Hello Bryan College

I am most definitely a product of the public school systems. I tell you this because while I once thought that public-schoolers were by far the majority, God led me to a college where for the first time in my life, this was not the case. Bryan College is a nondemoninational liberal arts college in the tiny town of Dayton, TN, and it's student population is 2/3 home schoolled and private schoolled students. I wasn't truly set on attending a Christian college; although, I applied to a few along with some Alabama state schools. But honestly, I never saw myself at Bryan. My dad heard about Bryan via the Moody Broadcasting station (88.9) to which he listens religiously, and he suggested I at least apply because it's located in the mountains. I only visited one time, and that was for a scholarship weekend where a couple hundred prospective students interviewed for about ten Presidential academic scholarships. I felt totally out of place the entire weekend; it was like an odd form of culture-shock. At the banquet the night before the interviews, I watched the chorale singers make expressions I've never seen before, and I remember leaning over to my parents and promising I would never bring home a Bryan boy. The next morning, I tried out for Bryan's soccer team, and then I went to my interview in the afternoon. Because I had try-outs, my interview was the last one of the day, which I knew is never good for an interviewee because the panel just wants to go home. But this is what I remember...I bent down on my knees and pressed my face in a chair in the lobby outside the room I was about to enter to face the scholarship committee, and I prayed a simple prayer:

"Father God, I know within my heart that I cannot do this without you. I am inadequate to receive this scholarship, yet I know that my family cannot afford to send me to a private school unless I receive it and the soccer one as well. This is beyond what I can make happen on my own strength, so I surrender it all to you now, Lord. If I am awarded both scholarships, I will know that Bryan is where you desire me to be. Otherwise, I will trust that you have somewhere else in mind. Grant me your peace, in Jesus' name. Amen."

I opened my eyes and felt confidence and tranquility. My interview went very well, and when it was over, Biology Professor Steve Barnett told me, "Miss Watson, before you came in here, I already knew who I was going to pick, but you just might have changed my mind." He had been quite intimidating with his skeptical interrogations, so his comment puzzled me as I exited the room and started the hour and a half drive back home. I honestly didn't think about Bryan College again after that day, save for a few calls from the soccer coach Mark Sauve about scholarship money...until I got a phone call two months later from Admissions. I almost dropped the phone when the man told me that I had received the Presidential scholarship. Suddenly, the cloud of uncertainty that had been covering my future cleared as I remembered my prayer and realized that God had answered it clearly.

I would be leaving for Bryan in August, where I knew not a soul. Not only that, but I felt the Holy Spirit tugging my heart to major in biology, the most infamous major at Bryan, and to do so as a collegiate athlete sounded like suicide to most. Nevertheless, I obeyed, changing my major from English to biology right at the last minute. I had no idea what the next four years would hold...and honestly, if I had, I might have chickened out. The next three years would soon become the hardest years of my life, during which I would be transformed, purified and challenged like I'd never been before.