On Track
On track- is a dynamic podcast that was created with the intent of providing guidance to listeners on exploring what a purpose-driven life requires.
Creating a community that is safe, loving, and healing for all that may be lost or may not understand the direction their life is headed. This space is where we dig further into our mind, body, and spirit figuring out our purpose God has intended for our life.
We will cultivate skills required not only to answer these questions, but also assist in navigating everyday obstacles.
We want to provide mentorship, showing vulnerability through personal experiences we've dealt with throughout our life and marriage, and speak with those of influence within our community.
Our Goal is to provide clarity through the storm, cultivate a healthy/ healing lifestyle, and continuing to move forward in the purpose God has provided YOU specifically!
This is our intention behind shepherding the community that's created, and these are the words behind our acronym in order to do so!
S.H.E.P.H.E.R.D
S - Safe
H - Hope
E - Equipping
P - Purpose
H - Healing
E - Encourage
R - Redirecting
D - Dependable
On Track
Music, Medicine, and Missions: How God Shaped Isabel's Path
What happens when a young woman's passion for music collides with a heart for healing and a calling to missions? In this deeply personal episode of OnTrack Podcast, co-host Isabel Dimond opens her life story to listeners, tracing God's fingerprints from her early homeschool years through her upcoming journey to medical school.
Growing up in a culturally diverse home during financially challenging times, Isabel's foundation was built on faith, musical talent, and a growing curiosity about the world beyond her San Diego neighborhood. Her nine-year commitment with the San Diego Youth Symphony developed more than musical skills—it cultivated discipline and collaboration that would serve her throughout life. But it was a middle school missions trip where she first glimpsed her future calling, sleeping on the streets to understand homelessness and discovering her heart for the marginalized.
The narrative takes fascinating turns through her high school years at a project-based charter school, where she created everything from dystopian mini-series to public health initiatives. Her internship at a ministry center working with refugee communities and teen mothers further shaped her vision for combining healthcare with ministry. Perhaps most remarkable was her college journey—double-majoring in biology and music while completing 186 units in just four years, a feat she attributes not to personal strength but to divine sustenance: "I ran on pure Jesus."
Medical missions trips to Malawi and Indonesia provide some of the most compelling moments in Isabel's testimony. In Malawi, she confronted the harsh realities of global healthcare disparities—one doctor for every 50,000 people. In Bali, she witnessed miraculous healing while sharing the gospel, an experience she describes as "living in the Bible."
As Isabel prepares to begin medical school in Tennessee, her story reminds us that our unique talents and experiences aren't random—they're purposefully designed pieces in a larger divine narrative. Her journey inspires listeners to consider how their own paths, however winding, might be redirected toward meaning and service.
Have you discovered where your passions and the world's needs intersect? We'd love to hear your story. Subscribe now and join the conversation about finding and following your God-given purpose.
Hey guys, welcome back to OnTrack Podcast with your hosts, brandon and Isabel Diamond.
Speaker 2:Hey guys.
Speaker 1:We'd like to start off today's episode by thanking you for your support and for joining us today, where we'll dive deeper into Isabel's testimony. Sit back, relax, grab your popcorn, because all God has done within Isabel's life is truly extraordinary. We hope you're able to connect with parts of her story and enjoy this week's episode. All right, welcome. It's been such a pleasure of getting to hear your testimony and I don't believe a lot of people have gotten the chance to, yeah, just hear your testimony and hear the breadth of what God has done in and through your life, from A to Z. It has been so extraordinary and I just can't wait for us to be able to broadcast it to a larger audience. So bring us into just the beginning, where everything started and, yeah, your childhood.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd love to. So I was born and raised in San Diego. I've been here my entire life. So, you know, for most of my life that was kind of all I knew was suburb and city and beach, and that wasn't too bad. I didn't have much to complain about in regards to location. I have one older brother and I was always, you know, the antagonist growing up and trying to act all innocent, but I was always caught quite quickly.
Speaker 2:Um, my parents are still together and uh, yeah, just really shaped me into the woman I am today. I'm half German and half Puerto Rican, and so I was raised with just a mix of cultures in the home and that was unique in a sense, but also makes you feel kind of out of place in different social contexts. But, yeah, I would say it was just, all in all, just a really sweet, yeah, small family dynamic. I'd say kind of the biggest markings on my upbringing was that we didn't grow up with very much. We struggled financially in a lot of ways during the 2008 recession, my dad lost his job and was in and out of work for many years, and so that just put a lot of strain on my parents' marriage and, yeah, just on our family dynamic and that was, yeah, I think, a pinnacle point throughout my upbringing, to really understand what it looks like to rely on the Lord and see beyond circumstance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I grew up in the church. My mom actually worked at our church for 18 years in children's ministry and so you know, that was kind of unique in the sense that I would show up before church and serve during one service, attend the other, and I was quite involved in vacation Bible schools and fall festivals and just involved in all the things that happened throughout the week as well. So I think I did in some ways grow up in a little bit of a Christian bubble, which I don't think was terribly bad for a young child, and that led to just, yeah, some unique experiences. I was part of this group called Bee Sisters and it was this little group for like elementary school girls where I got to learn how to be sisters in Christ with other girls my age and we got to read the Bible and do volunteering things together and I just learned how to form tight knit friendships.
Speaker 1:That's adorable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, super cute. Also cute was when I was six years old. I decided I was very adamant about getting baptized and our church had an outdoor baptism this particular Sunday and I remember tugging on my mom's sleeve and saying you know, I really want to get baptized. And so I ran up and jumped in the pool and I just knew, you know, I would sit in my room and write songs to Jesus when I was at that age and it was just, yeah, something that I just deeply knew at that age that I wanted to commit my life to Christ at that age, that I wanted to commit my life to Christ.
Speaker 2:In addition to all of that, in addition to the things I was exposed to in church, I was homeschooled kindergarten through eighth grade, and so with that there was a lot of external factors that allowed me to grow. I was quite involved in the community. My mom was very good at spotting almost like free extracurricular activities that she would plug us into. So whether it was art classes or Latin or robotics or gymnastics or music lessons, I was quite busy. But that again just exposed me to ways in which I can learn and also develop relationships with external mentors.
Speaker 2:I think sometimes when you just have your parents pouring into your life, there's potential for pushback. But when you have all these other mentors in your life that you look up to, that are also walking with the Lord, that kind of holds you accountable to different degrees. So, for example, when I was also around six years old, I started taking percussion lessons and I was so shy I hid behind my mom's leg during my first lesson and I was on the verge of tears and I was given a practice pad and drumsticks and I was learning how to do quarter notes and rests and yeah, just learning essentially how to play the snare drum. And then eventually I learned how to play flute and piano and taught myself guitar. But that was kind of like the first push to kind of exposing myself to the world outside of my little church and homeschool bubble.
Speaker 1:So did your mother or father push you into getting into percussion, or was it your own self-discovery and wanting to explore that?
Speaker 2:It was definitely my parents. So my dad was born and raised in New York and he was part of an all-boys choir so he was really involved in singing and it had such a great impact on him and his upbringing. So he knew that even if we couldn't afford private lessons, he wanted his kids involved in music somehow.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it was super sweet. Yeah, around the age of eight, I decided to audition for the San Diego Youth Symphony for a full-ride scholarship.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, I started playing with them at the age of nine and I played with them for nine years, so from the age of nine to 18. And, yeah, there's a lot in and through that that really shaped me.
Speaker 1:What was your most joyful memory of the San Diego Youth Symphony? I know there is long, grueling hours that you may not have wanted to participate in on saturdays and right.
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean, I was never the kid that got to sleep in on saturday and wake up and watch cartoons. I would always wake up super early and have this like pit in my stomach, you know, getting prepared for the eight hours of rehearsals that day, um, but yeah, I would say the most enjoyable element was just learning to collaborate with so many different people, so many different backgrounds and so many ways of thinking, all for just a collective purpose, and it allowed for just incredible friendship building and also just, yeah, learning how to rely on other people to different, different degrees that's incredible.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I love that yeah, and I'd say, like outside of music exposures, when it came to my faith, one of the biggest um pushes that really opened my heart up to evangelism and doing missions was when I was in middle school and I went on my first missions trip to Los Angeles, which isn't that far, but for me it was kind of like this big push for my parents to drop me off in Pico Union and I didn't know anybody at this church and we slept in the basement with rats and this whole week we put on this vacation Bible school for the kids in the local community, and Pico Union has, over the years, become pretty homeless populace, and so that just kind of provided a framework for how can we love these people and how can we attend to these people in this area, and so one thing that they had us do was a homeless simulation, and so we actually had to just choose one item that we had brought with us.
Speaker 2:I think I chose a pillow, and a friend that I had made picked a blanket and we went out and that night we slept on the street and I woke up actually with my eye like completely swollen and I'm like what, what got in there? But all to say like that was to just allow these young people, myself included, to say, to see, like, oh, this is what it looks like to live on the streets to some extent, and it actually allowed us to connect with the people a little bit more because we empathize with them. So was it crazy? No, but as a middle schooler, it was a great push to say, oh, okay, this is, this is a different way that people live, and I have a heart for people that are walking all different ways, all in all different scopes, and I want to step in and serve.
Speaker 1:That is absolutely incredible and such a unique opportunity to gain perspective on that type of situation. Not a lot of people are exposed to that type of stuff and it's just. It truly makes an impact.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah. And then, just segueing into my high school years, you know there's always a reputation around homeschoolers that we can be a little socially awkward and praise the Lord that I don't believe I fell into that. Um, just because I did get quite a bit of social interaction. But going into high school I was not homeschooled. I went to a project-based charter school, so I was in school five days a week. Um, it was not homeschooled. I went to a project-based charter school, so I was in school five days a week.
Speaker 2:It was a little different than your typical public school in the sense that we didn't have standardized exams predominantly, but we displayed our learning through projects. A project that I did was a dystopian themed mini series where we basically made a whole series of scripts and then we recorded episodes and then had our episodes premiered at a local theater. Another project was something that I put on called a walk for wellness. So I was really intrigued by the hepatitis C outbreak in downtown San Diego and, in and through my research and curiosity, I partnered with some local public health officials and I put on a walk for wellness to raise funds for sanitation kits, and that was unique and that was also kind of a partnership, of one of the projects I did at school where I had some other peers tag along and help, support and make that happen. I was part of an ichthyology club, so basically a fish club, so to speak, and we had like 25 fish tanks in our classroom and we bred sharks and we were one of SeaWorld's research facilities.
Speaker 2:That's incredible were one of SeaWorld's research facilities.
Speaker 2:That's incredible, and so, yeah, I mean it was kind of just extraordinarily unique, and it definitely prepared us for the real world to different extents. One thing in particular about my high school years was that we were actually required to do an internship our junior year, and so I did an internship at a ministry center, and this center was unique because it had church services for several different demographics. So there was a Spanish church, there was an Eritrean church, so on and so forth, and this place actually was one of the few places that housed Ethiopian refugees that were coming across the border after the Olympics, and so when I was at this ministry center, I was given the opportunity just to interact with all kinds of people. I predominantly did administrative work and helped in that regard.
Speaker 2:But there was also this school for teen moms that was being put on and I would sit into some of the classes and listen in to what they're being taught, and I asked if I could teach a class on professionalism and just resume building and giving them some additional tools to help them integrate within society, being a you know, a teen with a baby, and that was just a really fun opportunity to kind of just place myself in that position.
Speaker 2:There was a clinic there as well that was run by some local university nursing students and some overseeing nurse practitioners and I also helped volunteer and support them, and they predominantly helped just the public that didn't have access to health insurance, and so they would also provide free dinner for them and I would just sit and listen to their stories and connect with them through different ways. And there were so many other things that came out of that internship, but I would say one of the coolest things was just being able to be exposed to all different kinds of people with all different kinds of backgrounds and seeing how God was able to use me within that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was a lot. You just knew how to have a go-getter energy and just do what was required of you, and that's absolutely incredible.
Speaker 2:Thank you. It's definitely God working in and through me at that time, um, and in that I was very involved. Still within church throughout my high school years, youth group was kind of the the thing I looked forward to every week and I would often help serve on the worship team with youth group and, yeah, I just absolutely loved partnering with my peers in church and continuing to invest in those relationships. One thing that my church hosted during, I think, my sophomore year of high school was this course called perspectives, and this course, if you've never heard of it, basically teaches you about the Great Commission. It teaches you about unreached people, groups, people that essentially have never heard the name of Jesus. And it's not a course to teach you how to be a missionary, but it's a course to just open your eyes to what our greater purpose is as a Christian here on earth.
Speaker 2:And so I took this course and I just began to recognize that God had a greater calling over my life and I knew I wanted to do mission work. I just didn't know what outlets I would use to do so, especially when you go to closed countries. You can't just show up and say, hi, I'm a missionary. You know it's quite, quite dangerous in that regard. So at the time they were advertising oh, business is missions. If you pursue business, that will help get into closed countries, so to speak. But I was never passionate about finance and spreadsheets and all the things and I was like, oh, what is my thing? And then that was like, oh, maybe I can get into health care and then that can be an outlet to share the gospel. And so that was incredible and I ended up taking the course a year later as well as an alum, just to continue to keep my heart anchored into that. And so I started volunteering at a hospital for three years and just exposed myself to what that world continued to revolve around.
Speaker 1:So, taking it back a little bit, what was that initial urge to help people and why did you know that this was what the Lord was placing on your heart in order to eventually get into healthcare down the road?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. Yeah, I don't know exactly if there was a moment in time where I felt a switch or I felt this deep, knowing that I wanted to help people. All I know is, you know, as I've grown, I've come to realize that I'm a three on the Enneagram. I'm a three wing two. If you don't know what the Enneagram is, it's a personality test Enneagram. I'm a three-wing two. If you don't know what the Enneagram is, it's a personality test and the numbers deduce, you know, certain traits and characteristics that you might carry and I just have a deep passion for basically achieving at helping people, whatever that might be. And yeah, I don't have anyone in my home that you know works in healthcare, so there wasn't anyone that was a role model or mentor or someone that can kind of point me in that direction. But yeah, it was just something that was birthed in me and I heard. Honestly, I think it was just God speaking to me subtly and I was just trying to attend to that.
Speaker 1:That is absolutely incredible.
Speaker 2:Thank you for for sharing that international and national orchestra. So it was very fun because the international orchestra was comprised of students from all over the globe and I just you know, I had never left the country, and so it was my opportunity to just be again exposed to people from all different backgrounds. And during our breaks from practicing for extensive amounts of time, I'd go on walks with some of the students, and there was one girl from Poland and we would just talk about God, and she didn't know anything about God, she didn't have a relationship with God, and I just knew in my heart. There were just moments in time and this is one of them where I was like, okay, the Lord is using all the things that he has placed me in to be used as ministry platforms. And so, again, I didn't know what and we'll get into this later what discipleship looked like, but I knew what forming friendships look like and how to be inviting in the way in which I talked about what I believed in.
Speaker 2:So, even though I didn't know what discipleship was, I, for whatever reason, felt drawn to this middle school girl that I had met, and she was the oldest of many, many siblings, and so she kind of carried a lot of responsibility on her shoulders and didn't get a lot of one-on-one attention.
Speaker 2:And once a week I would go to her house and pick her up when we would go to the beach and we would walk on the beach. And once a week I would go to her house and pick her up when we would go to the beach and we would walk on the beach. And there was one time where I really felt led to challenge her. I was like, okay, we're gonna walk on the beach and we're gonna see if the Lord highlights somebody to us and then we're gonna walk up to them and we're gonna pray for them or we're gonna ask them just about their story or share a little bit about Jesus, you know, and that was so nerve wracking for her. And again, I didn't know what discipleship was or what modeling different things looked like for people that were younger than me. But I think the Lord just continued to give me opportunity to be placed intricately in other people's lives.
Speaker 1:Once again, your high school years just showed how hardworking of a woman you truly were and still are. I just can't believe all that the Lord had done in and through that time, and I'm excited to hear what he's done in and through your college experiences.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So. I went to a small Christian school here in San Diego and I was a double major. So I studied music and biology as a pre-med student. So if you can imagine, I was kind of pulled in two different directions. I don't know how music students do it, I mean I went through it but it is a whole nother world. You would think that after nine years of playing in orchestras I would kind of pause for a second, but then I jumped straight into eight semesters of playing in band and taking music theory, music history classes, conducting classes, piano pedagogy courses and all the in-betweens. So if you can imagine, a music student basically just practices music 24-7. But on the other hand, I studied biology and pursued pre-med because I knew that God wanted to continue to sharpen me in that area for missions, and so yeah, just, my transition into college was a hard push and I remember this was a really critical shift in my life because the enemy was really coming at my identity.
Speaker 2:You know, I felt empowered, I was excited for this shift to move forward and the things that God had equipped me in. But I remember there were so many times where I just felt so alone, I felt inadequate, I felt like I couldn't. I couldn't do this thing, um, and I often wondered if God had actually a different path for me. And yeah, I would say. In parallel with this, I actually started attending a new church and, after attending my previous church for 18 years, it was definitely another big transition, but this church really pushed me and was very mission focused, and so that kind of went in. The introduction of college for me, in the midst of struggling with my identity and all the things, was that my brother was a senior at college while I was a freshman and he saw me struggling. He saw me doubting myself.
Speaker 1:Hey guys, hope you're enjoying today's episode. We encourage you to like, share and follow on whatever platform you're listening on, to like, share and follow on whatever platform you're listening on. Please provide feedback on our platforms in order for us to continue to produce higher quality episodes for you to enjoy. Let's jump back into this week's episode.
Speaker 2:And he kept telling me to attend this prayer group on campus and it met from like 10 to 11 pm, so pretty late, and I was already pushing 12-hour days nonstop, seven days a week. I didn't necessarily know what a Sabbath required or entailed at the time and so I told my brother I don't know if I can squeeze this in. I kept pushing it off but eventually I hit a brink and I decided to check out this prayer group and I was so welcomed and so accepted and I felt so much peace and eventually this group became some of my closest friends that are still my closest friends today and we would meet every single day of the week. And we met every single day of the week for my entire freshman year and wow, was that transformational. I learned how to pray just deeply with people. I learned how to walk alongside people in their hardest moments. I grew in my spiritual giftings. I just grew in my confidence with the Lord and that is what honestly set a beautiful foundation for the years to come.
Speaker 2:So I was actually discipled all four years of college and this was when I really started to understand what discipleship looked like. Yeah, just a woman that was older than me who was walking in her faith and even maybe in a different stage of life than me, that I met with weekly or biweekly. And she just got to. And they got to just pour into my life and speak truth and challenge me in different areas and it really was iron sharpens iron. As time progressed, I started to model this discipleship in other areas.
Speaker 2:So during my sophomore year I was a resident assistant and this basically required me to live on a freshman hall with 24 freshman girls or young women and I was kind of their point person so I would put on fun activities to help build community and help with their integration within their first year of school. But I was also the person they would call if they were having some sort of crisis. Or you know, there was one time where it was like two in the morning and I got a knock on my door and one of my residents was having a health crisis and we called EMT and she had to jump on the ambulance and she looked at me and she was like, can you please come with me? And so I went on the ambulance and she looked at me and she was like, can you please come with me?
Speaker 2:and so I went on the ambulance with her at like 2 30 in the morning and then ubered back later and I think it was a Sunday morning, so, or Monday morning at the time, so we just, yeah, started the week off with zero sleep. But, um, yeah, it was like okay, so that was fun in some regards, and I did this thing called quality time with Isabel, and it was like a sign up on the bulletin board in the hallway and so all these girls would sign up and I would do one-on-ones, like we'd get acai bowl or go walk on the beach or something like that, and I started to just disciple different ones within that role and I think that just continued to remind me that God places us in very specific places in order to just invest in the people around us and be lights.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just incredible to hear how sacrificial you were throughout those years and throughout the very extreme of double majoring and going through all that you were.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was definitely a balance, but the Lord sustained me and in the midst of all, that continued to keep my vision centered. So I went on a medical missions trip in college and it was far less clinical than I thought. I basically went to a men's nursing home in Mexico and I remember I was borrowing someone's guitar and I learned a couple songs worship songs in Spanish and um, I was sitting at this table with a few, a couple of men that were actually blind and so I was just playing guitar and um, you can just see these these big smiles on their faces and I'm like you know what? Like God has really called us to step out of our comfort zone and to learn how to love people from all different walks of life. And a lot of these men that were at this nursing home, um, were actually just kind of dropped off by their family members and never visited. It was like they were completely abandoned. It's so sad and, yeah, I think I think what the Lord was trying to do in and through that was just remind me that a big part of healthcare is actually just like sitting with people and loving them and seeing them and making them feel valued.
Speaker 2:Towards the later end of college, I discipled three girls that were all a year younger than me and I would meet with them biweekly and I think yeah, again, we talk about discipleship a lot because really that's the heartbeat of growing in the church. If you don't have discipleship, then there's a lot of things in your personal life that could be anchored in the wrong thing, or the enemy can have rain on things that are just hidden, and if things aren't brought to light, then you might be following in perpetual sin that you're not even personally aware of, and then that kind of limits you from how God can use you and shape you and ultimately transform you into the person he's created you to be. Yeah, there's so many other things that I could share within these years. They were so jam-packed, but I would just kind of conclude this season of my life with saying that I really truly learned diligence, resiliency and dependency on the Lord.
Speaker 2:Every single day I would wake up and I would pull out my Bible and my journal and I would say, lord, I'm desperate for you and I need you and you would get me through my 12 hour days. I mean, I graduated with 186 units in four years. There was never a dull moment. I would leave from a three hour, you know, immunology exam and run to the music building for a recital that evening. Or, you know, I just I ran on pure Jesus and it was the most exhilarating and exhausting and transformational years of my life.
Speaker 1:I believe it. So then, what happened after college and not having that ability to latch on to that academic portion?
Speaker 2:Right Once you're off the training wheels or the academic track, you kind of feel a little bit vulnerable.
Speaker 2:I would say, or it kind of feels like you just jumped off a cliff and you're like all right, where am I heading next? Yeah, so immediately after I graduated, I decided that I needed to take a little bit of a pause. I needed to rest, I needed to recalibrate, I needed to just like that. I needed to take a little bit of a pause, I needed to rest, I needed to recalibrate, I needed to just like, just reflect on those years and I decided to go on um more of like a medical vision trip, I would call it. So that December I went to Malawi If you've never heard of Malawi, it's um Southeast Africa and it's landlocked country and it's one of Africa's most impoverished countries and I ended up going out there solo and staying with a missionary couple out there um Le Longue, which is their um main capital city, where I got to predominantly shadow people within um that local, um settings of hospitals and clinics that were in the city, which was a different demographic from when I went to in coma, which was like an hour and a half outside of the city, and so it was more of the rural area and I shadowed out a mission hospital.
Speaker 2:So, just for a little bit of context, this country was, or is, 80% village, so if you're driving down a dirt road, you're going to see agriculture. You're going to see people working in their fields. You know babies on mom's backs, baskets on their heads. You know it's a really stripped back country, but it's the most beautiful thing. I'm so glad that there are so many different cultures out there and ultimately, these people didn't know that they didn't have very much because there wasn't much to compare. Most people don't leave the country, most people don't visit the country, and so there is not a lot of comparison going on in terms of like, oh, we actually don't have very much.
Speaker 2:The thing about it, however, was that you know the health care system and disease states and mortality was quite high. Just for more reference, there is about one doctor for every 50,000 Malawians. There's one hospital or one medical school in the entire country. That spews out about 50 doctors a year, and so at this hospital, I witnessed things that I never witnessed in my shadowing exposures in the United States. Every, basically every person that we saw was at the tertiary level of their disease progression, and so, essentially, they were at the brink of, you know, their time taking away, and so a lot of these people was like, hey, we can do emergency surgeries, we can attend to them as quickly as possible, but it's going to require a miracle.
Speaker 2:And I won't go into the details because I know some people are a little bit more squeamish when it comes to that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:People are a little bit more squeamish when it comes to that kind of thing. But, all to say, the environment required me to kind of walk away at the end of every day and just deeply process with the Lord to say, lord, like you've called me here can ultimately be equipped to do, because it required a level of love and compassion and hard work that I had never really seen um displayed within any other like healthcare settings. And that's not to say that the people I've shadowed in the past were not loving and compassionate, because they absolutely were. But it's like when you're in an environment that seems incredibly hopeless very low medical supplies, very low staffing, super high mortality rate, super high disease state it just feels like an never ending, perpetual cycle of just despair. And I think that's why missions can be so discouraging. Spare, and I think that's why missions can be so discouraging, but also just requires a deep-rooted walk with the Lord to navigate it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So, leading out of that time that I was in Malawi, I continued my first job outside of college and that was working in clinical research outside of college. And that was working in clinical research. And, yeah, I would say this was my first job working in a secular environment. Again, my college was another Christian bubble to some degree, and so I think I was just continuing to get those exposures, but this just allowed me to work in healthcare on a more macro level. As opposed to patient to patient. You're running these large clinical trials and developing assays and different medical devices that help in healthcare prevention and more of the world of epidemiology. And so I absolutely loved working in clinical research and I think I would have stayed in that role because I loved it so much, if I didn't know that there was more that the Lord had for me. And so I ended up leaving that job fully and studying for the MCAT, which is the medical college admissions test, and studying for the MCAT, which is the Medical College Admissions Test, became my full-time job, and so I just buckled down and I studied and studied and prepared for this exam, and throughout this time I continued to stay plugged into church, attended life group regularly, just tried to find community where I could.
Speaker 2:And in the midst of this, I believe after I took my MCAT, I, shortly after met my future husband, and that was so unexpected because I was right then and there, you know, applying to medical school and then also being pursued by this incredible man, and I'm like I don't know how this all is going to work. If it does, I wonder who that was. Yeah, but we will reserve the details of that for a further episode. But it did require a lot of processing with the Lord because, you know, my life was continuing to push forward and I didn't know where medical school would take me. And so, in the midst of that as well, I decided to go on another missions trip to Bali, indonesia. I decided to go on another missions trip to Bali, indonesia, and this was unique because, you know, bali is predominantly Muslim and Hindu, and so for me, truthfully, I was a bit intimidated. You know, we were partnering with a church that we had planted through our church here in San Diego, and we were helping, just support them during this trip and we were just learning what it looked like to grow and sharing the gospel to people of completely different religious backgrounds, so, for example, people that are Muslim know Jesus as Isa Al-Masih, who is their prophet, and so when talking about Jesus, we have to use the term Isa Al-Masih and then eventually try to explain Jesus through a completely different scope.
Speaker 2:And just to share one testimony of my time there, there was one outreach that we did on Uluwatu, which is one of the most famous beaches in Bali. It's so beautiful. We were walking and the Lord highlighted this one individual to go talk to, and we were working with very proficient translators and we ended up engaging in conversation with this guy and eventually he was curious about hearing the gospel, and so we took a stick and we started illustrating the gospel through the bridge diagram. If you've ever heard of it, it's a visual illustration of Jesus and what he did on the cross for us.
Speaker 2:And at the end of sharing that, he just continued to just share all these ask, all these questions and he asked was it a coincidence that you stopped me? And we said no, actually we felt like the Lord was highlighting you and he began to tell us that for the past five years he had been dealing with severe gum and toothache that prohibited him, honestly, from just talking and navigating his day to day. But as we were doing the illustration of the gospel in the sand and sharing it with him, his pain completely went away. And it was like this moment where you feel like you're living in the Bible, where you're like, okay, lord, like healing still happened. And it was sweet because on my plane ride to Bali I was journaling and I said, lord, allow me to see you working in through people and heal them, and so that was really really sweet. And we ended up meeting with him again that week and talking with him further and he ended up giving his life to Christ. So that was so sweet.
Speaker 1:To this day that still gives me chills. God is good so life is.
Speaker 2:My life is full in different ways. Um, as I came back from that trip, I was just so overjoyed by what God had done. Um, I started going on dates with my now husband and um, continuing my involvement in the church. So I? Um, that year, was a deacon at the church, so I served in that capacity, essentially supporting people that had gone through different crises and meeting with them very intentionally. I was also serving on the freedom team, so we'll dive more into what freedom looks like, but helping people break through strongholds and lies and perpetual sin that was inhibiting them from ultimately walking in freedom and walking in their God-given identity.
Speaker 2:And that summer I led a summer life group and just continued to allow God to work in and through my heart and prepare me. And, yeah, shortly after that, I stepped into a position at the church. I became a children's pastor and I was able to just, yeah, attend to the youngest members of God's family for a year. And working in ministry is very unique and and I'd love to share further about that experience but Brandon really helped support me in that role and was able to just quickly jump in and hold babies every Sunday, which is so sweet.
Speaker 2:But yes, I'm at this point in time now where I've kind of transitioned fully from a lot of the things I was involved in and I'm moving to Tennessee in about three weeks from now actually to start medical school. And, yeah, the Lord has deeply impressed his love and infused his love into so many different areas of my life and has shaped me into the woman I am today and I'm excited for him to continue pushing me along this journey as I, in four years from now, become a medical doctor and see how God uses that out on the mission field. I'm just excited to share my testimony today and, yeah, that's that leaves me to now in this, at this point in time.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. It was such a pleasure to thank you for your vulnerability and openness to sharing all that God has done in and through your life, and that concludes today's episode. We just want to thank you so much for tuning into Isabel's Testimony. If you haven't already, please give our third episode a listen on the heart behind why we're creating OnTrack. We hope you have such an amazing and blessed week ahead and don't forget to stay tuned for what next week's episode entails.