Featured Fellow: Anastasia Howland
Ana grew up in Norton, Massachusetts, which is located around 30 miles from the heart of downtown Boston. She spent her years of learning in smaller Christian settings, having went to a private Christian school from 1st-12th grade and graduating with just 6 other students before attending Montreat College in Montreat, NC. In the spring of 2020, she graduated from Montreat with a degree in both Professional Writing and Bible & Theology.
On a chilly Martin Luther King Jr. Day this past January, Ana ended a 3.5 year-long relationship with her fiancé. This came after a months-long process of deciding that a marriage between them would be unhealthy. Just two days later, she was sitting in her senior capstone course with her future wide open. At the beginning of class, her professor introduced a kindly-looking visitor who told the class he was the director of a program called the Greensboro Fellows--this kindly-looking individual was Dodd Drake. “Now that I wasn’t going to be getting married, I don’t even think I’d begun asking the Lord what my next steps in life were going to be.” But as Dodd rattled off all the aspects of the Fellows program--internship, classes, mentoring, group Bible study, and more--Ana knew that the Lord hadn’t kept her waiting long to find out what her immediately post-college plans were. He had provided this program.
From a young, honey-blonde haired age, Ana loved to read and write. In middle school, she used to create her own stories based on her favorite book series about wild cats. Even as she grew a bit older and traded cat books for theology and classic literature, she continued in this passion as she participated in a creative writing club in high school. She also grew up watching her parents see the world through the lens of a camera in their free time. When she was 13, Ana picked up her mother’s camera and started seeing the world the same way. She began by photographing her cats, her house, and the river in her backyard. In high school she moved on to more people-centered photography as she took four weeks of photography intensives, was the yearbook editor and photographer, and toted her camera just about any new place she went.
While at Montreat, Ana spent 3.5 years using her writing, editing, and photography experience as she worked in the school’s communications and administrative departments. Her favorite classes were anything theology or ecclesiology-related. So when she was offered a communications internship at a church as a part of the Fellows program, it seemed like the perfect fit. In her internship with Church of the Redeemer, Ana does all things communications-related, from creating graphics for the Instagram, to writing blog posts about answered prayers, to filming Redeemer’s pastoral team members as they give the congregation weekly updates. She enjoys working in an environment where her co-workers take both God’s kingdom mission and fun seriously.
Although Ana enjoys writing and photography, her hopes for a future career actually involve becoming a counselor. She spent her last 2 years of college working as a resident assistant in one of the women’s dorms, and she felt like the times of mentoring and informal counseling which were part of the job were places in which her gifts and passions collided. Wherever her career takes her, she desires to follow the Lord closely, enjoy His creation with friends, and show others His love by quietly listening and caring for them.
