When Jenn Petersen ’20 enrolled at Wesley Seminary , she was already carrying a full calling. She and her husband had founded Resurrection Life NYC, and she was co-pastoring the church while she studied. Her coursework did not wait for graduation to matter. It walked straight into her ministry, challenging how she thought about leadership, justice, and Scripture.
One lesson pressed deeper than the rest.
“I believe God does something special in and through us when we are exposed to His heart for justice, when our hearts are broken for the things that break His.”
“By studying theologians across time and traditions,” Petersen said, “I was exposed even more deeply to how much we need one another and how crucial it is to listen well to those who are different from ourselves.”
She could not have known then what God was preparing her for. Today, Petersen is president and CEO of World Hope International , a Christian relief and development organization serving vulnerable communities worldwide. She leads cross-cultural teams across multiple continents, where listening well is no longer a classroom idea. It is how trust is earned and human need is answered. “Looking back,” she said, “I see that God was preparing me at Wesley Seminary to step into the role that I have now.”
Source: World Hope International 2026
Petersen’s lesson that we need one another extends beyond her own experience. It is also at the heart of IWU’s partnerships. Organizations serving in difficult places, like World Hope, benefit from what a university like IWU can offer: prepared graduates, faculty expertise, and students and alumni ready to contribute. In turn, those organizations give IWU students and faculty opportunities to learn, serve, and put their calling into action. Few partnerships demonstrate that kind of mutual investment better than IWU’s relationship with World Hope.
IWU interns now serve within World Hope’s work, and World Hope brings students, faculty, and alumni on Vision Trips to see it firsthand. Petersen, the graduate IWU helped prepare, is now helping prepare the next generation at IWU.
The Reach of Partnership
Source: Institutional Research, August 2026
A church founder became a student. A student became a global leader. And now a global leader is helping students become what God is calling them to be. The truth that found her in a seminary classroom is still being carried into communities most of the IWU family will never see and into lives just beginning. The fragrance of one life formed at IWU can reach far beyond it.
