About three years ago, Jacob Hess, 25, had “a spiritual awakening.”
“I just felt like I was being called to do more,” he said. It began with lectoring at his home parish, St. Peter Church in Wynne. Today, he’s a eucharistic minister, youth ministry and Vacation Bible School volunteer, Knights of Columbus member and an altar server.
“I just feel like I’m getting everything in its purest form when I’m with Father on the altar,” Hess said of altar serving. “I’m right beside him helping him and just feel I’m serving the Lord in the most needed way.”
A graduate of Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, Hess is a bank teller at First National Bank of Wynne and a volunteer firefighter with Fair Oaks Volunteer Fire Department in Cross County. While responding to a local church engulfed in flames last year, Hess vividly remembers spotting a brick within a burning support beam with the word “Jesus” undamaged.
“To me that was a testament to God is always there. His protection is always there,” he said. “… It still gives me chills.”
While teaching children at VBS this summer, “I was able to integrate the aspects of being a firefighter with the Beatitudes — to be merciful, to be meek and considered to be a peacemaker.”
Hess said he hopes he can live a life of understanding.
“We’re all children of God. Everybody that is walking on this planet right now, no matter what kind of person they are, are here because God wants them to be.”
