There are a lot of reasons I love Hope College. Two of my favorite reasons:
(1) the people of Hope, and (2) the way God moves through them.
Let me give you a little taste of why in this throwback story to just before the semester break…
It’s Friday, the week before Finals, and I am making my way home from my last class of the semester with my friends.
It had been a rough week.
My roommate, Kristin, was doing the last 2 weeks of school on powerful pain medicine and crutches coming off of knee surgery the week before. One afternoon I couldn’t help but cry when she came back into our room and I tried to answer her “what’s wrong?” with how she is just amazing and I just feel so bad and I don’t know how she does it.
Fast forward to the moment when we were stopped on the sidewalk on Friday afternoon by three girls.
They were working on a project together called Humans of Holland which was inspired by the popular picture blog Humans of New York (which has featured a father of a Hope College student from Vietnam!). The one girl spoke with us asking Kristin about her leg and why she needed surgery. Then they asked if there was anything they could pray about for us.
As they prayed over Kristin’s knee I couldn’t help but start crying once again that week. This time it wasn’t from stress or sadness or awe at how awesome my roommate is, but in wonder and gratitude at the kind spirits on Hope’s campus. People who excitedly share God’s love and call on his name for the benefit of some strangers on a sidewalk just as they would for a friend. And I could not explain how thankful I was that they took the time to care about my friend. Instead I just assured them that I was actually really happy, I just didn’t look like it, and asked if I could give them all a hug.
It’s the moments like this, the chance encounters that aren’t really chance at all, but reminders about how we all ended up here on this beautiful little campus in western Michigan. God is moving – even during finals week – and I am continually thankful that he brought me here to Hope to learn more about him, myself, this world, and some academic things along the way.
Thanks for reading,
-Erin