Graduation

September 2006

     In September of 2006, I visited Cedarville for the first time.  It only took me about 10 minutes to realize that is was the right place for me.  I was so convinced that I didn't even apply to any other schools.  As it turned out, I was right.  My time at Cedarville changed me in more ways that I can count.  Academically, I know more, I work harder, I think more critically and I ask more questions.  Socially, I made friends who became my family and met so many people and professors who invested in my life in invaluable ways.  Spiritually, I love Christ more. To say it that way sounds simple, but the truth is that that is the bottom line.  Cedarville's investment in my walk with Christ has, above all, just made me love Him more, and that love has created my desire to serve Him.  Leaving Cedarville was hard, but it's time for me to take what God has taught me through Cedarville and put it to use for His glory.

May 7, 2011

     When we took this picture after graduation on Saturday, my mom told me something she had never told me before.  She said, "When we dropped you off here at the beginning of your freshman year, I never thought we'd see this day.  I never thought we'd be able to make it happen financially."  Cedarville is expensive. I knew that when I chose to go there, but in my naive 18-year-old mind, I just thought, "It will all work out."  I had no idea that it "working out" would mean so many ups and downs and detours for me.  My path to graduation at Cedarville was unconventional to say the least.  It included a lot of extra work in high school on AP, CLEP and dual enrollment classes, a semester at NCMC and a semester in Grand Rapids at GVSU, which were all ways that I pinched pennies to make my Cedarville experience possible.  As complicated as it was,  God used it in so many ways, to teach me perseverance, to teach me patience (a lesson I'm still learning), and most of all, to teach me to trust Him.
     A post about Cedarville wouldn't be complete without taking a minute to express my overwhelming gratitude for my parents.  Something I appreciate about my mom is that she didn't tell me that she doubted I'd graduate from Cedarville until I was actually graduating from Cedarville.  She continued to support my desire to go there and she and my dad did everything humanly possible to make sure it happened, even when they thought it was impossible.  They spent hours with the course catalog, the checkbook, the budget, all to make sure that I was in the place I believed God wanted me to be.  The funny thing is that they could have said the same thing when I told them I wanted to go back to Peru - "I don't think we can make that happen".  But they didn't.  They believe that that is where God has led me and they have, and are still, doing everything they can to help me follow Him.  Call me biased, but those are some pretty great parents.