Lakeisha Blake

In August, a new cohort entered the GCI Intern Program (for details, click here). We’re running a series here in “Up Close & Personal” to introduce you to some of these new interns. This week we want you to meet Lakeisha Blake who was recruited into the program by Andy Rooney, who is ahead of Lakeisha in the program. Here is Lakeisha’s testimony:

I didn’t envision being a student again. But here I am—part of the GCI Intern Program, which makes me a student at Grace Communion Seminary.

In the last two years, my life has changed drastically. Between May 2013 and August 2015 I went from a secure and fulfilling job teaching sexual integrity, to being unemployed and living at home. During that time, God began an intensive work of renewal within me—helping me learn to depend on him moment-to-moment.

I learned how to receive from God, and he birthed within my heart dreams and desires way beyond anything I could ever accomplish on my own.
During the time living at home, I often questioned what God was doing and where he was leading me. At the encouragement of a friend who is already attending GCS as an intern, I checked out the program and began asking God if this was the next step for me. Then God reminded me of a puzzling dream I had months earlier, and gave me the assurance that this new opportunity was a partial fulfillment of that dream. With that assurance, I jumped right in!

Lakeisha is now being interned in Durham, North Carolina. Since there is no GCI congregation there to sponsor her, she receives most of her support from the GCnext fund. Shortly after her internship began, we received a call from a GCI church member who felt led to give a gift to the GCnext fund to sponsor Lakeisha for the duration of her internship. We thank the donor, and we thank God for leading the donor to be so generous.