Going Into Samaria
How Young Life and UYWI Are Raising Up Leaders Who Show Up
Meet Jared Wohlford and Jorge Gonzalez — two Young Life leaders in separate cities whose shared training through UYWI is equipping them to love kids like Jesus in the urban context.
Over in Grand Rapids, Jack is texting his Young Life leader meaningful Bible verses. In Green Bay, Tiana started a prayer locker at her school and launched her own Campaigners group, all because someone showed up for her. Behind each of those stories is a leader who decided to go into Samaria.
Urban youth, particularly in underserved communities, are often the people that institutions, systems, and even churches route around. They may appear inconvenient, complicated, or invisible. Ministry organizations, churches, and trained leaders willing to go specifically to those communities— not past them, not despite them, but to them — are doing what Jesus modeled in Samaria.
Jared Wohlford and Jorge Gonzalez do not work in the same city, and they do not lead the same programs. But they share something essential: a commitment to reaching young people in urban communities who are often overlooked, and a conviction that being trained well makes all the difference. Jared recently completed UYWI’s Certification Program through the Young Life partnership while Jorge was a facilitator, both joining a growing cohort of leaders whose graduation was celebrated in Colorado this spring.
Their stories are different. Their cities are different. But the thread running through both is the same — a belief that when you invest in a leader, you change the life of every young person they will ever reach.
Jared Wohlford | Young Life Staff, Grand Rapids, Michigan | UYWI Certification Graduate
From Seed to Fruit
Jared Wohlford grew up splitting time between Grand Rapids and Detroit, raised largely by his grandparents after a childhood marked by instability. He missed a lot of school. Graduation felt uncertain. Faith was not on his radar.
Then Young Life found him.
“They cared for me in a way others hadn’t before,” Jared recalls. He recognized something different in the way the Young Life leaders cared by simply having said his name just once and a leader always using his name from that day forward. Initially, he kept going back for the food and fun. It was after high school, when life took a difficult turn, Jared reached out to that same Young Life leader and was invited to church, somewhere he had never been. He kept showing up on Sundays, and eventually, his faith became real.
Jared has worked on Young Life staff in Grand Rapids, serving 45-50 youth, plus 15-20 in the Wyldlife discipleship program. Today, he is bringing all he has become and learned over the years to a new city as he transitions to Young Life in Minneapolis. Jared continues to passionately walk alongside high schoolers who are navigating far more than any teenager should have to. He sees himself in them.
Growing up, my parents weren’t present. I experienced more than what a child should see or experience. Now I get to love kids who don’t have the love they need and tell them about Jesus. That’s a blessing.
Jared Wohlford
Jack: A Story Taking Root
One of Jared’s students is a rising senior named Jack, a talented baseball player who tore through his knees in three consecutive seasons. Jared was there for all of it. Lunch runs with crutches in the back seat, doctor’s appointments and a consistent presence when Jack was at his lowest.
Then something shifted. Unprompted, Jack started sending Jared Bible verses. He is doing a Bible study with his girlfriend now. The kid who needed someone to see him has become someone who lifts others up.
Jared shared, “Watching his growth as a student, a Young Life kid, and a child of God. That’s a big blessing and makes me see what I’m doing is working.”
Jared thinks often about a simple truth he learned in ministry: leaders plant seeds, and God grows them. He used to wonder whether he was making a difference when kids did not show up to church. Now he understands the longer arc. Someone planted a seed in him when he was in high school and years later, it grew.
Jorge Gonzalez | Young Life Area Director, Green Bay, Wisconsin | UYWI Certification Facilitator & UYWI Coaching Program Graduate
The Father He Never Had — Now the Leader Kids Need
Jorge Gonzalez grew up angry. His father was a minister, but the church always came first. Jorge wanted to be seen. He felt invisible to the very man whose job it was to look at him. That wound followed him through middle school and high school. He was expelled more than once, searching, hurting, and turning away from a God who did not seem to know his name either.
In 2009, Jorge was at the lowest point of his life. His friends had committed suicide or died from reckless choices, and Jorge found himself at a window wondering if he was next. In that moment, he got on his knees and prayed.
What happened next, he says, was like reading the Bible for the first time. Matthew 11:28 states, “Come to me, all who are weary.” It landed differently. “I was tired,” he says simply. “That’s what I needed. Rest.”
That year changed everything. He moved to Green Bay where Young Life also found him. He became a volunteer, then staff, then a leader in Young Life’s NextGen program. By 2012, he was ready to confront his father. It was a hard, tearful conversation that ended in forgiveness and, eventually, in reconciliation. By 2016, Jorge says his father became the best dad.
Now in his twelfth year with Young Life, Jorge serves as Area Director of Green Bay, overseeing the full ministry while still working directly with students. He is also a father himself, and he tells his kids he loves them every day, something he deeply needed to hear at that age.
Now when I step into spaces, it’s cool to hear kids say they’ve never met a Hispanic man like me. I show up authentically as a man of God. Being that example has always been a goal.
Jorge Gonzalez
Tiana: A Ripple That Keeps Spreading
Jorge met Tiana in eighth grade. Her brother introduced her to Young Life. She said yes to Jesus her freshman year when attending camp. She was bapitized the following year before going to work crew. Tiana has since started going to church consistently and inviting friends.
Then something remarkable happened. Without being asked, Tiana started a prayer locker at her school. She launched her own Campaigners group. And around her, about 20 students are now going to church on their own.
“She doesn’t just come because it’s fun,” Jorge says. “God wrecked her life for good.” That ripple started because one leader showed up for her older brother. She then accepted her brother’s invitation to attend Young Life. Now, after how own transformation, Tiana is showing up for and inviting others to experience Christ.
That is the multiplication that urban youth ministry makes possible when someone is willing to go into Samaria.
What the Training Did
Jared and Jorge both participated in UYWI’s Certification Program as part of the Young Life partnership, joining leaders from across the country for an intensive, community-rich training process. The recent graduation in Colorado brought those cohorts together, and for both men, the experience went far beyond curriculum.
For Jared: A New Understanding of Himself
For Jared, the program opened something personal. Growing up biracial in environments that did not always know how to hold him, he had spent years unsure how to navigate his own identity. The training gave him language and framework for that.
“The biggest takeaway was that we get to love kids like Jesus, and that love looks different depending on how people were raised and where they come from,” he says. “Getting to learn how and why others are different helps ministry. I have all kinds of kids who come through. Things I learned through the training helped me love them where they are.”
The Colorado gathering reinforced it. Being surrounded by leaders from all over the country, people doing the same work in different contexts, reminded Jared he was not alone. Even giving presentations, something that made him nervous, became meaningful was a great experience.
For Jorge: Leading by Asking
Jorge brought a different set of needs to the training. As an Area Director, he has been in leadership for years. But the program challenged the way he leads.
“Facilitation was newer for me,” he says. “As a leader, it was helpful to learn how to ask questions that draw answers from within. UYWI taught me how to lead by asking questions rather than just talking.”
Jorge also noted the quality of the conversations the curriculum sparked. “Students wanted to engage more in the material. The questions were good and the conversations were great.”
Why This Partnership Matters
The Young Life and UYWI partnership is grounded in a shared conviction: urban youth need leaders who are not only willing to show up, but equipped to do so in culturally grounded, spiritually deep, and practically skilled ways.
Urban communities across America are filled with young people navigating poverty, family instability, identity, and grief — often without a consistent adult voice in their corner. Training leaders like Jared and Jorge does not just benefit those individuals. It multiplies. Every leader equipped reaches an average of 100 students. Every student transformed influences peers, families, and eventually communities.
This is the vision behind UYWI’s Certification Program. And in the lives of Jack and Tiana, in the prayer locker at East High School, in the unprompted Bible verses shared, we see that vision bearing fruit.
Think of Jesus going into Samaria. That’s the motivation. Who is going into Samaria? Who cares about Samaria? Teens need the hope of Jesus, because someone is telling them a different kind of hope.
Jorge Gonzalez
Jared puts it simply: “I love kids who don’t have the love they need. I get to help them have the childhood they deserve. I get to tell them about Jesus.”
That’s what trained leaders do. That is why this work matters. And that is why UYWI and Young Life are committed to developing more of them — together.
To learn more about the UYWI Certification Program or to support the leaders being trained, visit uywi.org/certification.