BENJAMIN LEE, CLASS OF 2015 BY A S H L E I G H R O T H ’ 1 6
A 2019 Georgia Institute of Technology graduate, Benjamin has traveled the world working in ministry. He is now a research scientist in a pediatric cancer laboratory at Emory University. I caught up with Benjamin via an email interview. C A N Y O U S H A R E W H AT Y O U H AV E B E E N U P T O S I N C E G R A D U AT I N G F R O M B E A R CREEK? After graduating from Bear Creek, I moved to Atlanta to study biochemistry at Georgia Tech. While there I became very involved with Christian Campus Fellowship (CCF). Through CCF, I had the opportunity to study and work abroad in Valencia, Spain, for a semester at En Vivo, a sister campus ministry. I also worked for two summers in Seattle at the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer Research and spent a semester doing forensic DNA research at the U.S. Army primary forensics lab outside Atlanta. W H AT M E M O R Y F R O M Y O U R T I M E AT B E A R C R E E K D O YO U C A R RY W I T H YO U T O D AY ? One of my favorite classroom moments at Bear Creek was when visitors from other faiths came and spoke during our Senior Capstone class. This experience provided me and my peers with a unique and
40
MODUS VIVENDI – Spring 2021
Benjamin (right) and a partner ministry intern while working at En Vivo, the ministry in Valencia, Spain
extremely important opportunity to learn from those who are different from us. As someone who, like much of my class, had grown up on the Eastside and lived within the Bear Creek and Eastside “bubble,” that was an infrequent experience. We learned the value and importance of listening to people who were not like us in every way. Bear Creek taught me to recognize how my faith compelled me to see the world differently and to see the people around me as created in the image of God, despite, or even because of, our differences. That lesson became even more important in college. As an intern, I ministered not just to Christian students, but to all students, whether they were Christian or Muslim, gay or straight, conservative or
