Alison Kolander and Abby Mehlberg

Ministry Is a Construction Business

They’re 27 years old, and they’re starting a school.

When Alison Kolander and Abby Mehlberg graduated from MLC in 2013 with early childhood education degrees, they were not surprised to be assigned to prekindergarten and kindergarten ministries, Alison to Trinity-Kaukauna, Wisconsin, and Abby to Trinity-Marshfield, Wisconsin.

What they could not have foreseen, though, is that five years later, they’d end up together in Delray Beach, Florida, as the two-teacher faculty of a school still under construction.

Alison (pictured on right) was called in 2017 as director of Divine Savior Academy-Delray Beach Campus. While the building was going up, she was going out, meeting families, promoting the school, and enrolling new students for the fall. It’s not a hard sell when you yourself are sold on the blessings and benefits of this ministry. “We’re excited to offer the families around us an excellent education,” says Alison, “while also meeting their spiritual needs.”

When Abby (pictured on left) came to Delray Beach in the summer of 2018, she joined Alison in the construction business. The women assembled a lot of furniture while also constructing lesson plans and designing their classrooms. They also built relationships and constructed marketing platforms on social media. Abby says public relations, marketing, and social media are not the first things that come to mind when you’re thinking about being a teacher, but they’re important parts of ministry too.

Now they’re up and running in a shiny new facility. They opened in fall 2018 with prekindergarten and kindergarten classes. Another grade will be added every year, beginning with first grade in fall 2019. And they’re still building.

“I love building relationships with people,” Alison says, “whether that’s fellow teachers and staff members, children in the classroom, parents, called workers in other locations, or members of our congregation. It’s a privilege to see God at work in his people and to show his love to others.”

This is actually Alison’s second building project. She may be young, but she knows her soffit and fascia. “Being part of a brand-new ministry and a mission church setting from the beginning has been exciting,” she says. “It helped me think about new ways to do ministry. We’ve been blessed with the opportunity to build a beautiful facility our academy can use to provide families in our community with a high-quality Christian education for their children, and those families then become part of the mission field for our church.”

Divine Savior Academy-Delray Beach is one of four DSA campuses, two in Florida and two in Texas. The other campuses are in Doral (near Miami), in Sienna Plantation (near Houston), and in Santa Rita Ranch (near Austin). Doral is the first—and largest—campus. Santa Rita Beach is still under construction and will open in fall 2020. The schools serve a combined student body of [how many?], and that number too is building. To educate these children, additional faculty members are called every year, and the odds are high that several of you reading this article right now will be among them one day.

“I’m excited about the whole mission of DSA!” Abby says. “We’re here to reach people in the community, provide them with an excellent education, and share God’s Word with them. I love getting to know each student as a child of God. And many of these children are hearing these Bible stories for the first time. It’s amazing to watch the Lord work through this ministry!”

Abby’s advice: “MLC allowed me to make lasting friendships with others that share the same faith and interests as me! MLC fueled my passion for teaching and sharing God’s Word with others and equipped me with the knowledge and skills to do that!”

Alison’s advice: “I wasn’t sure about MLC at first either, but I knew I wouldn’t regret giving it a try. Visit the campus, talk to students and faculty, pray about how God can use your gifts to serve others. Being at MLC is a wonderful opportunity to be in God’s Word, learn from Christian professors, and build friendships with other people who know and love Jesus.”