When God gave Justin Hodges the chance to come to Ouachita, he took it. Until three months before school started in 2007, Justin planned to go to Williams Baptist College. He had a free ride there to play soccer, but then, “God opened up a window for me to be here.”
Justin knows that life isn’t easy and windows like that are sometimes hard to find. He grew up in a single-parent home in Stuttgart Ark.; he watched his mom work 80-hour weeks and his older brother step in as a father figure. Justin never really knew his dad, until he had the chance to live with him this past summer.
Justin is an ordained minister and feels a call to youth ministry. It is important to him to try to get to know his dad. He says, “since I started working with ministry, I’ve been trying to heal that [relationship with his dad].”
Dustin Sams, Justin’s former youth pastor-now-mentor and colleague, said Justin “reminds [me] that you can’t let your history always dictate your future, and he’s learned to make the most with what he has.”
Justin cites his mom as being one of his biggest examples, calling her a “valiant woman. She’s the strongest woman I know.” His mother is a Christian, but they did not attend church often, because she worked so much.
However, in 2004 he met Sams at a local baseball league and started attending Flipside 517, the mid-week service at First Baptist, Stuttgart. Sams noticed Justin had a “tremendous desire for the things of God,” and began mentoring him soon after. The two still speak regularly and in 15 years of ministry “Justin has been the one student that I have been and continue to be the most proud of.”
Growing up with hard times has given Justin a sense of humor and a maturity level that is unusual in a college kid. It’s also helped his ability to reach out to “outsiders” who are often overlooked.
Last fall he started a skate ministry here in Arkadelphia and “watching him invest in the lives of guys that most church folk tend to ignore was really neat,” said Katie Osment, who met Justin first on Facebook, then at his skate ministry. “He really has a heart for student ministry, a passion for those kids.”
Mark Sumrall pledged Kappa Chi with Justin last January and also notes Justin’s heart for people, “[He is] the kind of guy that is totally sold out to his friends, they mean the world to him.” Sumrall adds that his love for ministry is obvious and “he is a great guy, but an even better friend.”
