By Gracie Fairfax | Echo
Go to college. Go to medical school. Become a doctor. For senior Jaeger Ackerman, this was the plan all along. While it sounds like the road to success, God took Ackerman on a detour.
After meeting the love of his life and now-fiancée senior Jordyn Croasdell on a mission trip to Peru during the summer before his sophomore year of high school, Ackerman's life began to change. About a year after first meeting and developing a strong friendship, Croasdell and Ackerman started dating. This determined man welcomed the joyful, passionate and ministry-minded spirit Croasdell possessed.
Following her high school graduation, Croasdell took a gap year and set off for Youth With a Mission (YWAM), where she attended a three-month discipleship training school in Australia, followed by a three-month ministry experience in Bangladesh.
"YWAM was just such a unique experience in that you kind of got to set real life aside and specifically use those six months and just focus on the Lord and who he is . . . it changed who I was because of who I understood God to be," Croasdell said.
When she returned, her family witnessed her changed spirit. Despite the positive change she experienced, Croasdell struggled to convey all that she experienced to Ackerman. How would he ever understand all she saw and felt?
"YWAM has always been something that I wanted to share with him because it was so impactful for me," Croasdell said.
It would take some convincing to change Ackerman's streamlined plan to success and a comfortable future. He had already been accepted to Loma Linda medical school in California when Croasdell approached him with the idea of taking a year off to do YWAM as a newly married couple.
Originally opposed to Croasdell's idea, Ackerman continued to pray and talk to friends and family about the idea.
"I was pretty against the idea at first, just because I had my idea of what I thought my life was going to look like," Ackerman said. "But then through a long series of nudgings from Jordyn and friends (as well as) input from her family and my family, we made the decision to actually look into it and see whether I could even defer a year to begin with."
Ackerman continued to look into the possibility as the pieces fell into place. Croasdell's family was supportive of the idea all along, but his family had to be persuaded. After looking more into the idea, Ackerman's father saw the benefit others experienced from taking a year off between college and medical school.
Croasdell approached Ackerman in February and gave him an ultimatum.
She encouraged him to take a month to seek counsel from God, apart from the other voices that had contributed to his decision process.
Friends were a great support in the midst of doubt. They continued to affirm that doing YWAM was the right decision. Ackerman asked friends and family what what they would do if they were in his position, and what they thought he should do. Again and again, people validated, "This is who you are. This is who you and Jordyn are."
Financial and medical issues, as Ackerman has Crohn's disease, still loom over them, but on March 1, they made the decision that they will be joining YWAM shortly after their June 20 wedding.
"I made a deadline," Croasdell added.
Both families are now fully supportive of the idea.
"I think we've seen God work in a lot of ways," Ackerman said. "What does it look like for me to lay down my idealized perspective of what I'm supposed to do and being more open to the idea of pursuing what God has for us?"
Ackerman received additional confirmation on taking a year off for YWAM in a dream. He and Croasdell were in a furniture store, picking up furnishings for their new home in California. While they were shopping, Ackerman chatted with a man in the store. He began evangelizing and sharing the Gospel with him. It reminded him of what it was like to share his faith uninhibited. The man was receptive to the Gospel and then, for no apparent reason, the couple loaded up their car and left for California.
"That was the end of the dream. I woke up the next morning and had this profound feeling, like 'Woah, that's what it's going to be like if Jordyn and I are so focused on getting into medical school and getting out there that we miss out on the opportunity that's right in front of us,'" Ackerman said.
Ackerman thought he might be more effective if he finished his degree and then did YWAM, but he soon realized other excuses would continue to divide him and this opportunity, even after medical school.
The couple believes it would be easy to become self-absorbed as newlyweds-especially because the following years will be consumed with medical school. But, going into marriage, they want to fight against that.
"This provides us the opportunity to be incredibly selfish or incredibly selfless depending on how we take it," Ackerman said. "Just what does that look like to take those first six months of our marriage and say, 'Yes, we're married, but at the same time, our marriage is completely centered around what God has for us,'" he said.
Following their wedding in June, the couple will leave for Tauranga, New Zealand, a week before the start of the three-month discipleship training program school and rent a van to travel around the country for their honeymoon. Following their training school, they will head to the South Pacific for their ministry. YWAM encourages participants to pray about their placements until God makes it clear where they're supposed to be.
During Croasdell's first experience with YWAM, one of the most impactful lessons came from a speaker at the discipleship training school. He said, "When God asks you to do something, you'd be a fool to say no."
Croasdell and Ackerman want to start their marriage right-and to begin, they're giving God their yes.
(If you want to stay updated their journey, follow their blog at ackermanadventures.tumblr.com)
