Totally unexpected. Gratefully relieved. Thoroughly blessed.
Those short phrases, on an emotional level, capture our family's experiences with LeTourneau.
As homeschool parents, my wife Niki and I were very intentional about the rearing of our children. Initially we did not intend to homeschool our kids all the way through high school. However, the more we invested in them, the less we wanted to cede their care, their academic development and their raising "in the fear and admonition of the Lord" to someone else. We did not want to entrust our children to an institution that was not concerned with the fact that all truth is God's truth and that true education can only be achieved in understanding that He is the "unity" and "diversity" (hence the term "university") that we see in creation. Nevertheless, we knew that one day we would have to let them go. We never isolated our children from the world, but we did carefully insulate them; and we were concerned that our gradual introduction of them to the outside world would abruptly end on a curbside at State U.
Our kids have academic aspirations. Our oldest, Taylor, was considering various engineering schools around the country and we visited several. Somewhere along the way we became aware of LeTourneau and, frankly, out of mild curiosity, we decided to arrange a visit. We were blown away.
~
When we arrived, there was a parking space with Taylor's name on it welcoming us to the school. We spent almost the entire afternoon with the dean of the engineering school. He knew every student by name, as well as the projects that they were working on. We saw young men and women doing hands-on engineering to develop solutions for people in need around the world. We discovered that assignments not simply projects to teach engineering but all of them had Kingdom purposes in mind. Needless to say we were impressed.
What is more, we learned that at LeTourneau, as fantastic as the academics are, they take a back seat to the development of the whole person. The dean told Taylor that LeTourneau may not be the place for him, and that what concerned him the most was not that Taylor went to LeTourneau, but that he went where God had purposed him to go.
We drove away from LeTourneau gushing over the experience. Taylor did decide to enroll at LeTourneau, and we continued to be wonderfully impressed by the school.
~
When the day came for our son to move into the dorms, we all felt thoroughly welcomed. During those first hours and days on campus, our son Taylor was welcomed into the student body. The faculty and other leadership groups took him in and started to fill the gap in his life that we were leaving. LeTourneau continued the development and training that we had started as parents, and we knew that God had purposed for him to be there. I have often thought of the contrast between dropping our kids off on the curb of State U, to be exposed immediately and alone to an indifferent world, over and against the reception we received at LeTourneau and how we felt like LETU was picking up where we were leaving off.
~
We now have two sons at LeTourneau. Taylor is an engineer. Tanner is a theologian. Both love the school and are involved in all kinds of activities. One or both of them have done missions and charity work, played intercollegiate sports, worked as an engineering co-op, led student councils and many other activities.
Niki and I are on the Parent Advisory Council because we want to be a part of LeTourneau. We thank God that LeTourneau exists. Finding it was totally unexpected. We are so relieved that someone else out there cares about the growth and holistic development of our kids. And we are thoroughly blessed to be a part of the YellowJacket Nation.
