Hustling for Jesus
One of the new programs for ECKCM 2021, that occurred in July 2021, was a segment called Christ and My Career. I had the privilege of interviewing three professionals for this segment and I wanted to highlight some points that were raised in my interview with Josephine Elia, a chemical engineer. Not only did Josephine share interesting aspects about how she ended up in her career, but she also shared a lot of great insights regarding choosing careers in general and other practical life skills.
Josephine Elia, who is ethnically Chinese, was born and raised Adventist in Indonesia where she was educated until she graduated high school. While growing up, she showed interest and strength in math and sciences. She ended up going to MIT for undergraduate schooling. Although she didn’t know exactly what career she wanted to enter into, she was guided by areas that interested her, which was math and science.
Her life took an interesting turn while at MIT when she had a reconversion experience and became passionate about ministry, especially campus ministry. She actually had training at CAMPUS ministry in Ann Arbor, Michigan. A desire to pursue campus ministry was one of the reasons why she decided to go into graduate school. She did her PhD in Chemical Engineering at Princeton University, where she was able to pursue her doctorate as well as engaging in her other passion, campus ministry.
Josephine took a little time to explain about the chemical engineering industry as a whole. She said that there are a wide variety of different paths in the field. Chemical engineering had its start in manufacturing petroleum oil and today has many applications that touch our lives such as gasoline, engine oil, and even things like plastics, windows, and paint. But more recently, there are other types of engineering that have been developed such as biomedical engineering. Even developing the Covid-19 vaccine had aspects of engineering.
When asked what qualities or characteristics one should have when desiring to be an engineer, Josephine mentioned skills in problem solving, designing systems, and curiosity are very helpful. She mentioned that currently she’s been in the workforce for about seven and half years and she has had many roles. She started in research and development and has gone onto different aspects of chemical engineering. Josephine believes that a key factor in her development is to never stop learning and adding skills. In fact, she learned to do computer coding on her own and has added this to her arsenal of skills. She strongly advises everyone to learn to code, especially if you have interest in going into STEM areas.
Josephine was taught a principle, by her father, that has served her well throughout her career path, which is to side with the hard thing first. That is, pursue the difficult path first and you can always go to the easier path later. For Josephine, this meant choosing the sciences, rather than economics, because sciences was a field that was more difficult to get into. Flexibility is another characteristic that she mentioned as being important in her career choices. Even as an engineer, she’s continuing to look for opportunities to lead her career into areas that would allow her to transfer her skills to her next step.
Dr. Elia explained that when she grew up in Indonesia, salaries were very low and everyone had a separate side job to make extra money. That is why business and economics were fields that were encouraged for many Indonesians. Her father was an entrepreneur himself, and for Josephine there was no pressure to go into medicine, as many Korean Adventists find themselves.
Another important skill that Josephine mentioned in the career path, is to seek mentors. It doesn’t have to be a formal one-on-one mentoring relationship. Just reaching out to someone just a few steps ahead of you is very helpful. She also adjoined people who are more established in their careers to open themselves up to sharing their time and giving signals that they are willing to mentor. She feels passionate about mentoring because she herself has been helped by important mentors in her own life.
When asked whether it was difficult to share her faith in her career, she did mention that it was not a field that lent itself to sharing her faith in the traditional sense. However, Josephine found that being a good person with excellent ethics and character helped her to shine her light in her workplace. She feels that speaking up for the underrepresented people, caring for others, showing sympathy and advocating for people around her were they ways that God gave her to share her faith at her job.
But Josephine has just started a ministry called “Some Adventist Women” where she does a live chat with some other women on Instagram. They cover a wide variety of topics - family, career, singlehood, harassment at work, body image, to name a few. They had a social worker join them for a talk about mental health and being an Asian. She is excited to continue her talks and share with others in an informal setting about topics that interest her and her friends.
We are excited to see how God will use Josephine Elia to further His kingdom. Whether she is using her voice to stand up for others at work or doing her blog or doing her “Some Adventist Women” live chats, we are sure that many are led to Christ because of Josephine.
Check out “ECKCM 2021: Christ and Your Career with Josephine Elia” from ECKCM EM on our Media page. The video is also available for your viewing pleasure at https://vimeo.com/eckcmem. If you like this video, make sure you share it, too!