesley became my home away from home for the four years I was at OU, and it helped me to become the strong, involved Christian I am today!

While I was in a high school youth group, my faith was still my parent’s faith. The wesley helped me to own my faith. I attended VESPERS each week and it was here that I was fed spiritually and learned how to truly worship. When I got married and my wife and I started looking for a church, VESPERS became the model of what I was looking from in a church worship service. This meant I needed a church where I heard Biblically based sermons and had awesome praise and worship.

Likewise, I got involved in FROSH, the freshman small group and Bible Study. It was here that I met my college family, many who are still great friends today. Since we became a family, we held each other accountable in our Christian walk. Through Bible study and fellowship activities we grew closer and made it where we wanted to come to church each week. We looked out for each other, cared for each other, and prayed for each other.

To this day, my FROSH group is the closest small group that I have ever been involved with. Not only did the wesley help me make my faith my own, it was where I learned how to be a strong, Christian leader.

The more I got involved at the wesley; I knew that I wanted to get involved in some sort of leadership capacity. After my first semester, I joined the ROCK leadership group. The goal for this group always was and will continue to be preparing young people to be leaders in our churches.

Many of the concepts and lessons that I learned while in leadership at the wesley I am using today while serving in leadership capacities at my home church and even at the Wesley Foundation, where I serve on the Board of Directors.

One of the biggest lessons I remember was the importance of tithing to your church, especially if you are in a leadership role. Everyone should tithe; however, if you are in a leadership role it is important that you lead by example by tithing. It is because of this lesson that my wife and I make sure that we give the first ten percent of our income to our home church and the wesley.

I am pleased to be able to give back to the Wesley Foundation through my finances and by serving on the Board of Directors. Since the wesley gave me so much throughout the four years I was there, I want nothing less than to be able to make sure that the students who follow in my footsteps also are able to become spiritually mature Christians and then become productive lay leaders in a church when they graduate and go into the real world!