Day 32 – Emmanuel

When Emmanuel is guiding your life, it is certain to be filled with memorable and purposeful experiences.

My mother had recently joined the Seventh-day Adventist church when I had just turned ten. I liked what certain church girls were telling me about their school in southwestern Michigan. I had always attended public school, but from that young age, I was determined to give this Adventist school a try when I went to college.

My mother had graduated from an upstate New York teacher training school in Cortland, New York. My father expected I would attend there as well. He wasn’t excited about the noisy enthusiasm around this Andrews University in Michigan! I did not stop talking about Andrews until the day I left home to go there!

The people were friendly and Christian. I liked it more every day! The dean suggested I dorm with Doris. Her parents were missionaries in India. So that brought her to Andrews where she had relatives. Doris introduced me to her cousins at the school. They have all remained my lifelong friends.

Doris, her cousin Kirsten, and I all decided to work on our conversational French at an Adventist school nestled in the foothills of the French alps. It would be an intense summer session in French. Kirsten and I loved the people and location so much that we stayed for our junior year of college as well. It was more affordable too! The teachers at both schools were excellent. The schools had academic ties, so we could transfer credits back and forth. We were each assigned French-speaking roommates.

I liked my roommates very much! Rosvita was from Basel, Switzerland. Her father was pastor of the Basel Adventist church. Her sister, Lilliana, roomed with other girls at the school. She invited us to her home at Christmas. We had a warmhearted and wonderful time because of the graciousness of her family.

Our university back in Michigan is named after John Nevins Andrews. His name honors a pioneer Adventist author, administrator, and missionary. Rosvita’s pastor/father took time out of his busy schedule to take Kirsten and me to the Basel cemetery where John Andrews is interred. The night before, we had a snowstorm and we had to dust off several tombstones before we located him!

Our school at Collonges-sous-Saleve, France, issued campus leave forms called “carte de sortie” to faithful and responsible students. We loved to run a mile down the seleve mountain to the Swiss boarder at Croix de Rozon, to catch a bus into historic and beautiful Geneva. As students, we didn’t do much shopping but did miles of sightseeing: The Reformers’ Churches, the Reformation Walls, the Old City, strolling along Lake Geneva. Anchored in the center of the lake is the fountain. It is among the tallest fountains in the world! We could see it from our campus, beautifully illumined at night.

In closing I want to tell you about my second roommate, Ghislain. One day, a relative brought her to the school to register. She had no religious background at all! I tried to encourage her with prayer and sharing Bible verses. It was exciting to see her draw closer to Jesus. She chose to participate in the large outdoor student baptism at the end of the school year. She came to me with a big hug and said “Linda, God sent you here this year to show me Jesus’ love!”

Prayer 32 says, “May I learn to see those living around me as neighbors, and may the word neighbor come to mean ‘beloved.'”

Ghislain became beloved to me and amazingly, through our friendship, she recognized that she is beloved to God.

Indeed, Emmanuel was and IS with us!