Yoga for Health, Healing, and Advocacy

Featuring Tiffany Cruikshank

Founder of Yoga Medicine and Seva Foundation

Tiffany Cruikshank is a unique combination of skills and passions. Through her skills and experience in yoga, medicine, and business, and her heart for advocacy, she has made an impact on promoting health and fighting human trafficking worldwide.

Tiffany is the Founder of Yoga Medicine, a community of teachers focused on fusing anatomy & western medicine with traditional yoga practices to serve the medical communities.  She’s trained thousands of teachers around the world. Through this work, she has been featured in many publications, including the covers of over 15 magazines. She is a regularly featured expert in many major media outlets. And she has authored 2 books and has over 150 classes on various topics. 

Born in Phoenix, Arizona, Tiffany’s early experiences in yoga and advocacy shaped her interests and current work. She has been passionate about yoga most of her life, and has served as a yoga teacher since age 16. She fell in love with holistic medicine in her early teens. She especially appreciated empowering patients and students with the innate tools of the body to support health & wellness. She also was influenced in advocacy by working in a homeless shelter directed by her mom in Phoenix.

Tiffany has intertwined her experiences in yoga instruction with a focus in the medicinal and therapeutic aspects of yoga. Tiffany’s undergraduate studies were in pre-med with an emphasis in medicinal plant biology. She also is an Acupuncturist & Chinese medicine practitioner with a specialty in sports medicine. Tiffany had a private practice in Portland, Seattle, and New York City.

With her background in Acupuncture & Sports Medicine, Tiffany has worked with professional athletes and celebrities and run her own clinics. She also created and directed the Acupuncture program at Nike WHQ in addition to teaching yoga there. She became interested in doing service work while at Nike when she was introduced to The Girl Effect.

That experience sparked her interest in nonprofit work addressing human trafficking and sex trafficking. The more she learned about this injustice, the more she felt she had to make it her work. As a yoga teacher, she felt so much gratitude for this practice, and as a woman, she couldn’t imagine any greater injustice.

In 2003, Tiffany started training yoga teachers out of her home and that eventually evolved into Yoga Medicine. Her trainings have reached all around the world with over 8500 teachers in their network worldwide.  Through her work at Yoga Medicine, Tiffany also founded and runs two nonprofit organizations -- one conducts research on yoga’s therapeutic benefits and the other supports a shelter for women rescued from trafficking in Delhi, India.

Yoga Medicine’s Seva Foundation, is dedicated to fight human trafficking and sexual exploitation by empowering global, impoverished communities through efforts of education and entrepreneurship. Seva Foundation works with Her Future Coalition and Rescue Foundation, two NGOs based in India, to protect and empower those who are caught in the vicious cycle of human trafficking and sexual exploitation. By partnering with NGOs who operate on the ground, Seva is able to direct funds to exactly where it is needed the most – to the women and children rescued from these forms of modern slavery.

The many layers of intricacies, the growing research, the experience she has had personally with students and with teachers has kept Tiffany intrigued with yoga for over 25 years, and for many more decades to come.  And, her passion for fighting human trafficking will continue to make an impact on vulnerable populations for even longer. G.L.O.B.A.L. Justice is pleased to sponsor Yoga for a Cause, a benefit event for the Seva Foundation, and also pleased to support Her Future Coalition through our GLBL MRKT. To learn more, visit www.globaljusticeonline.org/glbl-mrkt

Great Is Thy Faithfulness: A Tribute to Dr. Bryce Jessup

Remembering Dr. Bryce Jessup

Dr. Bryce Jessup’s favorite song was “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” When he sang it, he would close his eyes, reach out to the sky, and sing from his heart.  This song has come to mean so much to me not only because of its own significance, but because of my memories of Bryce Jessup.  While Bryce passed away on Tuesday, July 28, 2020, his life was a remarkable testimony to how much God can do through one faithful person. 

Bryce Jessup was born in the Depression Era in central California.  He was raised in Visalia and San Jose by deeply dedicated Christian parents.  His father, William Jessup, was a pastor with a passion for his faith that came through in all that he did and said.  William was called to start a Bible College in San Jose to train future pastors and faith leaders.  The family started humbly with little means but big hopes.  The Bible College also started humbly with just 12 students.  Bryce often shared stories of his upbringing and times when the family had to manage with less, even eating Clap’s baby food when food was short, and passing an offering box to make ends meet for the school.  From those humble beginnings, God developed San Jose Bible College into San Jose Christian College. The school would educate many students and faith leaders for many decades in San Jose.  

But as the school grew and as Bryce grew into his natural leadership abilities and winsome personality, he became the President of the Christian College his father founded.  God recognized the faithfulness of Bryce and the legacy he carried.  He brought Bryce and the Christian College to Rocklin, California (near Sacramento) in 2003 to become William Jessup University. This marked a new and significant chapter in the Jessup family’s legacy in Christian higher education. 

Bryce served as President of WJU for 25+ years.  The campus and its reach and impact grew tremendously under his leadership.  But while Bryce was notable for his presidency, what really sets him apart was his ability to inspire people of all walks and backgrounds and encourage them to be “world changers.” 

I had the blessing of meeting Bryce Jessup in 2003.  I had recently moved to the Sacramento region with my husband and started attending Adventure Christian Church in Roseville, near Rocklin.  One day, a man named Bob Rispoli from Adventure called me with an interesting message, “Sosamma, you don’t know me, but I know you, and I have something to show you.”  He invited me to visit the new William Jessup University in Rocklin.  I had not heard of it or SJSC, but somehow I felt prompted by God to visit.  My husband and I did so, met Bob, and a very special relationship began with Bob, WJU, and Bryce Jessup.  

After meeting Bob, I began serving on an Advisory Committee of community members who were helping to promote and support the University in preparation for its official start in Rocklin in 2004 - the next academic year. While serving on that Advisory Committee, I helped with a golf tournament with other supporters.  It was at that tournament, I met Bryce.  He saw me serving and asked Joe Womack, Chair of the Advisory Committee, who I was. Joe told him that I was a new to the area, a lawyer, and currently serving on the Advisory Committee. From that point, I developed great friendships with Joe and Bryce.  I quickly became engaged with the purpose of WJU, but perhaps more so with the vision and faithfulness of Bryce Jessup. 

As time passed, I proposed and developed a Public Policy Program for the University.  Bryce was so supportive of my proposal and willing to take the University to new arenas for Christian impact – including in the public sector.  He had encouraged me to take on the role of Chair of the Public Policy Department when the program launched.  But given that my husband was in the military, I told him that I could not take on that role since we were likely to be moving from CA.  Instead, I would serve on a Search Committee with Bryce to find the right person to lead the program.  After reviewing various candidates, we did not find “the” person.  But then God intervened, and shifted my husband from Air Force to airlines and based him out of Oakland, making it possible for us to stay in CA.  Bryce took me aside one day and said “Sosamma, you are the person to lead this program.  You built it, you know it, and it’s your vision that will move it forward.”  At his encouragement, I shifted from Search Committee member to candidate and ultimately became Chair of the Public Policy Department for nearly 10 years. 

In my years at WJU, I had many remarkable experiences and opportunities, but the ones I appreciated most often connected with Bryce.  We attended countless meetings and events together.  He made it a point to participate in the many Public Policy forums and special events that I hosted.  He asked me to speak and present in various contexts for other University events.  There was never a moment throughout my time at WJU, even during the most challenging of times, that I did not feel the complete support of Bryce Jessup.  As a leader, and especially as a woman leader who had come from out of state and was leading something very different and new for the University, I was deeply moved by Bryce’s belief in me and my work at WJU.  

Over the years, my relationship with Bryce extended well past WJU and into the community and the world. We served together in many community contexts, but one of the most significant was through Agape International Mission.  When Bryce was Chair of AIM’s Board, he invited me to become a Board member starting in 2007.  It was a profound experience with some wonderful leaders, especially Don & Bridget Brewster the CEO/Founders of AIM.  Over the next 13 years, I had the privilege of serving with Bryce.  For 12 of those years, I served as Chair when Bryce asked me to take on that role after his lead. We had many remarkable moments and challenges at AIM, but through it all Bryce’s tremendous faithfulness, his prayers, his encouragement, and his wisdom were a great support to me and to everyone at AIM.  

Even when I left WJU to move to Colorado in 2013 and even when I transitioned from the AIM Board this past spring, it was always Bryce who was the first to affirm me and my leadership, to provide me encouragement and well wishes, and to share his great love of God and for this world.  I cannot begin to express the profound impact Bryce has made in my life and the various experiences I have had in serving and leading for the past 17 years.

But as much as I can say how much Bryce has made an impact in my life, many, many others can say the same.  That was Bryce’s unique ability and gift – he was able to lift up everyone.  Perhaps because of his childhood experiences, he knew how to endure and persevere, but more significantly, he taught others to endure and persevere.  He was always positive, always hopeful, and always willing to share encouragement. His playful humor and infectious smile always made it a joy for everyone to be with him, but his wisdom and depth of faith made him an inspiration to all.  Countless people from across California and across the globe could share countless stories of how Bryce inspired and made an impact in their lives.  We could all spend our lifetimes sharing these stories because of the lifetime that Bryce spent living out these stories. 

This past week, at 85 years old, Bryce visited Yosemite with his family, as he loved to do each summer.  He hiked 8 miles, he went fly fishing, and in a moment of smiles and joy, his heart stopped and he left this world.  What a fitting way for such a remarkable man to leave this earth – surrounded by the beauty and majesty of God’s creation, with the love of family, and the joy that only comes from being a good and faithful-servant.  Bryce Jessup was not only a leader who inspired world changers; Bryce Jessup changed the world for the Kingdom.  Great is Thy Faithfulness. 

A couple years ago, the beloved Bryce Jessup shared this touching story about his dear wife, their struggle with her health, and how they were viewing God's ...