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In May, as many students prepare for graduation, we are featuring reflections written by college seniors from universities across the United States. Today, we have four students from three different schools (Penn State, UVA, Samford) going into four different fields (food science, vocational ministry, law, kinesiology). Join us to celebrate their achievement and pray for their “every good endeavor.”

Feeding America with Fresh Produce

Kim Heagy is a graduating senior at Pennsylvania State University in State College, Pennsylvania, where she studies Food Science. She was born and raised in North Annville, Lebanon County. While in college she was highly involved with Penn State Dance MaraTHON and Alliance Christian Fellowship. Upon graduation, she will be interning at the Walt Disney World Resort, working in hydroponic greenhouses located in the Epcot Park.

Feeding America

In one month, a few strokes of ink on a culminating certificate will represent my academic work for the past four years. That ink will show that I, Kim Heagy, have graduated from Penn State with a degree in food science.

For me, choosing food science was easy because it combined my agricultural heritage and my academic interest in science. I grew up on a family-owned and -operated orchard, where my summers were spent picking cherries out of a tractor lift and harvesting peaches until my arms were covered with fuzz. I wanted a degree that would allow me to stay connected to the country community, and I am proud to be entering into an industry that feeds America.

A Skill, Not a Job Description

Food science, a rare degree, is sometimes mistaken for a baking or nutrition. Yet it is a unique area of study that combines microbiology, engineering, chemistry, nutrition studies, and their applications to food. What makes baked goods dry out? How is cheese made? What’s the difference between baking soda and baking powder? These, along with innumerable more, are questions for food scientists to answer.

My degree is not a job description; it can be applied to vastly different jobs and industries. I can explore countless opportunities while using my degree. Even though I have specific aspirations in my field, I am excited to see where God places me within this industry.

Working in Fresh Produce

Preparing animal diets in a nutrition center, working in a hydroponic green house, running logistics for a regional farmers market—these are my current job leads. Since I will be fresh out of school, though, I want to learn as much as I can in whatever area God places me for the first few years.

After honing my skills, I want to work in the fresh produce and farm market industry in order to facilitate connections between the food eater and the food grower. There is a knowledge gap between Americans and their food source. Many people don’t know how food is grown and are detached from the farming industry. This needs to change, and my passion lies here.

I’ve had the privilege of observing families reversing this separation by becoming involved with their food, and it is a splendid reunion. It comes in the form of a smiling teenager picking strawberries for the first time. It looks like a child having raspberry stains on his shirt from snacking in the berry patch. It sounds like a grandmother telling her granddaughter how to make homemade peach jam. We were meant to be involved with our food, and I want to help bridge the gap between the typical American and the local farmer by working in the fresh produce industry.

Members of the Body

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul writes, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.” Here, Paul is talking about the church—not just the gathered church on Sunday, but the scattered church on Monday through Saturday.

As we go out into our vocations, jobs, and occupations, we are his hands and his feet to the world. Therefore, we need “missionaries” wherever God is working, which is everywhere—schools, marketing firms, public relations, foreign countries, and, yes, even the food industry. Together we image forth the fullness of God’s loving and benevolent character to the world.

Fears About the Future

My biggest fear moving forward is that I’ll be lonely. Leaving the security of my Penn State community is frightening. I’m battling a lie that says, “I won’t like my life. My job and my social life will be unfulfilling. I won’t be happy.” It’s easy to let the unknown be scary.

My fear, however, is mixed with hope and excitement. I wonder whether graduating as a Christian is different. Trusting God relieves me from the daunting question, “What will I do with my life?” I don’t have it all figured out, but I will follow God step-by-step.

Although I have no idea where I’ll be in a year, I trust God has amazing adventures waiting for me as he calls me into his kingdom purposes. I can feel my heart changing in these weeks leading up to graduation, a preparation for saying goodbye to my alma mater and a greeting to whatever God holds for me after a few ink strokes on a diploma.

Going from College to College Ministry

Caroline Beechwood is a graduating senior at the University of Virginia, where she majors in Middle Eastern Studies and Religious Studies. She is from Lynchburg, Virginia, and plans to move to Atlanta after graduation to work as an intern with Reformed University Fellowship at Emory University.

New Land, New People, New Religion

One trip to North Africa in high school changed the direction of my college career. Before I entered UVA, I had little vocational direction for my life. I knew I wanted to serve God’s kingdom, live simply, and be a wife and a mother. But I knew little beyond that. Then, right before I went to college, I taught English in North Africa. My eyes were opened to see a new land, a new people, and a new religion. As I saw the spiritual darkness and legalism around me, the Lord burdened my heart for Muslims.

Since then, it has been my passion and my joy to learn more about Islam and to understand the rich cultures that come with it. As a double major in Middle Eastern Studies and Religious Studies, I have taken almost every class about Islam that UVA offers! I’ve also taken Arabic, which has helped me befriend many Muslim women during my time in college. They are dear to me heart—not only because I love to spend time with them, but also because I long to introduce them to Jesus their Redeemer.

Unshaken and Unpersuaded

Every class, however, has been a spiritual battle because I must filter the things I am taught and test them against the gospel and the Scriptures. Academia, especially in my chosen subjects, does not take Christianity seriously, so I feel the immense spiritual weight of these matters. I often leave class frustrated by the discussion or grieved by how blinded Muslims are to the truth.

Nevertheless, my studies have been beautifully redemptive. I have learned to cling to my only source of hope in the face of the turmoil in the Middle East. By God’s grace, I have remained unshaken and unpersuaded by this religion. Comparing my faith to another religion has also led me to worship the true character of God as he reveals himself in the Bible and to treasure his work through redemptive history.

Receiving in Order to Give

While in college, the Lord has laid on my heart the desire to go into ministry, too. I have fallen in love with Jesus and his Word and have come to delight in prayer. And I long for others to know the same. Next year, I will be interning with Reformed University Fellowship (RUF) at Emory, where I am excited to work with the students that I have yet to meet. In reflecting on my own time with RUF at UVA, I see how God transformed my love for him and how he will use that to shape my work with others.

I grew up as a pastor’s kid and, although I loved it, I realized later that I had a lot of head knowledge about faith and did things out of duty and expectation. Through RUF, the Lord has opened my eyes to God’s grace so that I have been able to see how it permeates my life and transforms my heart so that I can love and care for people because of Jesus. Now, as I look toward my place in ministry, I am excited to learn the balance between boldness and humility that pours forth out of my joy in the gospel that is brought through the freeing power of grace.

The Power of a New Affection

As I prayerfully prepare for my time at Emory, I have been meditating on a verse from the hymn “Hast Thou Heard Him, Seen Him, Known Him,” which is about idolatry and the power of a new affection. The words are: “What can strip the seeming beauty from the idols of the earth? / Not a sense of right or duty, but the sign of peerless worth.”

These words are a constant reminder of how I want my work and service for God’s kingdom to be driven by looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. I cannot love or listen out of duty. I cannot encourage and speak truth out of fear or pride. Entering into this next season of ministry, I pray that the Lord will cultivate these gifts in me as I befriend and care for younger women. I am confident that the Lord will daily reveal his grace to me, that it may spill out in all that I do and how I view my work. This grace means that, even though my vocation is closely tied to my faith, I cannot measure my worth by my effectiveness in having the right answers or serving student’s needs. Those idols of success must be smashed. May I live in God’s grace, rejoicing that he delights to use me to bring his sheep into the fold!

Pursuing Law as Mission

Michael O’Neal is a graduating senior at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. While in college, Michael joined the Church at Brook Hills and participated in Campus Outreach Summer Beach Project, varsity football, and Sigma Nu fraternity. After graduation he will attend law school.

Best Laid Plans

When I entered the University of Alabama, I planned on walking on to the football team, majoring in athletic training, and eventually becoming a physical therapist. After one semester, though, my plans were crushed. Not only did I not make the football team, I also didn’t find my coursework to be intellectually challenging or theologically nurturing.

So I changed my plans. I transferred to Samford, where I earned a starting spot on the football team. Also, instead of studying athletic training and becoming a physical therapist, I decided to follow in the footsteps of one of my closest spiritual mentors—major in philosophy, attend seminary, and enter full-time vocational ministry.

The Real Change

What really was changing, though, was not my plan, but me. God was working on my identity and my heart. Through my lack of success in football, God was humbling me by demonstrating the power and beauty of his sovereignty and the futility of my rebellious efforts against it. I had hewed for myself a broken cistern of college football, and God was gracious to deny my heart’s idolatrous desires for self-promoting athletic success.

Also, through serving as the president of my fraternity, God was revealing to me that I was not as suited for full-time vocational ministry as I once thought. Through this work, I began a slow transition from seeing myself as a pastor or biblical counselor to seeing myself as a lawyer or advocate. To me, these different industries—church and law—seemed like polar opposites. One seemed spiritual and pure, and the other seemed secular and dishonest. As I spoke with local attorneys, though, I began to realize that the good news of Jesus Christ is for all people—not just for the Samaritan woman, but for the suit-wearing professional, too.

Middle East Opportunities

What solidified my decision to forgo a Masters of Divinity and pursue a Juris Doctor was my recent experience in the Middle East. During a conversation with some full-time missionaries, I learned that long-term access to unreached people groups may be easier to attain with a law degree than with a seminary degree. They told me that getting the gospel to hard-to-reach places may not happen by professionals with specifically Christian graduate degrees, but by, say, lawyers who specialize in oil and petroleum law.

I also talked with a young man who was about to begin working for BP Global. Here was a young professional halfway across the world who was about to start working for a company with a gas station five minutes from my house in Alabama.

Through these conversations, God showed me that he has made plain the places and opportunities. I needed nothing more than the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20) to know that I was called to make disciples of all nations and nothing other than my iPhone to discover where those nations are.

Into the Great Wide Open

For now, I’m convinced that going into law is the way that I can best steward the abilities God has given me. Whether he calls me to work at a firm here in the States or abroad, I pray that he will make his name known and holy in my life.

When I consider the possibility of working abroad in places that are shrouded in false religiosity or adamant atheism, I treasure God’s words to Paul: “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.” (Acts 18:10) If he sends me, I will go knowing that he has people in cities all over the world.

As I enter an industry that is filled with temptation—as all industries are—I pray that God would “lead [me] not into temptation, but deliver [me] from evil.” (Matthew 6:13) I do not want to fall into the pit of pride and worldly prosperity. So I pray that God would humble me by deepening my understanding of my utter dependence on him and softening my heart toward those who do not yet know the fullness of knowing him. I look forward to being an instrument in the Redeemer’s hands—as he continually changes me, carries me daily by his incarnating love, and uses me to love others to life in him.

Studying the Intricate Design of the Human Body

Asia Major-Waithe is a graduating senior at Pennsylvania State University in State College, Pennsylvania. She was born in Jamaica, New York, and raised in Elmont, Long Island. While in college, Asia played Division 1 rugby, volunteered with Big Brothers Big Sisters, and worked part time as a student loans counselor, group fitness instructor, and personal trainer. Upon graduation, she plans to continue her work as a personal trainer.

Upside-Down and Inside-Out

I have always loved sports—basketball, volleyball, track, and—my favorite—soccer. So when I came to PSU, I went to the Women’s Rugby team tryouts to support my roommates. It wasn’t too long, though, before I joined the team myself. At that point, although I didn’t know it, God was changing my story.

A few months into my freshman year, one of my teammates shared the gospel with me, and I became a Christ-follower. God turned my life upside-down and inside-out.

Studying Kinesiology

Playing sports fuels my affection for Kinesiology, which is the study of human movement. You may think—as I once did—that kinesiology is just anatomy with a little bit of physics. But it is so much more! Human beings are intricately designed and wonderfully complex. Although kinesiologists and scientists have been studying the body for thousands of years, we still have no idea how, or even why, things work the way they do sometimes.

After my rugby career ended, God provided another avenue to continue physical fitness. I started instructing High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) classes and doing personal training at a gym in State College. Not only do I get to interact with God’s creation on a daily basis, but I also get to help people achieve their fitness goals!

Exercise Is Medicine

I agree with the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), whose leadership coined the phrase—“Exercise Is Medicine.” If we—as a country—exercised as recommended, I don’t think we would be facing the current obesity epidemic. Moreover, even though people are now living longer thanks to new medical advances, they are not necessarily enjoying the lives they are living. I want to be a part of the healing process of this brokenness—to increase the longevity and enjoyment of life.

God has truly given me a heart for people, especially children. It brings me great joy to see the look on my clients’ faces when they are able to accomplish something that seemed impossible only a few months ago.

Senior Year

Our church has a program for graduating seniors called SeniorEXIT. It is designed to discuss all the major aspects of life you should know about as you are entering into the next chapter of life.

For example, during one of the retreats I was asked, “What would you do if your boss told you to ignore the policies and follow his instructions?” This is a hugely important question, especially for people like me whose work is centered on relationships. People generally want to take the easy, or less strenuous, way at times. Fitness professionals know, though, that physical training takes time—and mental training can take even more! Intrinsic motivation is important because, ultimately, you have to work for what you want. Losing weight, running a half-marathon, gaining the ability to walk without assistance—all of these require the training of the body and the mind. That is why we cannot forego objective truth (“the policies”) for the sake of subjective truth (“his instructions”).

Everything for His Glory

My campus ministry, Calvary Elements, has been a huge catalyst for my growth with Jesus. A few months ago, we talked about academic faithfulness. Pastor Dan Nold preached about the intentionality of God—that where he places you is not an accident. He also talked about how loving your neighbor and serving your community are biblical principles. This motivated me even more to pursue a career in kinesiology—for we are called to do everything to the glory of God. He has blessed me with a passion for the movement of the human body, and I want to bring his kingdom into the fitness industry!

After graduation in August, I intend to continue personal training and hope to attend physical therapy school next year. Although I sometimes feel led to other vocations—like doing missions work with orphanages—I am excited about this upcoming chapter of my life. I am waiting with great anticipation for the work that God is going to do in me so he can accomplish what he wants to through me.

Is there enough evidence for us to believe the Gospels?

In an age of faith deconstruction and skepticism about the Bible’s authority, it’s common to hear claims that the Gospels are unreliable propaganda. And if the Gospels are shown to be historically unreliable, the whole foundation of Christianity begins to crumble.
But the Gospels are historically reliable. And the evidence for this is vast.
To learn about the evidence for the historical reliability of the four Gospels, click below to access a FREE eBook of Can We Trust the Gospels? written by New Testament scholar Peter J. Williams.

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