Price of Life

Living Without Regret: How One Alumnus is Fighting Injustice

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 13:59:08 +0000

Kathryn Brill

Living Without Regret: How One Alumnus is Fighting Injustice

“Even before I started following Jesus, I always had a heart to serve others,” said Azikiwe Calhoun. But during his years at City College of New York, Azikiwe found a deeper relationship with the God who came to serve—as well as new dreams for what his own service could look like.

By connecting with Christian nonprofits and service organizations in his community, Azikiwe was able to invest more fully in those around him while being mentored by other leaders. He also discovered that he could partner with others in service to accomplish much more than they could do individually. “If it wasn’t for ��ñ��, I wouldn’t know that so many people were with me on these issues,” Azikiwe said.

Christ at the Center

As a high school student, Azikiwe went to church with his family, but “it was just something you did.” After he moved to New York City, though, God was on his mind. Azikiwe felt that God was calling him to get serious about faith and renew his relationship with God. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to give his whole life to God, but he had been running into “brick walls” in his quest to arrange his life the way he wanted. “Whatever the Lord has for me, it has to be better than what I’m doing,” he remembers thinking. And indeed, God transformed his life in ways he wasn’t expecting.

One of those ways was through the ��ñ�� chapter at City College. Azikiwe got involved in the chapter during his senior year, after he lost a job that had been taking up most of his free time outside of school. Azikiwe saw this loss as an opportunity to concentrate more on his studies—and to finally join a community of believers on campus. “I started attending a small group and it took off from there,” he said.

Azikiwe attended the Big Event, the New York/New Jersey region’s fall student conference. He participated in Feed 500, a ministry of the New York City Urban Project, where students make and distribute lunches for the homeless while learning how to better respond to the people they see every day on the street. He volunteered at relief efforts after Hurricane Sandy hit Manhattan.

All these activities fueled Azikiwe’s desire to fight injustice for the sake of God’s kingdom. “Before all this, I didn’t know there were nonprofits with Christian foundations,” he said. But after meeting so many Christian nonprofits, Azikiwe began to dream about one day working for an organization with Christ at the center.

Stepping Out for Justice

That dream was closer than Azikiwe thought. In October 2012, he attended a citywide prayer and worship gathering called One Cry. Various social justice organizations from around New York City were displaying information—including Price of Life, a student-led campaign to fight human trafficking in New York City and share how God cares about injustice. Azikiwe gravitated to the Price of Life booth at One Cry, where he was inspired to sign up to volunteer. “I knew human trafficking existed, but I didn’t know it was right here—I always thought it was over there,” he explained. He was immediately passionate about doing something to help.

In the spring semester, Azikiwe had an opportunity to intern with Price of Life, working with Jeannie Rose Field, Price of Life’s assistant coordinator. He helped out at various events such as Proxe Stations, interactive art displays where information about trafficking is presented alongside the gospel. He also worked to promote Price of Life on social media.

Through his work with Proxe Stations, Azikiwe developed the ability to talk about the gospel in many different situations. Because of their eye-catching displays, Proxe Stations attract a wide audience, and he had to be prepared to answer a variety of questions about Jesus and human trafficking. “The initial nervousness was most difficult,” he recalled. “I asked myself, ‘How will I approach people?’” As Azikiwe helped with more Proxe Stations, though, he grew more comfortable with sharing the Gospel in unusual ways. “��ñ�� challenged me to step out in faith,” Azikiwe said. “God pushes you to step out.”

His whole internship experience was one of “growing and stretching,” as he put it. Many leaders in Price of Life, especially Jeannie Rose, mentored him and other recent graduates in the field of social justice work. And he grew and developed as a leader, gaining confidence in his skills along with more leadership responsibilities.

Moving Forward

Because of his internship experiences, Azikiwe knows that God’s heart for injustice captivates people, and so he’s confident that Price of Life can transform New York City. “It’s going to be big,” he said. “Price of Life is not an organization that’s just talk. It’s actually engaged with people.” Azikiwe also knows the ways that God has transformed his own life through this work. First, he’s gained a new understanding of God’s character: “God is a God of justice, but he’s also a God of mercy at the same time. And he’s at work through everyday things.” He’s also learned to avoid burnout and persevere in his work by “seeing the end in the beginning,” as he put it. And he’s grown to rely on God’s strength, not his own, for the energy to work for justice.

Azikiwe is also making plans to pursue a justice-oriented career. This fall, he started a 15-month program in international development at Eastern University, a Christian school in Pennsylvania. “They teach you the spiritual as well as the practical aspects,” he explained. After completing his degree, Azikiwe hopes to work with an organization that combines sustainable practices, poverty alleviation, and community development—“and if I could share the gospel at the same time,” he added, “that would be awesome.”

Wherever he ends up working, Azikiwe is encouraged by the number of Christian justice organizations that he’s seen during his time with Price of Life. “People of all backgrounds and all professions are serving God in these organizations. There’s no limit!” he said.

Azikiwe advises everyone to get involved in fighting injustice: “If you do nothing, you’ll regret it. I’m happy I’ve done something.” His passion and enthusiasm indicate that he’s more than happy—he’s experienced the joy that comes from using his talents to honor God and bring his justice to earth.

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Price of Life

City College of New York

��ñ�� alumni

Serving the City

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Mon, 05 Aug 2013 18:43:52 +0000

News

Gordon Govier

Serving the City

Jonathan Walton loves New York City. He calls it a God-given affection—because when he first arrived in the city as a Columbia University freshman, he hated it.

New York City was a big change from his hometown in rural southern Virginia. “The people are loud,” he remembers thinking. “There’s no reason for this many people to live in one place.”

He admitted he wasn’t prepared for Columbia. What saved him was an invitation from a friend to attend an ��ñ�� small group Bible study. “If I hadn’t had people to talk to, I probably would have flunked out,” he said. “��ñ�� definitely kept me in college.”

Poetic Flair

Jonathan had won a scholarship to Columbia on the basis of his already-published work as a poet. Eventually he started to win attention as a speaker and performer in New York City, and while the attention was exciting, the constant self-promotion was deceptive. God was calling him to something more through ��ñ��, where he saw people who followed Jesus instead of their ego. God emphatically got his attention during the summer after his sophomore year.

Everything came crashing down all at once. He lost his job. There were money problems, and a check bounced. He didn’t have a place to stay. He didn’t know where to turn. Finally he had a long conversation with his ��ñ�� staff worker, Ashley Byrd.

“I was trying to figure out why a guy like Ashley would care about a guy like me. And he said, ‘Because Jesus cares.’” Jonathan renewed his commitment to follow Jesus and became more involved in ��ñ�� when the school year started. His last two years at Columbia he was the chapter’s Large Group Coordinator.

Loving the City

Immediately after graduation in 2008, he became director of ��ñ��’s New York City Urban Project (NYCUP), a program involving spiritual formation and advocacy. NYCUP had been struggling to find consistent leadership, with three different directors in five years.

“When I came on staff I really didn’t have a grasp of what urban projects were, but what I did have was a conviction that students should be loving the people on their campuses so that it causes them to push out to the boundaries of the entire world,” Jonathan said.

Greg Jao, ��ñ��’s National Field Director for the Northeast, admired the way Jonathan tied justice advocacy with Scripture study and prayer at NYCUP. “We believe this generation of activists will burn out and become embittered—like prior generations of activists—if they aren’t renewed regularly by the Holy Spirit’s work and presence,” Greg said. “Jonathan models this in the way he lives, teaches, and directs the project. He’s an activist because he’s a faithful disciple of Jesus.”

Instead of focusing primarily on spring break and summer vacation programs, like other urban projects, Jonathan began a year-round program that offers students the opportunity to live out their faith by feeding the homeless, as well as fighting human trafficking and modern slavery.

“His regular one-day programs (Feed 500) have been key places for Christian students to invite non-Christian students to meet a God who cares about personal and social righteousness,” Greg noted. “He has created long-term relationships between non-Christian service organizations and ��ñ�� chapters. I love the way NYCUP not only reflects ��ñ��’s convictions about Scripture, justice, spiritual formation, and mission but also actively advances our campus work.”

The number of students involved in NYCUP has grown steadily. Jonathan believes students are looking for tangible ways to express their faith and make a difference in the world. “Christians are the only people on campus who have a vision for what God intended and how He will restore it,” Jonathan said.

Reaching Out to the City

Jonathan now has the additional responsibility of being the official spokesman for Price of Life New York City, a call to faith and justice that culminates in a series of events in early October, 2013. ��ñ�� and dozens of collaborating organizations will be inviting students attending 18 targeted New York City colleges to participate. “I expect this to be a catalyst for ministry and city renewal if we are obedient in our calling to be bold and unashamed,” he said.

Through the Price of Life it’s hoped at least 10,000 students will be personally invited to follow Jesus and fight human trafficking. It will be one of ��ñ��’s largest evangelistic outreaches ever. But Jonathan is already thinking ahead. “Maybe in five years we will be in a position to reach 594,000 people—the total number of students in New York City,” he said. “In the long term, yes I think we can do it.”

For Jonathan, nothing less would serve the city that he loves. Because it’s a city that God loves.

Jonathan Walton and his wife Priscilla are mentioned in this article on Christianity in New York City.

In the video below, he talks further about his ministry with ��ñ��.

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Music That Brings Freedom

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Thu, 11 Jul 2013 15:08:02 +0000

Alumni Profile

News

Lisa Rieck

Music That Brings Freedom

Sex trafficking has been fought in many ways and on many levels: through national and local laws, through training and by raising awareness, through job-skills development and education for females, through documentaries and books.

��ñ�� alumna and indie rock singer-songwriter Janie Chu is engaging in the battle on another level—a soul level—through music.

Early Roots

As a Chinese American, Janie was trained in classical piano from age six to age eighteen. “I loved practicing all the major pieces I was given,” she said, “but I would still try to play all the pop songs on the radio by ear.” Her summers were spent at the piano, practicing songs and writing new ones to perform at church summer camp.

In those growing-up years she also found faith, attending a Chinese Christian church with her mom and eventually committing her life to Jesus as a young adolescent. But, she said, “I really didn’t understand the full weight of his death and resurrection until I was in high school. That’s really when living out that faith became real for me.”

The College Years

Janie’s dream was to study modern music in college, but being a dutiful daughter, she went to Emory University in Atlanta to double major in sociology and classical music. And though those fields of study weren’t her first choice, God used her time at Emory to grow seeds he’d placed in her.

One of those seeds was her Christian faith. “I started college in the mid-nineties at an inwardly turbulent time in my life,” Janie said, “but I was determined to stay active in my faith.” She quickly became involved in two ��ñ�� chapters at Emory: Emory Christian Fellowship and Asian Christian Fellowship.

“��ñ�� had a tremendous impact on the way I processed my faith,” she said. “I made some of my closest friends in college there. And I still think about the impact on my faith through inductive Bible studies, tracks at Chapter Camps, and even some basic fundamentals of Christianity that inform my current church involvement.”

Janie wasn’t just growing in her Christian faith, however; Emory also stirred in her a heart for social justice. She took a number of classes on gender inequality and began to wrestle with the unjust ways different people groups in society were treated. These topics would eventually find their way into her music.

With her desire to study modern music growing stronger, Janie made the decision to transfer to Belmont University in Nashville, a school well known for its commercial music major that combines classes in songwriting, music business, music technology, and performance in contemporary styles of music.

She found support for her new major at ��ñ��’s 1996 Urbana Student Missions Conference, which she attended before starting winter classes at Belmont. One seminar offered there, “Christian Artists in the Secular Marketplace,” was particularly helpful to her in processing not just her faith but also her art and the modern music industry she was moving toward. The coleaders of the seminar, Bruce Kuhn (an actor) and his wife (a visual artist), provided a picture of what it looks like to live out Christian faith as an artist. “It was a great comfort and encouragement to me,” Janie said.

Once at Belmont, she enjoyed opportunities to develop her songwriting skills through classes and gain professional experience through internships. Her Christian faith continued to grow as well through the ��ñ�� chapter at nearby Vanderbilt University. “But something still didn’t feel quite right,” she said. “I wrestled with this strange dichotomy of wanting to write and make great music as a recording and performing artist but at the same time feeling like my desire to be involved in social justice work was getting neglected.” The struggle to see how her passions fit together continued throughout her twenties, and even while she was writing and recording her first album, Roots (2006).

Finding the Sweet Spot in Painful Places

In 2008, her music and her heart for social justice came rushing together to address an issue that was rampant right in her own city: sex trafficking. “My church did a presentation about the problem of sex trafficking in my hometown of Atlanta,” she recalled. “I was awakened to the fact that it was a domestic issue. It deeply disturbed me.” She started learning more and getting involved with organizations in Atlanta who were effectively combatting sexual abuse.

But she was already doing more than she realized to help victims of sex trafficking. Both Roots and her latest album, The Human Condition (2012), contain songs born out of places of deep personal pain for Janie—pain that, as it turns out, is not so different from what those who’ve been sexually abused are experiencing. “I never imagined that the very real pain I experienced and displayed on my albums would resonate so strongly with victims and be a help in their healing process,” she said. “I get letters from women in aftercare programs, people I’ve spoken to and performed for at anti-trafficking concerts and programs. It really just blows me away to see God at work through my music.”

Price of Life: New York City and Exposing Darkness

In this past year Janie was given the opportunity to combine music and social justice on an even broader scale as she took on the roles of project coordinator, producer, and contributor to Exposing Darkness, a compilation of music that is being produced for ��ñ��’s Price of Life: New York City campaign for anti-trafficking. “As an artist and abolitionist, it’s been a rewarding process connecting with other like-minded abolitionist musicians to collectively form an album of our interpretations on the issue,” she said.

Her hope is that music—with its “universal connection to every soul,” as Janie put it—can help people see the problem, the solutions, and the church in a new light, and experience the truth of who Jesus is. “The church is so often judged for appearing divisive on so many controversial issues,” she said. “Here we have an opportunity and responsibility to show just how much Jesus cares about sex trafficking, and that fighting it is directly aligned with the compassion, truth, justice, and love that epitomize his kingdom.”

What’s her ultimate dream for Price of Life and Exposing Darkness? “My hope is that the students and individuals that attend Price of Life will see the gospel of Jesus Christ and our mutual desire to see modern slavery addressed and abolished in our lifetime,” she said.

That’s a big dream, but it’s one that Janie knows God—the God who has led her into places of freedom and used her music for his glory in ways she couldn’t have imagined—can bring to fruition.

You can get involved in Price of Life too! Find out how.

Release date for Exposing Darkness is October 5, 2013.

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