Staff

 

Nathan & Jenna Fuller:

Nathan:

I grew up in Parkville, MO attending a church called Harmony, Vineyard. Through my church, I heard the Gospel at a young age. I also attended Kansas City Christian School in Kansas City where my walk with the Lord really started to take off. At KCCS the Lord used scripture to grow my heart for people. As I was going to college, my pastor took me aside and told me that nine out of every ten students that are Christians in high school fall away from their faith in college. That statistic made me determined to get plugged into a ministry right away. I found the Navigators during my first few weeks at Northwest and have been involved ever since. It was only after getting involved with the Navigators that I began to see the value of investing my life in a few. Through discipleship, I developed a vision for my life and learned how to reach out to the people around me. After I graduated in 2008, I married Jenna and we decided to come on staff full time so that we could continue to raise up laborers at Northwest.

 

Jenna:

I grew up just outside of Lincoln Nebraska with my parents and three younger siblings. From an early age, the importance of being a faithful member of a church was impressed on me. In my family, if you were not throwing up or running a fever, you went to church and you fulfilled the commitments that you made. This helped me to develop discipline in my life, and I was well versed in Bible stories, but I did not understand why Jesus was important to my life. This understanding came later through several friends who reached out to me. Through an AWANA program and Timberlake Bible Camp, I understood that Jesus suffered on the cross for me personally so that I could be with God. My camp counselor encouraged all of us the read the Bible every night for a month after we got home from camp. I did this, but after the month was over, it was hard for me to keep reading. Throughout high school, I struggled to read the Bible and to learn from it, but I had no one to help me and I kept hitting a wall. I felt like there had to be more to reading the Bible than what I was doing, but I couldn’t seem to make it click.

 

Because of this, I came to college intent on finding a ministry where I could get help. One of my friends from high school invited me to an open house for this ministry called The Navigators. I went and I was impressed because these people seemed to have the secret that I was looking for and they cared about helping me figure it out. The Lord used these people in my life and, as I spent time around them, things began to click. God used the people in my life to open my eyes to spending time reading the Bible and my life hasn’t been the same since. After graduating and getting married, Nathan and I returned to Northwest as staff because we saw how the love of God through people changed our lives and we hope that God will use us to do the same in the lives of the students at Northwest.

 

 

Brian & Jamie Hopp:

Brian:
I grew up in Falls City, Neb. the younger of two in a church going family. My friends and I had a great time at church activities and socials so I never rebelled against attending. I knew a lot of Bible stories and that Jesus died on the cross for the world’s sin. However, I didn’t see my personal need for Jesus. I saw myself as a pretty good kid, “self-righteous” if you will, because I got good grades, didn’t get into much trouble, was often in the newspaper, etc. I knew the world was messed up, but not me. I attended Northwest Missouri State as a broadcasting major and the second week of my first semester, my Resident Assistant came by my residence hall door and invited me to the weekly meeting of the Navigators. God used a few of those students and our campus director John Payton to bring me to a full trust and faith that Jesus paid the penalty for my sin and absorbed the wrath I deserved. God blessed me with being a freshman floor Resident Assistant for the last three years of college in Franken and Perrin Halls. During these years, God grew my relationship with Him and gave me countless opportunities to share His Word through my life. I feel strongly about the eternal value of working with college students and EDGE Corps is the perfect way to answer God’s call to my life, to raise up generations of God’s warriors that will in turn invest their lives to others. My wife Jamie and I were married on July 26, 2008, and look forward to God using our lives for the advancement of His Kingdom.

 

Jamie:
I grew up in a little town outside of Lincoln, Neb. in a family with my younger sister, two cats, and a dog. We attended church every Sunday. I was a leader in my youth group, went on mission trips every year, and attended church camps. Despite all of these activities, my heart was never invested in a true walk with Jesus. To me, being a Christian was a Sunday activity that didn’t need to penetrate the rest of my life. When I came to Northwest Missouri State as a vocal music education major, I got involved with the Navigators ministry on campus through a friend from high school. I became friends with people that had a desire to know Jesus personally by reading His Word, praying, and memorizing scripture. Most importantly, I saw a joy in their life that proved having a relationship with Jesus wasn’t just for Sundays, but it was a lifestyle for a lifetime. It was in my second semester that I gave my life to Jesus and accepted that His death on the cross was for my sins. My life now is focused on giving all I have for His purposes out of gratitude for what He has done. At the end of my college career in 2008, my new husband Brian and I decided to join EDGE Corps, a program designed for recent graduates to come back to a campus and be on staff full time with the Navigators. I am so excited to see God use us at Northwest to multiply the number of people that will love and serve Him to the ends of the Earth.