30 in 30: No. 6 - Vocation

I started college as an Elementary Education major. Having just returned from a mission trip to Uganda, I envisioned myself getting my degree and then returning to teach in a school in Kampala. Then, I entered college. Little did I know that the four years I would spend at Warner Pacific would shape me more than any experience had shaped me in my previous 17 years, including my world-rocking trip to Africa.

My Elementary Education major lasted a grand total of two semesters, my second being the semester that I took an intro to education class in which one of the first handouts was titled "How not to get fired." I also had my first practicum that semester. That semester, coupled with my prior experience as a gymnastics, basketball and t-ball coach let me to believe one thing. I was NOT cut out to be an elementary school teacher.

Over the course of my first two years in college, I changed my major 3 times (which is OK). I also ended up volunteering in a youth group and through that experience I learned that I was not cut out to work with junior high or high school aged students.

My final year at Warner Pacific, I served as the Lead Peer Assistant. Toward the end of that year, people began asking what I was going to do with my life. I remember saying, "you know, if I could do exactly this (mentor college students) for the rest of my life, I would be thrilled." Donna Walton (A woman that has been SO many things for me since college) encouraged me to apply for a Master program in College Student Affairs. At the time,the last thing that I wanted to do was move to California. That coupled with the fact that Kerri had already made plans to enter the same program kept me from doing anything about it. Little did I know, that this was where I would end up. And that I WOULD be working with college students as a vocation.

The process that one goes through while in college is such a phenomenal process of growth. When I entered college I KNEW that God had called me to Africa. What I discovered in the four years to follow was exactly how much I DIDN'T know. And there were women and men like Donna Walton, Donna Scott, Shannon Mackey, Jay Barber and David Ortman that each played a role in guiding me through that process. Each of those people played a role in shaping me throughout that process of growth. They sowed the seeds on the fertile ground of my young mind that have grown to shape who I am today and I owe them greatly. Tomorrow I will write about the people who I get to play that very role for.