OUR STORY

Hey all!  My name is Will and I grew up in San Marino in Southern California. Though my father is Buddhist, my mom is Christian and brought me, my sisters, and my cousins to church faithfully every single week.  I accepted Jesus as my Lord and savior in middle school when I went through a rebellious phase of life and saw how much harm I could cause to the very people who loved me most. For the first time in my life, I clearly saw my sinfulness and need for God’s forgiveness.

I entered UC Berkeley (Go bears!) in 2005. My non-Christian best friend, who I had also been trying to share my faith with throughout high school, introduced me to some seniors living in his dorm. They were friendly, intelligent, and cool Christians. They took me under their wing, answered all my questions about God and the Bible, and showed me by example what it looked like to follow Christ as a college student. In college, my relationship with Christ grew as I learned to read the Bible, share my faith, and take steps of faith like going on my first mission trip. One of the happiest days of my life was when that same best friend became a Christ follower himself. That’s when I realized that there’s absolutely nothing more exhilarating than being used by God to help bring someone to Christ!

After graduation, I stuck around to serve in our church’s college ministry as a covocational staff.  Since then, I’ve never looked back.  I’ve had the amazing opportunity to minister to college students for over a decade in Berkeley, Taiwan, Pittsburgh, and Columbus, Ohio!  Along the way, I met my best friend, my wife Christiana.  We have two adorable, rambunctious, and humongous boys, Nate and Nico.

Likes: I love eating good food, playing sports, reading biographies, and exploring new places, so if you ever want an adventure, let me know!

I spent a good part of my middle/high school years in China, moving around due to my dad’s job. Growing up, I never gave Christianity too much thought, as most of my family members staunchly identified as atheist or non-religious. But my path started deviating from theirs after I had a few near-death experiences in high school, and discovered that I had an incurable congenital heart condition. After this, I became a lot more spiritually open. I set foot on the UC Berkeley campus in 2008 as a freshman with so many questions about life, existence, and purpose, but had no idea where to look for answers.

One of my floormates received a flyer advertising free BBQ during the first week of school and invited a bunch of us to come to an event welcoming new students. I didn’t realize that it was hosted by a Christian fellowship until the speaker started giving a message, but I chose to stay and listen. Little did I know that would be one of the most consequential decisions I would make! That night I heard the gospel, and realized the Bible was something that might have the answers to all my questions. I took on a challenge to investigate Christianity for one semester and since then, my life has never been the same. I’m passionate about college ministry because I know there are people out there like me who are ready to hear and receive the gospel in college.

After college, I served with our Berkeley college ministry before moving down to Los Angeles for graduate school and to help start a church plant there. A few years later I mastered out of my PhD program at UCLA and soon after, married my husband Will and continued to serve in college ministry together.

Fun fact: I have an identical twin sister whose husband is also named Will.