October 2025

October 2025

The Carolina Classic Fair seems to usher in fall here in Winston-Salem. We are now in the full swing of our Fellow's schedule. We've celebrated birthdays, enjoyed the beautiful weather, and more! 

Happy Birthday Alana!

Sweet Alana is so easy to celebrate! Dharma and Gracie, from the class of '24, threw Alana a party and planned an early morning hike for our girl that loves the great outdoors!

Round Table

We've continued to be hosted by some incredible alumni and have done a terrible job of taking pictures. Above, Kevin was leading us in worship and Jed (dressed as a pirate) was capturing footage for our video. Thank you to all our hosts this month: Ava, Ellie, Eliza, and Hardy; Molly and Lucy; Drew, Kevin, and Jed; Steve and Christy! 

Leader Lunch

We are so honored and humbled by the men and women who take the time to invest in the Fellows year after year and share their stories. This month we had the privilege of being with Andrew Applegate, John Bost and Lanie Ehlinger. We also spent one Leader Lunch being taught by Jeff Trollinger on Budgeting 101 which is a class that Fellows refer back to time and time again. 

Crisis Control

Over the course of our year together we try to expose the Fellows to a fraction of the remarkable nonprofits across our city. This month we went to Crisis Control Ministry to learn how they serve various neighbors in this city experiencing crisis. We also had the honor of participating in their Living on the Edge poverty training. (If you're local and haven't done this, we encourage you to!) We ended the afternoon by sorting canned food that was donated during the fair. 

Happy Birthday Steve!

We are so very grateful to have Steve with us. If you've been lucky enough to be loved by and ministered to by him then you know the feeling. We love Steve! 

Regional Fellows in Charlotte

We spent a beautiful fall day meeting with several other programs from our region: Charlotte, Davidson, Greenville and Greensboro. We played Pickleball then grabbed lunch and did a "speed dating" game to help us get to know new Fellow friends. Excited to be with these folks again next week at the National Conference! 

Halloween

Fellows alum hosted a Halloween party in their new neighborhood. Holden got to carve his first pumpkin! 

Where are they now? 

As a reminder, each month of this year we will be looking back at each class of Winston-Salem Fellows and check to see where they are and what they are up to now. This month, we have the second class of WS Fellows, the class of 2017-2018. 

Abbey Thomas

Shortly after completing my fellowship year, I married my husband, Isaiah, and we moved to Richmond, VA, where he began seminary and I joined a local tech startup. In 2024, we were overjoyed to welcome twins into our family! I recently transitioned to part-time work to spend more time with our little ones during these early years. Isaiah now serves as a youth pastor at our church, where we both spend a lot of our time volunteering with the youth ministry, as well as supporting our ESL and neighborhood outreach programs.

Ashley Rabon

After finishing the Fellows program, I lived for a year in Winston Salem with two of the greatest fellows of all time, Kate Donahoo and Morgan Bonds. In 2019, I married my husband Charles and started graduate school the following year at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. After graduating with a Masters in Christian Counseling in 2023, I opened a private practice in downtown Winston Salem. I love the work I get to do and the beautiful people I get to work with. I will always be grateful for my time in the Fellows program, the friendships I formed through it, and the many people who welcomed and loved me and my friends both during and after the program.

Grace Mezzy

After my Fellows year, I moved cross-country (departing from my host-family’s house, prayed over by Lanie Ehlinger the morning-of) for two years to work with a boutique experiential marketing agency in San Francisco, CA (my Fellows internship connected me with this company!) 

During my time executing glamorous corporate events all over the country, I was a volunteer Young Life leader. God began tugging on my heart to return home to the East coast (VA girl born and bred) and begin a career in ministry with Young Life. In 2020, I moved back across the country in a global pandemic to come on staff with Young Life in Northern VA. Today, I’m celebrating five years in vocational ministry as an Area Director with Young Life outside of Washington, D.C. I live in Reston, VA and get the privilege of living life alongside teenagers in the hopes of sharing the greatest hope the world has ever known with them. 

My host family has become family to me. We talk often and visit every year (even though they moved to South America to become missionaries - they’re the coolest!) My Fellows mentor is still praying for me and cheering me on. So many relationships from the 2016-2017 Fellows year are still so dear to me! Those people continue to pray and care for me as I minister to teenagers. My Fellows year shaped me and molded me into more of who Christ is, and many relationships I gained during that season still do as well. 

JP Flynn

My time in Winston-Salem is still ongoing, and I’m happy to be here. You can see me in some of the photos from last month’s Fellows update, attending the Labor Day cookout. I work in accounting at Direct Travel, which essentially translates to my Fellows job during my year - since updated, as I and the company adjusted through the 2020-21 years.  Since my Fellows year ended, I have gotten more involved in the local chess club (check out our live streams on Facebook) and the pickup soccer scene. I am grateful to be able to visit my family, who mostly live in North Carolina, such as my hometown of Charlotte - that’s my brother and I playing disc golf, in one of the photos, and another photo of me at a Charlotte FC game.  

Kate Spangler

After Fellows, I spent another two years teaching at Forsyth Country Day School. In 2020, I moved to Nashville and graduated from Vanderbilt Law School in 2023. I married my husband Tim (WS Fellows ‘19!) in 2021, and we are looking forward to celebrating four years of marriage in December. We moved to the Triangle in 2023 while I clerked on the Court of Appeals. I’m now an associate attorney at a firm in Raleigh, and we’re happily planted in Durham near friends and family.

Natalie Bayer

After the fellows program I moved Seattle to get my Master of Occupational Therapy at The University of Washington. My husband Brendan and I got married. Ned married us (and comforted Brendan when he cried as I walked down the aisle) and my fellows host family, the Lenham’s, read scripture. We decided to stay in Seattle after I graduated. I now work at the Veterans Affairs Hospital on the spinal cord injury unit as an Occupational Therapist. Brendan and I love everything about Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. We frequently hike, snowboard, backpack, travel, play with our two cats and participate in our amazing local church. 

Recruiting

It's hard to believe but we've already received our first application for the 2026-2027 Fellows class. We're praying and recruiting for our 11th class of WS Fellows. Earlier this month, Emily Sandstedt Starr (class of 2021) represented us at the Wheaton career fair.  If you know any young adults that could be a good fit, please send them our way!