Meet Ian.

The waves of headaches were unrelenting. And the pain was intense enough to wake Ian in the middle of the night. And his sensitivity to light meant he couldn’t read, so he would just lay there.

Ian, an-18 year-old Garfield High School senior, was a passionate student, excited about God and a leader in Young Life, who didn’t hesitate reaching out and introducing his friends to Jesus.

“He’s just been kind of like a spark at Garfield where he’s passionate about God and wants to do everything he can to make sure people know about Him,” says Bill Douthit, Ian’s mentor and staff member at Urban Impact.

A swimmer at Garfield, Ian suffered a concussion doing the backstroke last December that left him sidelined.

Ian, once a regular at Thursday morning discipleship meetings, now only dropped in occasionally. All he’d say was that it was a hard time, a hard season for him.

“He wasn’t able to connect with his friends on the level that he was used to,” Bill said. “He wasn’t able to lead at the level he was used to, he just felt really closed off.”

Bill encouraged Ian that perhaps this was a time to listen – to what God had for him during this season.

For Bill, it was an opportunity to teach Ian how to listen and to train him to be open to God’s word. Especially since he couldn’t really read the Bible. “It was just listen as much as you can -- is really the word that we gave him and worked with him on that.”

But for Ian, he didn’t feel like he was hearing anything from God. Instead, he felt like a heavy weight was on him.

Fast-forward a couple of months to Covid-19, now everybody’s isolated like Ian, minus the headaches. Now his peers are feeling a lot of the same things that he’s feeling.”

Ian has gotten better, and he has been listening for God, and he started having dreams.

One vivid dream revolved around the theme of reconciliation, Bill says, it was explicit and clear that God had wanted Ian to pursue this theme.

The high-schooler who was isolated turned that time into ministry with other students. Not only in the Thursday discipleship group, but outside with friends who’ve walked away from the church or those who are just having a hard time during the pandemic. Instead of withdrawing, he’s been encouraging those fellow students.

“He had this glow about him,” Bill says. “and he still deals with migraines here and there due to his concussion. But that glow has never stopped for him. He’s still, through it all, working to inspire his peers -- and his leaders for that matter.”