Grid is the guide

Grid Zurcher called a student to the front of the room.
There was no method to his choice. She was selected at random.
“God is never going to create another (you),” he told her. “He created you exactly how he wants you. And when he created you, you were perfect. He saw no flaws in you. When he created you, you were perfect just the way you are. And he’s never going to create another (you), ever.”
Grid was attempting to get across the message of that evening’s Campus Life event — to show students God loves them.
It was a lesson he was trying to teach all of the middle schoolers in attendance that night. But for that one student, the girl he happened to select, it was a message that really hit home.
On the outside, she seemed to be doing well — good grades, two loving parents, lots of friends. It wasn’t until Grid received a text message later that evening that he learned the importance of his words.
“I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate you,” the student said in the text. “It’s amazing how much I needed to hear the words you spoke tonight. I get so down about all the things I’ve done. I act so fine when I’m dying inside. I needed to hear every ounce you had to say tonight. I want you to know you saved me. Before I met you, I was in the darkest place. I felt so low and was the bottom of the food chain. You really opened my eyes. The cutting, suicidal thoughts, worries and doubts, they’re gone! And I want to thank you because I’ve never had someone drill it into me how loved I am. Not just by others, but by the one and only Jesus Christ. I thank God every day for you, because without you, I wouldn’t be here to say this.”
Grid — his given name is Andrew, more on that later — has been Jay County’s director of middle school Campus Life for two years, and it’s stories like those that highlight his mission. He wants to reach students and make their lives better by introducing them to and/or strengthening their relationships with God.
“She went as far as to say if it was not for Campus Life, she would most likely have taken her own life,” said Grid, thinking back to the girl he called to the front of the room. “This is a job that you don’t get a whole lot of positive feedback on. You don’t know how to measure your success. Having people show up … yeah that’s great, but that’s not a measure of success. And so it’s difficult to know what success looks like.”
So when he gets a text or an email from a student, he saves it.
“Even when I feel like I’m not making a difference, things are going on behind the scenes with the students that they are realizing change,” he said.
Those changes come by building relationships with students, which Grid works toward with a variety of activities before, during and after school.
He starts his Tuesday to Monday work week with a day at the BiGJAWS — an acronym that represents Blackford, Grant, Jay, Adams and Wells counties — Youth for Christ Office in Bluffton. His days there include planning lessons and activities, coordinating with directors from other schools and preparing for group trips — a big overnight event is scheduled during each semester.
He’s in one of the middle schools — East Jay or West Jay — on Wednesdays, making himself available to talk to students during lunch and encouraging them to go with him to a church youth group meeting in the evening. The pattern repeats on Thursday and Friday, with each of those days also including a breakfast Campus Life meeting at one of the middle schools.
On Friday evenings and weekends, he and his adult leaders try to involve students in more casual relationship-building activities, such as going to a movie or playing laser tag.
Finally, Mondays culminate his week with evening Campus Life sessions alternating one week at East Jay and the next at West Jay.
Having such frequent activities helped him through middle and high school, Grid said, so he tries to provide the same for students in Jay County.
“The more that students are involved in different things, the less likely they are to get involved with the bad things,” he said. “The less likely they are to get into trouble.”
Each campus life meeting starts with some free time for the students — they play basketball in the school gym or hit a volleyball around, with music playing in the background.
Grid follows that up with games that are tied to the theme for the evening. On Nov. 9 at West Jay, that theme was dealing with loneliness.
A group discussion — What types of loneliness are there? How can we tell if someone is feeling lonely? What can we do to help someone who is dealing with loneliness? — followed, with snacks and drinks provided.
There can be a guest speaker as well. And each evening ends with more free time to play games and visit with friends.
It’s that welcoming atmosphere that seems to draw the students in.
“I usually don’t have time to come because of all my sports, but when I do come he helps me with a lot,” said WJMS eighth grader Hallie Fields. “If I’m not doing sports … this is where I want to be.”
And it offers the opportunity for more interaction.
“At church you’re surrounded by more people, so you don’t have as much direct contact,” said East Jay seventh grader Kelly Strausburg. “You can ask more questions because you’re with people that are your friends.”
“Here it’s your peers and your friends and everybody you know,” added EJMS eighth grader Zack Twigg.
It’s led to a variety of breakthroughs, in addition to the student who said Campus Life saved her from suicide.
Early in his tenure, Grid had a student confide in him that she had been abused by a friend’s father. That talk led to her telling her parents, them contacting the police and an arrest being made.
Other students have shared problems in their home lives, ranging from less serious disputes with parents to long-term abuse.
That’s part of Grid’s role, to be the non-judgmental, welcoming adult who students can come to with any issue.
“He gives you hope,” said Navaho Cox, a West Jay eighth grader. “There’s more than sitting at home and getting depressed. You come here and you have a good time playing basketball with your friends and listening about God. It’s real.
“He doesn’t preach at us for two hours. But he makes you listen.”
Campus Life helped Grid through his own challenges, from everyday issues to life-changing events, when he was growing up in Adams County.
The biggest of those moments came when he was in middle school and a cousin, who was 16 at the time, suffered a seizure in his sleep. His heart stopped, never to start again.
John Wanner, then the director of Campus Life for South Adams, provided a shoulder to lean on.
“Wanner was one of the people I could just open up to and share the pain I had,” said Grid, who wondered where God could be found in his cousin’s untimely death. “He was just a great listener, and just somebody I was able to look up to to help me through that difficult time.”
After graduating from South Adams High School in 2005, Grid went to school and played football at the University of St. Francis for a year. He then transferred to Bethel College, where he studied mathematics education. But a bad student teaching experience led him away from the classroom.
Upon returning to Adams County, he started volunteering with Campus Life at his former school. And then Wanner encouraged him to get involved at Jay County High School, where director Aaron Hoevel was in need of some help.
That led to Grid applying for the middle school Campus Life job when it came open, and he was hired in November 2013.
Remembering him from his younger days, Wanner said his former student has always had a personality fit for the job.
“He was the kind of kid I love because he was so uninhibited by other people’s opinions,” he said. “He was happy to be who he was.”
But he wasn’t always the patient guy who calmly discusses faith with groups of middle schoolers, and that’s where the nickname originated.
He recalls having a temper — he tried to hit one of his brothers with a hockey stick and on another occasion punched a hole in a wall — when he was young. His brother John, who has a habit of nicknaming everyone, tagged him with the moniker Ghengis Khan.
As that caught on, John changed it to Angus. It then morphed into Angrid, and was finally shortened to Grid, a name even his mom now calls him.
Over the years he’s calmed down, and he found that while volunteering for Campus Life after college it was the high school students who made an impact on him.
“It was like, ‘Yeah, I’m volunteering with campus life, but I’m not doing what God’s calling me to do. I’m not doing what I feel I’m supposed to be doing,’” he said. “So it was just watching them model Christ’s life that challenged me to do the same thing, to be more … hands on as far as modeling what Christ’s love is supposed to look like for people.”
Now he tries to be that model himself, setting the example for the middle school students of Jay County.
He points out that about two-thirds of those who attend Campus Life events aren’t involved in a church. His goal is to build relationships for those students, both with himself and with God.
He does it with a smile, encouraging words, fun activities and a personality that makes him a figure students both respect and trust.
“Grid … he’s the real MVP,” said West Jay seventh grader Wesley Bennett. “He’s the best guy I’ve ever known.”