Alumnus trains up Christian leaders in remote villages in Alaska

Through his work with Alaska Bible Institute and its affiliated ministries, Liberty University alumnus Eric Rozeboom (’10) is making a Kingdom impact in the lives of students and remote Alaskan villagers.

Rozeboom, originally from Michigan, first felt the call to Alaska at age 23 when a friend invited him to attend ABI, a two-year biblical studies program with an optional internship opportunity. Having recently finished his undergraduate degree from Bible college, he told his friend he would pray about it, certain that God would not want him to uproot his life.

“I felt this conviction because I had lied and hadn’t actually prayed about it,” he said. “At the time, I didn’t think it was a real option. Going to this little unaccredited Bible college at the end of the road in Alaska didn’t feel like a real consideration.”

To appease his conscience, Rozeboom later said a quick prayer, and God responded in the affirmative.

“That was one of the most unique answers to prayer in my life because I immediately felt like God was telling me that was where I was supposed to go,” he said. “It didn’t make any sense to me. I really struggled with it at the time, but the school year was starting a week or two later, and I didn’t have a lot of time to wrestle with it.”

He started at ABI in 2003. During the summers he worked as a commercial fisherman. After graduating and completing a mission’s internship with ABI, he stayed at the school full time, working his way up from instructor to president in 2011. While an instructor, Rozeboom took classes through Liberty University Online Programs, desiring to continue his Christian education. He graduated with a Master of Arts in Theological Studies.

“The number one thing was the convenience and the quality of Liberty’s platform,” he said. “It was a well-structured program that was easy to plug into and make it work with everything else I had going on in life without having to move back to Virginia to do classes.”

Rozeboom also developed a strong relationship with ABI founder Ray Arno that helped him grow in his business acumen and as a leader. In 2022, Rozeboom accepted a position as executive director of Alaska Village Missions, the outreach arm of the school dedicated to reaching outlying communities with the Gospel, in addition to his position as president of ABI. The ministry provides villages with pastors and youth leaders.

Rozeboom said working in rural communities with populations from 80 to 200 drastically changed his perspective on work and life.

“It kind of shattered my thinking on success because in my mind, you go somewhere and accomplish something; you work hard and travel. And the thought that success for them (the villagers) never had anything to do with going somewhere to accomplish and build something almost seemed ‘wrong.’  I knew that wasn’t the correct way to look at it. It was hard to wrap my head around the fact that my worldview and my way of thinking about life, success, and accomplishments was so different from what generations of these people had grown up with in these villages.”

In recent years, AVM has also focused on sending youth pastors and other missionaries to reach children. In one village, a young woman began attending church by herself and later invited her friends to join her, eventually forming a youth group. In February, AVM sent a young couple to the village to serve as youth leaders.

“It’s been pretty exciting to see young people coming to know Jesus, and just this year, seeing these youth groups begin to form within these small churches,” Rozeboom said. “It was really cool to see (results from) that longer-term investment in the relational side we had been working at in that village for a while and to see this young lady come to know Jesus and reach her friends. Now there is a church that is growing and a youth group that is born.”