My NSA Story: A Climb Up the Mountain
By Ian K.
My name is Ian King, and I am one of the writers behind many of the articles that you have seen on the Navigator website. I am a graduating senior and will be leaving NorthStar Academy for Liberty University. My experience with NSA has been one that is all too common among high school students: a busy yet productive life perpetuated with academic responsibilities and the strenuous adjustment to each year’s new needs. However, I don’t want to lament the demanding years that defined my high school experience; rather, I want to be thankful for the challenges that necessitated the person I became through it. High school merited the need for a rapidly developing maturity—one that I doubt would have grown had NSA been easier. Looking ahead at my life before me and the new mountain that is university, I am proud and thankful that NSA has molded the student and person that I have become. Time management, a strong resolve, responsibility, accountability, and discipline are side effects of the hills that I faced while studying at NSA. Moreover, high school represents one of the first real trials that we will face in our adult life, which gives all students the chance to rely on God for their strength and persistence. As for me, NSA has been the doorway through which God has worked in my life to establish His strength and peace in my trials.
I have been with the Navigator staff for only a year, but it has been a very rewarding time to say the least. The support of the writers and editors has brought me closer than I have ever been before to students at NSA. However, I was brought to the Navigator staff for an entirely different purpose. My future and calling to missionary aviation overseas include the need to be a competent writer for the newsletters that I will write for supporters “back home.” Relaying what is happening to the people who support my overseas missions can be done well if I am an articulated writer. Herein is what brought me to join the Navigator staff. I have refined and practiced this ability to write clearly in all my articles for the purpose of reaching people in an impactful way. The Navigator has always been more than a class or a club: it is a medium to grow in the ways that God has called me to grow in.
As said prior, the Navigator has been a writing training field for my future. More than that, however, I have also been able to dig into topics rooted in Christian beliefs. For this reason, in many of my articles I have tried to relate the subject from a Christian worldview.
My time at NSA and with the Navigator at large has always been the pursuance of greater things: not just to study but to rely on the Lord for His sustainment through the tasks, and not just to write articles but to articulate the Christian worldview into all angles of whatever I happen to write. At the top of this mountain of senior year, I can look back and see the person I was at the base of the mountain. Through the encouragement and dedication of NSA’s teacher staff and through the outright dedication that NSA requires, I have become an entirely different person一someone capable for whatever God may set before me.
Columns: 🗞️Staff Stories
Ian K. lives in Lynchburg, Virginia, but previously lived overseas as a missionary in Kenya and Uganda for eight years. He has attended NSA for four years and is currently in his senior year of high school. Ian has a passion for aviation and ministry, having grown up with this environment most of his life. He desires to pursue missionary aviation overseas, using the newspaper as a training field in preparation for reaching people during his future ministry.