“I feel like, day to day, there honestly are successes that come all the time. And what I mean by that is, I think since starting this job I feel like I’ve had to pray more than I’ve ever had to pray. And so being able to see God work in that, I do think I see different successes day to day.

You know, sometimes it’s little. Sometimes it’s big. It’s like on a personal level it feels like – I don’t know – it feels like this is in lots of ways – what I feel like I was called to do.

I feel like ever since I was even a teenager, God called me to work with students and work with youth. And as I’ve grown, that changed in many ways, and now that I ended up here at Wheatfield [Academy], I feel like I can’t see it playing out a better way.

You know for me my original call, I just assumed, ‘Okay I’ll be a youth pastor or something. Work at a church.’ And now I’m like I don’t think I ever would want to work at a church I just want to work here with these guys.

So I definitely feel like it’s something God’s called me to do and something I love to do even on the hard days. And that’s what I love about it. Every time I leave here, even if I’ve had a terrible day, I could have gone through a whole bunch, and I’ll leave and I’ll say, ‘You know what? That wasn’t that bad.” Or the next day I come, or if I’m off you know, I show up, and I tell all the kids, “I’m so excited to be here. I’ve missed you guys.”

I mean it. Because we’re family here. So it’s cool to be a part of that.”

– Youth Coach Annelise Croell