By Laura Churchill Duke (’98)

Jesse Zink (’04) hit the road running after graduating from Acadia and he’s still going strong, sharing his time and talent serving others around the world.

“Jesse could have opted for a strictly academic career,” says retired Classics Professor Beert Verstraete about his former student. “However, his work for the worldwide Anglican Communion has allowed him to put his exceptional skills in communication and organization to work for so many communities in ways and to an extent that I could not have imagined before he graduated.”

“One of the major influences of my time at Acadia,” Zink says, “was the significant growth in my religious life.” First, and perhaps most importantly, was Manning Chapel and former Chaplain Roger Prentice (’69). Zink was Chaplain Assistant for two years, during which time he led worship, led chapel and was encouraged to think about ordination.

But he had other plans. After graduating, he obtained a master’s degree in International Relations from the University of Chicago and then began his worldwide journey to serve others.

His first stop was the remote village of Nome, Alaska where he worked at a public-service community radio station. “I was hired as a news reporter on the basis, I believe, of my one year writing for Acadia’s Athenaeum,” Zink says. He covered everything from local news to international stories that affected the Arctic, like global warming and bird flu. “I also got to cover the campaign of a small-town mayor named Sarah Palin, and interviewed then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld while he was passing through.”

Zink traveled from the top to the bottom of the world, ending up in Mthatha, South Africa working through the diocese of the Anglican Communion in the community centre, where he had many roles. “I worked with AIDS patients to help them navigate the health care system (hope for people with AIDS exists - the lifesaving anti-retroviral drugs are making their way to Africa and work wonders on people's lives; it's just a matter of getting the drugs to the people in time); taught music to pre-schoolers (Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" was always a favourite); tutored English after school (we read Roald Dahl's books together - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was particularly popular); and facilitated a micro-credit program.

“My work in Mthatha and Nome,” says Zink, “helped me realize I might be called to ordained ministry. This is something Roger Prentice and others at Acadia had been encouraging me to consider even as an undergraduate. It took me a while to catch up with their suggestions.”

Ordained a deacon in 2011

Zink attended Yale Divinity School for a Master of Divinity degree. The focus of his studies was questions raised for him in Mthatha: Why is Christianity growing so quickly in the non-western world? How can we preserve both unity and diversity within one global body of Christ?

Zink was ordained a deacon in the Episcopal Church in December 2011, which was the first step toward ordination to the priesthood. Prentice attended the service, formally "introduced" him to the bishop and affirmed that he would be a good deacon. Also on hand were Acadia friends Tom and Susan (Baxter) Peace (’03).

“When I asked him what I could give him for his ordination,” Prentice says, “he suggested a tippet (an academic and liturgical scarf which signifies one's commitment and office). Jesse said that when I commissioned him as a chapel assistant, I put one around his neck as he kneeled before the altar at the chapel. It was the first time he ever wore one, and he wanted to have me give him another as a remembrance of that experience.”

“Undoubtedly, it was Acadia that set me out on the path I have followed in the last decade or so,” Zink notes. “In the classroom, I learned the importance of critical engagement with the world and gained eagerness to question and challenge received wisdom. Sometimes I've been wrong about things and I like to think that at Acadia I also learned the importance of not clinging to doctrinaire positions, but allowing for growth and change in response to evolving situations.”

Zink wrote of his experiences in Grace at the Garbage Dump: Making Sense of Mission in the Twenty-First Century (to be published in the spring by Wipf and Stock Publishers). He has another book in process tentatively titled Backpacking Through the Anglican Communion: A Search for Unity, which will be stories of his treks throughout the world church. He hopes to demonstrate that there is a credible basis for worldwide unity of the body of Christ.