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Shelbie Ely

ely_shelbie.jpg“My involvement in the CCO’s ministry is what kept me at Ohio Wesleyan University,” says Shelbie Ely. “My first semester, I wanted to transfer to a more Christian school, but the CCO helped keep me there. By end of my freshman year, I had built relationships that I didn’t want to let  go, and I found ways to focus on my faith.”

When Shelbie first arrived at Ohio Wesleyan, she was looking to get involved in campus ministry activities. She later connected to the CCO when she took on a work-study job in the Chaplain’s Office, working with CCO associate staff member, Lisa Ho. She went on a wilderness trek with CCO staff Phil Mollenkof and Ryan Carlson, and she joined the student-led Jubilee Team where she met CCO staff member Jessica Kynion. She attended the CCO-sponsored Jubilee conference her sophomore, junior and senior years.

“I liked the speakers at Jubilee, and the different seminaries and service opportunities that were represented,” she remembers.

Shelbie graduated in 2008 from OWU with a psychology and pre-theology degree, and today she is pursuing a master’s degree in Professional School Counseling at Appalachian State University. Her goal is to work as a high school or elementary school counselor.

“I want to help people,” she says. “At OWU, I was exposed to an emphasis on helping professions, and I’ve always wanted to do youth ministry. During college, I started a youth program at a Presbyterian church near campus. The CCO helped me to keep ministry as a focus.”

Now that she’s moved on from her undergraduate career, Shelbie is experiencing the adjustment process to life after college. She did a year of service with City Year, working with inner-city Boston kids. “It was a year of fulltime volunteer work. I tutored and mentored second- and fourth-graders, led a student council for fourth- and fifth-graders, helped with afterschool programming, and I worked in community service and leadership development with high schoolers on the weekend. But it was difficult to find people in Boston I could count on and study the Bible with.”

Now that she is living in North Carolina and working on her graduate studies, Shelbie continues to look for a church home. She knows it’s important to stay connected with other Christians.

“Ohio Wesleyan is a small school, but still, being involved in campus ministry helped make the adjustment process a lot easier,” she says. “Finding people with similar beliefs, values, and interests allowed me to grow in my faith. Lisa, Phil, Ryan and Jessica were great mentors not only to me, but to many others. My twin sister went to a different college, and she didn’t have the campus ministry resources that we did.

“It’s a lot harder now that I’m out of college and those people and resources aren’t readily available. I am still looking for a church, but the experience at OWU helps me know what I am looking for and that I don’t want to be without that.”