New Members
Octavius Heartfield is a junior at Campus High School. He’s the cousin of Northside member, Jeremiah Hill, and started coming to Northside and participating in the youth group three years ago. After studying with Jeff Martin for a while, Octavius was baptized on Sunday night, August 17. Teen Camp has been his favorite youth group activity, and he hopes to help with Wichita WorkCamp next summer. Octavius was born in Wichita, spent a couple of years in North Carolina, and now lives in Haysville. He played on the school football team last year (nose guard on defense and left guard on offense) and plans to try out for the baseball team this year. Octavius used to enjoy writing stories and his favorite classes are PE, weights, and English. In middle school, he played trombone in the band. He lives with his mom and four siblings and has a total of 13 brothers and sisters. Octavius recently began working part-time at Bionic Burger in Haysville, so you might see him there at the front counter if you stop by sometime.
Jesse Phillips was born and raised in Wichita and is a freshman at North High School. He’s been coming to Northside since last fall and is a friend of Northside member, Scott Decker. Jesse was baptized last November 17, not long after becoming a part of our youth group. He enjoyed participating in Teen Camp this summer. Jesse has five older sisters, ages 21 through mid-30s, but they’ve all left home, so he now lives with just his mom and dad. Jesse’s favorite subjects in school are biology and math, and he recently began taking acoustic guitar lessons.
Spencer Johnson was born in Milwaukee, WI, and raised there and in Upstate New York. He played three years on the basketball team at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater and was also on their bowling team. He majored in economics, minored in general business, and was three credits short of graduating when the company he worked for relocated him. Spencer has worked in a variety of fields. His first job was with Domino’s Pizza, eventually managing one of their stores. Next he worked six years for A.L. Williams selling life and health insurance. He also provided financial planning and did day trading during that time. Then from 1997-2007, Spencer worked for Generac Power Systems, ending up as a regional sales manager responsible for 575 accounts from Canada to Mexico west of the Mississippi. In 2016, Spencer developed sepsis in his left foot, and for a period of four years was confined to several hospitals and nursing homes. At one point, his doctors wanted to amputate, but Spencer didn’t let them, and eventually he recovered enough to be released. Following that experience, he set up a digital marketing company in Los Angeles and helped companies develop and monitor websites to help them rank high in online searches. Spencer moved to Wichita in early 2020 and now works part-time doing business consulting. He volunteers at the Lord’s Diner on Mondays and at the Chisholm Trail food pantry. He also likes playing board games, vintage video games, and watching all types of sports. (He’s a big fan of all the Wisconsin teams.) He also spends a lot of time studying Christian apologetics. Spencer says he is a people person and loves to help others learn to help themselves.