Year-end celebration and graduation, 2022

student testImonial:

Allowing others to hear my story made me scared of judgment and shame. I was shown grace, compassion and love from the Ranch family. Letting people into my life was the hardest and best thing I’ve done here. I was able to learn things about myself I never knew and to understand myself on a deeper level. After high school I plan on attending Modesto Junior College, with a goal of attending UC Davis to achieve my dream of being an Equine Veterinarian.
- Grace, CEHS Graduate

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The lifeblood of the ministry, our interns:

Front row (L to R): Rachel Burdick (Tustin, CA), Danika Young (Winchester, CA), Carissa Miller (Salina, KS), Grace Bunn (Greensboro, AL), Jacqui Nunez (Reedley, CA), Faith Noe (Longview, TX). Back row (L to R): Intern Director Jensen Near, Julia Brown (Merced, CA), Aldin Basilio (Buena Park, CA), Alec Thies (Kalamazoo, MI), Asst. Intern Director Paxton Fitzpatrick, David Ramey (Grass Valley, CA).

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This first year [of internship] has been one of joy, pain, and continual surrender of my own will unto the Lord. Internship has really taught me how to count the cost of following Christ. I never really understood the weight of what it meant for Jesus to ask the disciples “Come follow me. I will make you fishers of men.” We can easily remember that encounter, and it can just be Jesus calling His disciples. But we rarely consider that they had a choice. They chose to leave everything they knew to learn from the Messiah. They had to wrestle with leaving their families, not running their businesses, and simply trusting that Jesus was good.

​During my internship, I have wanted to get away from the structure of Ranch life. I wanted the connection with my friends back. I was missing my family. I wanted to give back to the Lord the responsibility He had given me. But that isn’t what I truly wanted in my soul. In these times of pain, I was just really experiencing the cost that comes with committing my life to Jesus and sharing the truth of the gospel.
- Grace Bunn 

Throughout internship, I feel like God has given me a better understand­ing of His love for me and how to love others well. I think about the feel­ing of loss at a dismissal, the weight and heartache when giving a con­sequence, the tears shed as you hear and share stories and testimonies. I also think of the overflowing joy of seeing someone learn something new, graduating, and even giving their life to Christ...Getting to see how God can transform broken lives and restore hope is one of the most beautiful things I have gotten to be a part of during my internship.
- Faith Noe

The intern office walls are lined with the names of those who have served an internship at Christian Encounter through the decades.

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​During my internship, I have learned how powerful relation­ships can be. I have seen what it is like to feel tied to people and desperately want them to succeed, but being forced to trust that God has a plan for their lives. I have learned how essential com­munity is, having a group of people that has your back, that can support you when things feel too hard to bear on your own. I have learned how to trust God to give me strength, when I liter­ally couldn’t do it on my own and discovered that He is faithful in giving us what we need to get through any situation. The Ranch has taught me so much, but the thing that stands out the most is this - to understand so much more deeply
what it means to love like Christ.
- Rachel Burdick