Sela Estelle ’17
Being on Mission for Christ in the Classroom
“The public school setting has become my mission field,” said Sela Estelle, a 2017 graduate who majored in Elementary Education and Early Childhood Education through the honors program at NGU. Estelle is currently a fifth-grade teacher at Paris Elementary in Taylors, SC, and taught fourth grade for three years before transitioning to fifth.
Though she now has a deep passion for teaching kids, becoming an educator wasn’t always her dream profession. “[Teaching] wasn’t even on my radar,” she said. “My first exposure was when I was a freshman in high school. I went to a private Christian school and one of the courses we had to take was a women’s ministry class. One of the projects was preparing a lesson, then we had to go teach it to another grade.” After getting ideas for the lesson from her youth pastor at the time, she prepared a lesson to teach to a fourth- grade class. Following the project, her teacher recognized that she had a gift of speaking and interacting with the kids and encouraged her to consider teaching. “As I started thinking about college and what I wanted to do with my life, God had really put a passion on my heart at the time for missions. So it was really not just that I wanted to do missions, but how could I make missions sustainable,” she said. “So, I was strongly considering which kind of careers would enable me to do missions full time.”
The two giftings Estelle noticed in her life at the time were teaching and music, and after analyzing which would bring her more opportunities to do missions, she ultimately decided to pursue teaching. “I just felt like education would open more doors because countries are always interested in hiring American teachers because we can speak English and they want to learn English and there’s a lot of components there, so I ended up going into education, which is honestly the reason,” she said.
While the door for her to move overseas and do missions hasn’t opened, she recognizes that her classroom in South Carolina is her mission field each day. “Even though I saw myself going to another country to live on mission, in so many ways I feel like I’m having those same interactions with my kids. It’s been really cool to see how God has shown up,” she said. “It’s turned into a mission field way more than I thought it was ever going to be.”
Although she teaches in a public school and cannot openly share her faith with her students, Estelle still finds opportunities to show Christ’s love to them.
“I’m not just walking in my classroom, but also welcoming the Holy Spirit to come in and be in that room with me,” she said. “That’s helping with my discernment and knowing what my kids need both mentally and emotionally, but also spiritually and just being in tune with that. That’s really opened up some amazing relationships and conversations.”
In her eight years of teaching, Estelle has come alongside her students, teaching them valuable life skills and encouraging them to become the best person they can be. Due to her faithful commitment to sharpening the lives of her students, she was recognized and named ‘Teacher of the Year’ for the 2023-2024 school year. That year was filled with both encouragement and challenges. “From a professional standpoint, I really enjoyed my teacher of the year,” she said. “My administration, in multiple ways, did their best to honor me and the hard work that I’ve put in. I don’t think I would have earned that honor anyway if it hadn’t been for my current administration and former administration. I really owe them a lot into that way and I am really thankful for the opportunity.”
“As far as the school year, it was a very challenging school year and just learning how to process a lot of social- emotional stuff,” she said. “We talk about how teachers take the emotional struggles home with them because we care about our kids. That happened a lot last year and I really had to work through how to handle that stress and all those social-emotional skills that we teach our kids. There was a lot of collaborating with parents, trying to figure out how we can help their kids.”
Despite experiencing challenges within the classroom, Estelle continued to faithfully speak into the lives of her students.
“I’m really thankful that each year I get to spend 180 days being a part of someone else’s family and try to speak into their child’s life and help them see the future and their potential and challenge them about who they want to be,” she said. “That 10-11-year-old age is an extremely pivotal time in their lives.”
Each year she is in the classroom, Estelle says she has grown into a better teacher. Her preparation to becoming a successful teacher began during her time as a student at NGU through hands-on learning in the College of Education.
“I think the education department did a great job as much as you possibly can without throwing a teacher into a classroom,” she said. “[One class I took] focused on building that resume, cover letter, and mock parent-teacher conferences, which was extremely helpful to prepare us for when we got into a real classroom. The comradery of the cohorts was great, too.”
For current NGU students who are seeking a similar career path, Estelle encourages them to make sure this is what they want to do and know their strengths and weaknesses.
“If you’re in an educational path, know that this is a strength that God has given you and if it is, pursue it,” she said. “Give it a try. Be confident that God has placed you where you’re supposed to be and do your best.”
As Estelle continues to shape the minds and lives of the next generation, she says her goal will always be the same: to be on mission for Christ in her classroom. ◆
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