One-Year Risks and a Lifetime of Change: Elissa’s Story

“In the past, my whole family went to church just because,” Elissa Fong, an InterVarsity staff intern at the University of Washington, where she also attended, said. “It wasn’t until college that I really started to think about what it means to say that I’m a Christian.” 

Elissa grew up attending a Chinese Baptist church. Because faith was so engrained in her family and questioning wasn’t the norm, she knew the kinds of answers her aunts, uncles, and pastors expected to hear when they asked her about her walk with Jesus. “I wrestled with, ‘how much of this is me automatically spit balling answers, and how much of this is me actually believing what I’m saying?’” she said. 

Elissa also felt like she separated her faith from the rest of her life and struggled with worries about not being enough. She wondered, How Christian do I have to be for God to love me?  

The minute Elissa decided she was going to the University of Washington, her mom searched for a campus Christian group and found Asian American InterVarsity. Elissa followed their Instagram account and was invited to join their online small group. 

Because of the pandemic, Elissa stayed home in California for her first year of college. Disappointed and fearful since her parents always told her how special college friendships were, she didn’t think she’d make friends if her whole life was online. To her surprise though, she very quickly bonded with this community.  

One Year on Leadership 

A year later, when the pandemic was ending and Elissa was preparing to move to Seattle, one of her small group leaders encouraged her to apply for leadership.  

“Looking back, it was such a big leap for me to make because I was just coming out of ‘Zoomversity’ and then transitioning to becoming a small group leader for a campus that I've never been on,” she said. “But I thought, Wow, they've done so much for me. The least I can do is try leading for one year and pour back into the students.” 

Elissa was grateful for the support she had in that first year of leading a small group. Her staff and the other small group leaders were caring, intentional, and made her comfortable enough to ask the questions she’d always been too afraid to ask in church. 

“To not be afraid to rely on authority figures and ask for help is very counter cultural for Asian cultures,” she said. “My staff breaking those barriers was so transformational for me.” 

Her faith deepened even more through watching other students grow in their faith and through falling in love with Scripture for the first time.  

“Through doing inductive Bible study, I was brought into a whole new world of Scripture study,” she said. “I realized, maybe I am enough, and maybe my faith is enough, and I can call it my own,” she said. 

One Year on Mission

During her senior year, Elissa was invited to attend InterVarsity’s 2024 Staff Conference as a prospective staff minister. “I was reluctant at first,” she said. “I thought, ‘I small group lead, I’m on vision team now with my chapter. That's the extent of my ministry work.’” But she went anyway, taking a risk again and believing God would meet her there.  

At Staff Conference, the staff Elissa met inspired her and made her feel like coming on staff was the best thing she could do after graduating. “I know that if I take one year to intern with InterVarsity, I could grow so much, cause I’ve already grown so much in the past four years in college.” 

As a first-year campus staff intern, Elissa wants to see her students take the same kinds of risks she did, to “just take risks to seek God.”   

She also wants to keep taking risks herself, knowing now that life with Jesus is full of both challenges and blessings. Specifically, she wants to grow in being more intentional with reaching non-Christians, showing them that they too can ask risky questions about the world and about life, and that God has answers. 

“I’m hoping to build confidence in order to say that I’m proudly doing this job because I love it,” Elissa said. “Because I believe in the mission.” 

Elissa is continuing that mission at Portland State University along with other staff ministers who are planting InterVarsity chapters in Oregon. You can support her ministry here.