After leaving college in Louisiana to return to the Navajo Nation and bread chicken for his cousin at a Tuba City, Arizona, fast food restaurant, Caleb Tsosie was demoralized.
“I felt defeated. I felt broken,” he said. "I felt like there were so many things I was doing wrong that it was not reflecting what God had for me. As I breaded chicken. I prayed to God and asked, ‘What are you doing? What’s happening?’ And I did not get an answer from God.”
Tsosie realized he would bread chicken to the best of his ability while possessing the heart of Joseph, who was imprisoned unfairly but was committed to being the best prisoner.
Tsosie’s commitment led to a food warehouse job, and then a job at local hospital as an environmental services technician for two years.
“I felt God told me to go back to school,” Tsosie said. “And when I came back to school, I had much more appreciation for my studies and life in general.”
That appreciation carried over to Grand Canyon University, where he became more than a student in the College of Theology. He serves on a student advisory board that assists the college's faculty and administration stay connected to students.
He's also enrolled in the Barnabas Pastoral Program, in which students earn their bachelor's degree and master of divinity in just five years, with the final year tuition-free, thanks to a $3.2 million grant from the Kern Family Foundation.
Outside campus, Tsosie is involved with Revolution Midtown, a church connected to his Navajo Nation community.
His commitments persuaded staff members to select him to deliver the speech at the first of five GCU Spring 2025 Commencement ceremonies for ground students spanning three days. He will give his address at 10 a.m. Wednesday at Global Credit Union Arena, when students from the Theology, Natural Sciences and Engineering and Technology colleges will walk the stage as they complete their degree programs.
“He’s been very passionate about connecting across denominations,” his college's assistant dean, Peter Anderson, said. “But he’s also been very interested in helping students who don’t know Jesus and end up at GCU, being as kind and compassionate and engaged in helping those students into our university culture.”
Tsosie plans to incorporate part of his speech in his native Navajo language.
“That introduction is who we are, but I more so want to use that as a bounce pad from, 'This is my uniqueness, this is my culture,'” Tsosie said. “Yes, this is different from everyone else, yes, but ultimately my differences are not supposed to bring isolation, because I am also unified under all of you guys within the body of Christ.”
Tsosie enrolled at GCU in 2022, when he was scheduled to graduate from Jimmy Swaggart Bible College.
“And I had to start from scratch,” he said, adding that he decided to leave college because he was feeling “away from God.”
David Phillips, his cousin who hired him to prepare chicken within 24 hours after returning from Louisiana, will enroll at GCU next fall after accompanying Tsosie on his journey from the reservation to Phoniex.
“There's a lot of speed bumps here and there, but I think it was definitely like a lot of community and support from my family and my cousin, where we kind of handled it together,” Tsosie said.
As he approached his high school graduation, he thought GCU might be too expensive and too academically challenging.
“I kind of downplayed myself, like I can never get in. I can never really be anything,” Tsosie said. “There's definitely a lot of self-pity when it comes to Native Americans (from) reservations.”
But GCU turned out to be an ideal fit once he enrolled, declaring “I couldn't find a more perfect college or university in the entirety of the U.S.”
GCU has made me into a Christian that has made me ever so diligent and wanting unity in the faith because of the uniqueness of GCU's interdenominational sphere. There's not really a university on the plant that's really like this college.
He related that his professors have taught him mentorship, life lessons, humility and to engage more within the community.
“GCU has made me into a Christian that has made me ever so diligent and wanting unity in the faith because of the uniqueness of GCU’s interdenominational sphere,” Tsosie said. “There's not really a university on the planet that's really like this college.”
Phillips can attest to Tsosie’s commitment to making an impact once he returned to college.
“I watched him during one shift shortly after returning to Louisiana,” Phillips said. “He said, ‘I know God has more for me.'”
Phillips added that his cousin swayed him to believe in God, inviting him to fellowship sessions and bringing him to church without forcing him.
“Eventually, that’s what led me to loving music and loving worship,” Phillips said. “He’s helped me along with God. To this day, he’s a good mentor. I see him as a mentor and brother.”
Once Tsosie completes the Barnabas Pastoral Program, he has prayed about pursuing a doctoral degree, “depending on what God has or God opens the door to.”
For now, he has a busy schedule, and his Google calendar resembles a multicolored birthday candle with those colors representing a plethora of meetings and classes.
“He has the Barnabas Pastorem group commitments and the lab commitments on Mondays,” Anderson said. “He has the full set of classes because they have to complete their academic program in an accelerated way, then he has the Barnabas forums, the extra co-circular events a few evenings throughout the semester, and then he’s winding up into internships.”
And he still finds time to work at his local church.
“He’s present, he’s active and he’s giving good feedback,” Anderson said. “He’s not just a warm body in our student advisory board meetings. He’s a good conversation partner and is clearly there.”
Don’t worry. Tsosie will take time to celebrate his transformation from preparing chicken to college graduate with a renewed faith.
“I do believe that one of the spiritual disciplines is definitely celebration and fellowship,” Tsosie said. “And so there are definitely times where I do take time to celebrate with family and fellowship with other believers. It’s absolutely essential because most of the time, your answer is not found in some miraculous healing.
“Sometimes God has given you the answers through community and family. And so we'll be having all my siblings coming down with my parents. We're definitely all looking forward to it. We all love to spend time with each other.”
GCU News senior writer Mark Gonzales can be reached at Mark.Gonzales@gcu.edu
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