SaMWay 4: The Wake-Up Call

Bryan College wasn’t my first choice for college, but it remains to this day the only campus I have visited as a prospective student. The reasons for this, and the workings of God which lie behind them, are the subject of this issue of Strange and Miraculous Ways.

My journey through the stages of secondary education is and will be the subject of other issues, but the primary focus of my goals in eighth grade was to go either to MTSU via the Air Force, the Air Force via MTSU, or the Air Force via the Air Force Academy.

However, as this story is told elsewhere, I will jump to the part where I am at a crossroads between the more favorable choice, Bryan College, and the more practical choice, Berea College.

After spending a full year as a dual enrollment student at Bryan, I acquired a small taste of the lifestyle, values, and atmosphere that were prevalent on campus. But the financial logistics were very intimidating. Bryan College had a seventeen thousand dollar tuition plus eight thousand for room and board. While these costs were lower than any private college in the region, they were still ominous and seemingly unattainable.

According to my dad, Berea college was different. He told me that most if not all of Berea’s students paid absolutely no tuition, because of Berea’s unique work-study program. My immediate answer to this was absolutely not. I was not going to spend my college years overdrawn between school and work. But Dad pointed out that in order to pay for Bryan, I would have to work a job, and working for an outside employer could very well mean that my work schedule would interfere with my academic obligations. With a work-study program, this would surely be balanced.

I verbally agreed to consider Berea as an option. Mom dragged her feet in looking for tours and information, however, because she had already become certain that Bryan was the place for me, and she was praying that God would make a way. At the time, I did not know this, and so I found myself in a situation of deciding between what I wanted and thought was right and what my dad said was best.

Within this dilemma, I knew that I had to be open-minded, so I allowed myself to think that the spring semester I had just finished as a DE student could be the end of my time at Bryan.

There was, however, one more thing that would bring me back to the campus. That winter, my mom had signed me up for the Summer Institute at Bryan College. This was a week-long experience designed to give high school students a taste of what life was like at Bryan while equipping them with spiritual and academic disciplines rooted in Biblical teaching. This meant, of course, that I would spend the entirety of that week lodging with other high schoolers, as well as current Bryan students, on the Bryan campus.

When we arrived for orientation, we attended a session with our parents during which we were told all about Bryan College—what its mission was, the size of the campus, tuition, etc. But the main takeaway was the fact that Bryan was a firmly rooted Christian college with a small, close-knit, and loving community of students, faculty, and staff. And in that moment, as he began to see what Bryan College truly was, my dad began to pray that God would provide for me to attend that school.

The story of that week is told elsewhere in great detail, but I was left with no doubt. I became quite popular among both my fellow students and the camp counselors, who were all Bryan students. But the biggest impact was not the people I met during the Summer Institute, but the way in which they continuously sought me out afterward.

I soon decided to major in Business Administration, and so I registered for another dual enrollment course — Intro to Business. And during the first two weeks of class, I was literally apprehended time and time again by college students, some of whom had been my peers that summer, who were excited to see me again. Several of them remembered that I was a DE student and had looked me up in the directory just to find me.

After watching this for nearly two months, I am now convinced more than ever that Bryan College is the place for me. And even to this day, I am occasionally met by someone who will stop me and say, “aren’t you the guy that did such-and-such?” or “Aren’t you the guy that So-And-So was telling me about?”

But of course, no evidence was more compelling than the way God Himself provided. It is hinted in other issues that I have been granted the ability to attend Bryan college as a full-time student. This was not expected at all, nor was it humanly possible. Time and time again, I had looked at Bryan’s financial aid information, and it never added up. We spent many hours praying that something would happen, and I committed myself to write essays to win scholarships.

Then, on August 16, 2022, my mom and I went to the Financial Aid office. We sat down with the director and answered his questions, telling him things like my high school GPA, as well as the fact that I was adopted, homeschooled, and had attended the Summer Institute.

Between government aid and Bryan College awards, the financial aid director added up the numbers until he wrote down a figure which covered my full tuition, as well as a portion of my room and board.

If I ever saw an angel, it was probably David Haggard in that moment.

I am still working toward covering my room and board because I live thirty miles away from Bryan, but I know that God’s plan for my life starts at Bryan College. And I trust, even amid my worries and doubts, that He will see it through.