Emilie Ball, AFA Class of 2002

The 2002 AFA alumna and practicing nurse discusses how Ad Fontes Academy has impacted her life, shaped her beliefs and inspired her vision for helping others.

Interview by AFA Journalism Teacher Sheryl Blunt

Q: Tell us what you are doing since graduating from Ad Fontes?

A: I went to James Madison University for my BSN in Nursing. I started working at Fairfax Hospital in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). I am still there almost three years later, and I love it!

Q: How do you feel AFA helped prepare you for what you are doing now?

A: AFA taught me how to apply a biblical worldview to all subjects and situations. This tool served me through college and continues to be a gift as I face various ethical challenges at work.

At Ad Fontes I learned about absolute truth through Plato. In his writings about the cave I was introduced to the idea of ultimate truth and reality. Those conversations helped prepare my mind for what I would face at college. There has to be truth, and we can stand on it if we stand on God’s word. That’s the truth I stand on at work, and it started in high school. I never knew how much [reading Plato’s Republic] would influence me— that it would be so significant.

Q: How do you think Ad Fontes differs most from other Christian schools?

A: At this school every subject is taught through Scripture. Also, you have to be able to provide support for every argument you make. AFA wants you to present what you think based on the facts you have gathered. There’s an academic view that uses knowledge to promote oneself, but at Ad Fontes, it’s about having knowledge in order to promote God. AFA was developing me as a person to understand what life was about. It wasn’t just preparing me to be a success in the world’s eyes. It was preparing me to be ready and able to give an answer for what I would encounter as a believer.

Q: To what extent do you believe AFA helped shape your career choice?

A: I know that my love for the sciences grew while I was at AFA, which influenced my decision to go into nursing.

Q: What teachers or courses do you remember being particularly influential?

A: The teachers at Ad Fontes want to hear you defend your views. They want us to speak with confidence about our faith. I learned how to be comfortable with my faith and how to articulate it. Mr. [Kurt] Wellington really encouraged me in my love for science. He and Mrs. [Linda] Mathwin, my senior thesis advisor, really impacted me. She’s awesome! She helped me articulate and build sound arguments to defend both the scientific and biblical facts I presented in my thesis regarding the over-diagnosis of ADHD and the detrimental effects this has for children.

She always asked me, ‘Do you have something to back that up?’ or, ‘Where’s the proof that drug is effective?’ I went to a college library to do research and I’d ask myself, ‘What is this high school?’… As a college freshman my teachers were impressed by how I used sources and backed up what I thought. Also, having to look at ethical issues in my thesis was critical. I am now able to use that every day in my healthcare profession.

Q: How does your faith mesh with the scientific worldview that dominates the practice of medicine?

A: This idea of biblically-sound truth and science can be likened to God and the Holy Spirit. Some see an omniscient God as pure knowledge and reason, and the Holy Spirit as spiritually [distinct], but the two are combined. Faith and science can combine, but you have to be a believer and a studier to experience the beauty of the two uniting.

In high school a lot of it is doing what you’re told—it’s building the groundwork. I think Ad Fontes does a lot of the groundwork. It gave me that idea of science as something that is God’s, and is used by God. You combine this with your love for God. Then you learn to live it out.

Q: You recently returned from a short-term mission trip to Uganda. What are some of the eye-opening experiences you had?

A: We met an awesome pastor who had started a church in a remote town called Kabara in southern Uganda. We came alongside this pastor and were able to serve him and meet his medical needs. The people there understood that God had sent a team to serve them in this way. I could just see the Gospel in action. Jesus could have done it himself—like he fed the 5,000—but the truth is, He works through the lowly. It was so Gospel! So not about us! It was about God! We went to serve, but these works were already cut out and prepared for us.

We interacted with a man who had two wives. At one point we had to tell his second wife that she needed AIDS testing since her baby was HIV positive. That night both families gave their lives to Christ. Praise God!

Q: Were you anxious at the prospect of attending a secular college after having been homeschooled and then attending AFA?

A: It’s such a gift to know you’re going into college with such a basis for what you already believe. In some ways you feel like you’re in a little Christian bubble for a while, but they don’t just dump you into the ‘real world’ afterwards. They gave us all these tools to use—spiritually and academically—so all of us were very prepared.

Q: What advice do you have for students considering mission work?

A: Pray Pray Pray. God is always speaking. Make sure you’re listening to where He is calling you. It may be to your next-door neighbor. Missions is not just a trip, it’s a state of heart, and having a heart that is ready to serve wherever God is calling.

Samantha Ward, AFA Class of  2005

Accomplished Fiction Writer Sets Sights on Career in International Affairs

When Samantha Ward began crafting a short story entitled The Alliance in her journal one evening about faeries, elves, evil villains and enchanted lands, she had no idea that she had begun writing a tale that would eventually lead to a multi-book publishing contract involving four authors in a unique approach to collaborative fiction writing.

“I started writing The Alliance when I was 15,” Ward explained in early 2009, months before graduating from James Madison University with a degree in International Affairs. “Soon, it involved two other students and our Algebra teacher.”

“I was comfortable saying what I thought and believed. I was in an Honors seminar my Freshman year that had a very clear, liberal agenda. I was challenged a lot, but never had a place where I was nervous about what I was saying. I knew what I thought and had a reason for it.”

In 2004, after Ward and fellow student Chrystine Kern had written a few pages of what would eventually be published as the first book in the Faeltheon Trilogy, she took the story to her tenth-grade math teacher, Michelle Yardumian, herself an accomplished writer who had coached several other Ad Fontes Academy students on their writing. Yardumian immediately recognized the standout quality of the storytelling and encouraged the students to continue writing.

“The idea to write together came out of a conversation I had with Chrystine [Kern],” Ward said. “We both enjoyed writing and had been told we had similar writing styles. So we started talking about it and soon began really expanding the story. And we’ve worked to put moral lessons and a spiritual message into the book.”

As a way to help keep focused on the project, Ward and Kern approached fellow Sophomore Rachel DiDomenico with a proposition – to collaborate on writing the story by authoring sections independently of one another. Yardumian would supervise the effort.

“So the idea was that we would each write a section, then pass the notebook to the next person,” Ward said. “Everything that we write gets edited by the others, so it gets edited by all four authors. This makes the process really unique. It is a true team effort.”

Yardumian helped with the writing, but soon took the role in organizing and leading the team. “A lot of publishers don’t trust things to flow properly with books written by multiple authors,” Ward said. “Michelle [Yardumian] took the lead in working with the publisher and she was the organizer in getting all our story themes laid out.”

The work continued as the team developed a storyline that would span three books. Five years later, the notebook has given way to writing and collaborating electronically. Ward, DiDomenico and Kern attended separate colleges in different states. Yardumian has since moved to New Mexico.

Originally slated to be a trilogy, the final book was divided (at the publisher’s request) into two volumes for four books in the series. Tate Publishing began selling The Alliance in 2007 at major booksellers and online. The second book, Run Before the Wind, is scheduled for publication in Summer 2009.

“The most exciting thing for us is that all the feedback we’ve gotten so far has been great,” Ward said. “There has not been a single return of the book. The testimonials that we get clearly show that readers have been able to take something away from the experience.”

When Ward enrolled at James Madison as a Freshman, she had no idea how important her personal writing experience and exposure to classical Christian education would be. “I definitely think the classical Christian education was invaluable,” she said. “I had to write ten page papers for every class at Ad Fontes. As a result, the papers in college were so much easier. There’s just not as much expected from students.”

Ward recounted a time during her Freshman year that her roommate came to her in a panic one night because she had a ten page paper due, and had no idea how to proceed. “Even though she was dual-enrolled in English, she never had to write anything longer than four pages,” Ward recalled. “I had to go through the process that night and teach her how to write effectively at that length.”

The challenge of making oral presentation is also something Ward appreciates about having received a classical Christian education. “Many of my college friends have never had to do an oral presentation,” she said. “I was comfortable saying what I thought and believed. I was in an Honors seminar my Freshman year that had a very clear, liberal agenda. I was challenged a lot, but never had a place where I was nervous about what I was saying. I knew what I thought and had a reason for it.”

Ward said she is grateful to have gone through the process of exploring and affirming her beliefs before heading off to college. “I didn’t have to be nervous or scared on a more personal level that those beliefs could be wrong.”

Having already established herself as a writer of engaging fiction, Ward is eager to set the writing aside to focus on her “real-life calling” – international affairs. She is finishing up a three year internship with a defense contractor in Northern Virginia and has already gained exposure to issues in public policy and the Middle East following a six month opportunity to study abroad in Egypt. She is an Arabic language minor.

“I’m thinking a lot lately about graduate school – maybe doing it part time while I’m working,” Ward said. “That won’t happen immediately; perhaps in the next few years. I would really like to go abroad for grad school to improve my language skills and gain more experience in public affairs. I have a heart for the Middle East. I enjoy the culture and it’s the area I would most like to focus on in a public and a spiritual manner.”

While attending James Madison, Ward has been actively involved at Covenant Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Harrisonburg, VA.