Our Story
Our heart for this mission
We both feel super strongly called to support IJM’s efforts to eliminate slavery and support people who can’t fight for themselves. IJMs mission is all about protecting people from abuse, violence and poverty, and we really resonate with this mission and find that it is so aligned with God’s heart. We’ve found inspiration from Isaiah 58 where we are encouraged to love and serve the oppressed and marginalized in our world. For a long time, we’ve wanted to use our time and skills to live out our faith, and we believe God has opened this door by giving us this shared heart for IJM’s work and shaping our careers to prepare us for this fellowship.
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?”
— Isaiah 58:6
Alyssa’s Story
For Alyssa, the journey began in her freshman year in college at a Christian conference, where she heard a survivor of sex trafficking share their story, made possible in large part through IJM’s work. Alyssa knew at that moment that she had been introduced to an organization that she felt called to work with one day. Shortly after this, she spent some time working with a non-profit that combated trafficking in Kolkata, India. Over the past decade since that initial introduction, she has grown professionally and built a career in sales at Cisco and stayed connected to IJM along the way as a volunteer in the Bay Area in fundraising and advocacy. When the opportunity to participate in this fellowship came up, it felt like the culmination of all of those years and a full-circle answer to prayer over her hope to one day work with IJM.
In her fellowship role, Alyssa will work with the regional communications team, supporting PR, storytelling and internal communications.
Alek’s Story
Alek spent eight years of his childhood steeped in international service as his parents moved their family to Uganda as missionaries when he was eleven. His most formative years were shaped by being so close to his parents mission of service and sharing the gospel, giving him the opportunity to indirectly experience what it was like to live abroad, and have work and mission overlap. Since moving to California, he has had the opportunity to grow in career and develop himself professionally. During recent years, this growth in his walk with God has had much to to with the reshaping of priorities, specifically around how his personal value came from his work, instead of coming from being one of God’s children. God has worked in his life to help him refocus his energy on Him, and after almost a decade in the electric vehicle industry, this opportunity with IJM felt like God opening a new door — a chance to bring together his professional skills and deep-rooted passion for service in a more direct way. He is looking forward to seeing the skills he has developed converge with serving the Lord and partnering with Him in his pursuit of justice.
In his fellowship role, Alek will support legal and survivor services teams, helping manage projects and build local business partnerships.
Our Vision
We believe that the most impactful way to share the God’s love is by living out our lives the way that the Bible tells us to. We believe that God calls us to life of service helping those in need, and through this, opening the door to faith. In Matt. 25:40, Jesus describes the righteous, who inherit the kingdom of heaven, as those who help others - “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me”. We believe that through working in service to others, God will be able to work in our hearts to open us up to receiving more of the His Spirit, and that through this work, we will be able to minister to others from that overflow of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
