As a New York University student, Anna Lee-Winans was attracted to the ministry of InterVarsity when she experienced in-depth Bible studies and the presence of God in community. She was trained for leadership, became a chapter leader, and considered joining InterVarsity staff, but then decided against it. At least at first.
Instead, she got a Master’s Degree in Social Work and worked for three years in a pediatric AIDS clinic in the south Bronx, sensing that God was calling her to be a compassionate witness in an area with the highest concentration of AIDS cases in the U.S. “God was very consistent in his leading and he’s always spoken in a way I can understand,” she said.
But Anna’s family history is filled with Christian ministry, generation by generation, going back to her great-grandfather, a convert of Hudson Taylor’s China Inland Ministry. And eventually she discovered that her work at the AIDS clinic was only temporary. “God miraculously called me onto staff,” Anna said. “I didn’t see it coming.”
Called to Campus
An InterVarsity friend asked her to attend a Prospective Staff meeting. She intended to go and then graciously decline the invitation to become a staff worker. However, before the meeting she decided to use a day of vacation to drive out of the city and spend some time alone for reflection.
“I ended up sitting in a field in Delaware, journaling my major objections to joining staff with InterVarsity,” she recalled. “I journaled five objections, said ‘Amen,’ and drove back to New York. Then, at the Prospective Staff day, each of my objections was addressed, and in order. And I thought, ‘Maybe God is trying to tell me something.’”
So, ten years ago this past October, Anna returned to the New York University campus as an InterVarsity Campus Staff Member. She learned new leadership skills, such as how to be a humble leader. She learned how to be attentive to the Holy Spirit and God’s movement. And then, once again, she experienced God leading her into a new area of ministry.
Focusing on Graduate Students
Even though her focus was undergraduate students, she noticed that none of the ministries at NYU were working with graduate students and faculty. Graduate students were attracted to the undergraduate chapter during outreach activities, but they didn’t stay involved.
“I remember as a grad student how lonely it was, and how it felt like an uphill battle,” Anna said. So she got permission from her supervisor to start a Bible study just for graduate students. “Every year the number of students in this study would double, and I would always see people coming to Christ in this grad small group.”
As one of her students graduated, joined staff, and began working with the undergraduate chapter, Anna transitioned into InterVarsity’s Graduate and Faculty Ministries (GFM). And she discovered, even more clearly, how God was already at work on the NYU campus.
One day, for instance, she visited the office of a faculty member who told her that he had had no use for God until one day God spoke to him in an almost audible voice during a classroom presentation by a student. Stunned, he asked two Christian colleagues what had happened. He told Anna that after a long conversation, they suggested that he obtain a certain catechism book that would answer many of his questions about God.
“The next thing I know I am going out of my house to buy a sweater,” he said. “I had exactly enough money in my pocket to buy the sweater. As I walked by my favorite used bookstore I looked down at the bargain bin. There was only one book in the bargain bin, the catechism book. And guess how much it cost? It was the exact amount in my pocket. I thought, ‘God is speaking to me again.’”
Chaplain on Campus
Anna said that the GFM ministry at NYU feels to her like inviting people to a banquet table that’s already been set. “I’ve never had my life intertwined with an institution like this before,” she said of NYU where she’s now spent a total of seven years as a student and ten as a staff worker.
In recent years NYU has developed a chaplaincy office. Because of the relationships that Anna had developed with administrators and people of other faiths, she was invited to become a co-chaplain.
“Anna builds bridges, winsomely engaging people without sacrificing her convictions,” said Greg Jao, InterVarsity’s National Field Director for the Northeast. “In a setting where evangelicals can often be treated with suspicion, Anna’s built real partnerships that have kept doors open for our ministry.”
Now that she’s also been recently promoted to the role of GFM’s Area Director for New York and New Jersey, Anna is considering new plans to bring together graduate students in similar disciplines from the many New York City schools, and to develop inter-school faculty fellowships, since the pockets of Christian faculty are in such close proximity.
Looking back over her InterVarsity experiences, Anna remembers the prayer she prayed the summer before she entered college: “God, if you are real, show yourself to me in a way I can understand because I am very stubborn.” She is thankful that God has continued to answer that prayer over and over again in her life. And she anticipates more exciting answers to prayer as InterVarsity’s ministry continues on the New York University campus.
