3 minute read
FROM PARTY GIRL TO HEALTH LEADER Chelsea Carena
Massage Therapy ...
From Party Girl to Health Leader
here probably aren’t many college sophomores who turn to the Bible for answers to the Tmeaning of life. But Chelsea
Carena is used to being unique. After all, she started life as the one girl in a set of triplets! Trying to keep up with her brothers, she excelled at sports and received a scholarship to play fast-pitch softball for Oakland University in
Michigan.
Naturally a social person,
Chelsea found the party scene at college to be an exciting new sport and embraced it Adventist beliefs were com- step. She found an Adventist a little too much. But when pletely new to Chelsea, and church near her home and she was put on probation though she was fascinated, was baptized. She worked for excessive drinking, she her other friends weren’t quite a couple of jobs while she decided to look for answers so enthusiastic. They told her continued to grow in Christ. to the meaning of life by the things she was learning Within a few months Chelsea reading her Bible. She joined weren’t true and she should discovered the 8 Natural the Fellowship of Christian forget about them. Laws and implemented them
Athletes on campus in hopes Bewildered as to what in her own life. She then of making friends with to believe, Chelsea asked became convicted that she
Christian young people who God to show her truth. God should share this information could help her figure out this impressed her to search the with others. Massage therapy new way of living. Bible for herself. As she con- seemed like a good career
A fellow member of FCA by tinued to read and study, she to both earn a living and to the name of Andrew invited a came to accept the truths of share health principles and group of students to his house Adventism. Chelsea believes the gospel with others. for Bible studies. The basics of that because she had already begun to develop a relationship with Christ, the Holy Spirit revealed truth to her. After completing her degree in Health Sciences, she returned home to her parents’ house and waited for God to show her the next
Photos Courtesy BHHEC
More skills, more adventures
Chelsea’s search for massage schools felt like a dead end until an ad for Black Hills School of Massage in South Dakota popped up on her Facebook page. It wasn’t long before her car was headed west to The Hills and her six months in the program flew by. From contacts Chelsea made in 2016 at the ASI meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, she was hired by Eden Valley Institute of Wellness while still a student. After graduation, she headed south to Eden Valley in Loveland, Colorado, to work as a massage therapist.
But God had bigger plans. Chelsea soon found herself doing hydrotherapy as well as massage, making poultices, teaching classes to guests, and hiking the mountains. A visit from Barbara O’Neill to Eden Valley brought Chelsea an invitation to Misty Mountain Retreat in Australia for three months in 2018 to learn more skills and have more outdoor adventures.
Today, less than five years after graduation, Chelsea is the lifestyle director at Eden Valley, leading a team of therapists and sharing Christ on the campus as well as in her community. Through her persistent prayers and personal example, members of her family (including one of her brothers and her mom) have taken more of an interest in spiritual things. From party girl to health leader, God fulfilled Isa. 61:3 by exchanging “a spirit of heaviness for a garment of praise,” and her life is truly bringing glory to Him.
