Dear Rhonda and Kim,

My decision to come to Spring Arbor was one that I have never been more proud of. I had originally cancelled Spring Arbor out of my college considerations because there is no straight “journalism” major. My mother, who was just as impressed by the literature from SAU that I received, convinced me that it would be a good idea to check it out before I made my final decision. I came on an Arbor Day and God just said to me, “Megan this is where you need to be.” My mom felt it too. She told me that she couldn’t be more happy with my decision for a college. She knew that I would enjoy it here. There were several pros: the food, the community, chapel, distance from home and the list goes on and on. I feel totally at home here and as I write this I’ve only been here for around 24 hours. It is unbelievable how welcome I feel here and how even though I miss my family, I’m glad that I’m starting this new chapter in my life.

As I mentioned during our M&M game and during our faculty visit, I have recently returned from a mission trip to Zambia, Africa that turned my spiritual world upside down. I have never felt the need to rely on God so fully, so much so that I was scared about how I was going to change when I got to my final destination. This was my second year seeing the life of the people that live in a village in the outskirts of the main cities in a third world country. This trip was extremely hard for me and I believe that it was because of the fact that I was going away to college a few weeks after I returned home. I was homesick for most of the trip, most of the time I cried for my mommy. As we were traveling I was hoping that God would help remind me why I was chosen for this trip and remind me of my purpose while I’m in Zambia. I needed to remember the importance that I was playing in building his kingdom. He showed me exactly what I was looking for the first night after I was done journaling my day. My roommate was still journaling and I began to fill my time with reading my Bible. I didn’t know where to begin so I turned to the back of my Bible to the index. I came upon the Reader’s Helps section and the first category is for God’s promises when you feel and then it lists several different emotions. I didn’t really know what to look for and my eyes fell upon when you are weak. I read the 6 selected passages and the last one was the one that really stuck with me that week. It was 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 which reads “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” The last sentence of the passage really stuck with me all week. It reminded me that I may be weak in other areas of my life, but I will always be strong in my relationship with Jesus Christ and nothing can change that. I adopted that as my life verse, “For when I am weak, then I am strong.” I want to build on the strength that I got from this verse and build on the significance that it played for this particular part of my life. As I miss my family while I’m here, I will be strong in Christ and construct an even stronger relationship with Him through the community here at SAU.

I am a sports fan through and through. Even though I probably could have been recruited to play on the volleyball team (I didn’t put the effort in to pursue the coach and talk to her about playing), I will be looking into participating in the intramurals, anything from Ultimate Frisbee to beach volleyball. I don’t want to miss out on any opportunities to meet new people and get to know people that I might not have walked up to in other situations. I would love to bond with a group of guys while we watch a Tigers’ game in the Lowell lounge, or enjoy a Gilmore Girls marathon with other girls on my floor.

I really would like to become more outgoing. Sure, I seem like an eccentric person, but I really just like to cuddle up in bed, wrapped in a blanket with a book in my hand and a mixed CD playing in the background as I escape to a different world than the one I live in. I want to become a member of the Crusader and potentially share my stories of Africa with the entire SAU student body.

I am completely and totally afraid of failure. I don’t want to fail at anything that I try at SAU. I’m a super competitive person and a very sore loser. I also am worried about fitting in. I’m unique. I’m Megan. I don’t want to have to conform to anything to be liked by anyone. I am a person who can never say no (a habit I inherited from my mother) and I don’t want to say yes to something that will make me like other people. I don’t like attention, but I don’t want to be completely unnoticed by people either. I want to be in the middle. I want to be the grey in a white to black spectrum.

I would love to be able to hold a good GPA, good enough for me to keep my Presidential Scholarship. I want to get everything that I possibly can out of my education at SAU. I want to experience classes that stretch my intellect, classes that build my faith and classes that I just enjoy. My goal is to one day be a journalist of some kind for either a major newspaper or major online writing (with the way technology is going, I may never be a print journalist). After Africa, I realized how much I want to share the things that I see with people. I went home and wrote 5 articles about how Zambia differed from the US for my school newspaper. It was niche there. Before I was an awkward writer who didn’t really have an inspiration, I just wrote what was asked of me. After I had the confidence to write about God in a school that is about three-quarters Muslim and straight out say that people shouldn’t complain about the things that they have. It bothers me that the media determines what is important to us. I want to write the one human interest article (either above the fold or below it) that changes someone’s view of the world and of life. I want to turn someone’s world upside down because I feel like I communicate my point so much better through written words than through speech.

I would love in my time at SAU to become a better reporter. I have a booklist that is ridiculously long and I want to read all of the books on it. I got said book list from Gilmore Girls. I feel that with my chosen major having a large knowledge of different types of books will help me with alluding to them in my writing. I would like to improve on my knowledge of the Bible. I don’t have theological or philosophical classes this semester, but in my free time I want to build on what I already know about the Bible. I could also work on improving my study habits. I’m a procrastinator in every sense of the word.

In my four years at SAU I plan to see myself grow in ways that are so immense and so out of my hands that I can’t even describe them to you in words. For a semester I would love to study abroad in England. I feel like there is such a rich literature history there that I would help me improve my writing. It seems like the perfect fit for me. I don’t know how I’m going to react to being at college and missing important events in my family’s lives, my brother getting his license, my mom’s birthday, etc. So far I’m adjusting well and that is important. I love my roommates and I can’t wait to live out the next 4 years that I have at SAU.

Sincerely,

Megan Filipowski