Photos by Ralph Freso / Slideshow
Thursday was I love you and goodbye.
I’m glad you taught me __
I’m thankful that you __
I’ll call you when __
A paper with those words was given to each student to fill out and hand to their parents and loved ones at the inaugural Welcome Week event called Lope Family Sendoff in Sunset Auditorium at Grand Canyon University.
Audrey Boberg didn’t need a prompt. It was spoken over and over in the months prior. The freshman was draped over her mother, Jenna, amid two high school friends and their moms who stood in a circle.
“I feel like it is a celebration,” Jenna said. “Each of us had a big journey to get here, some trials and tribulations. Audrey was quite sick. We didn’t know if she would be able to go to college, let alone across the country.”
Audrey said she suffered a series of chronic infections that she couldn’t shake, and then her body went into autonomic failure, when “temperature control, balance, everything you don’t think about, your body just stops working. I had to learn to walk.”
She spent a month at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, a couple hours from the groups’ hometown of Waconia, Minnesota. She missed 6 ½ months of high school.
“She went from a two-sport varsity athlete to her brother carrying her down the stairs if she wanted to leave her room,” Jenna said.
But a dream persisted.
A couple years before, Audrey and her schoolmate friends, Hailey Getz and Shelby Hagedorn, were visiting the Grand Canyon when they saw a billboard for Grand Canyon University. They have a university in the Grand Canyon? They looked it up to discover it was in Phoenix, and thought, “that’s odd.” That led to a trip to the college.
They walked on campus, and it felt like home. We are going to Arizona, they promised one another.
Then the illness.
That’s when Jenna Boberg joined Hailey’s mom, Sheila Getz, and Shelby’s mom, Jodi Hagedorn, in their Bible study group. They prayed hard. Jodi was baptized. Audrey slowly improved.
“They gave us strength when we needed it, to lift us up,” Jenna said. “God’s hand has been in all of it. It’s how He works.”
Audrey is doing well, though she has been diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), a chronic condition of the body’s autonomic nervous system.
It will not stop her. She begins study to become a teacher one day. There is no doubt she will call her mom.
Along with 367 others in the auditorium, they sang worship songs – sons sitting between mom and dad, daughters’ heads cradled in the neck of their graying fathers, moms caressing the backs of their sons like they did when they were toddlers.
“As soon as the worship started, I felt the Holy Spirit in this room,” Jenna Boberg said. “I couldn’t stop shaking. All the trepidation – about leaving our daughters at the southern border when we are on the northern border – it feels like God was saying, ‘I am here.’”
The group sang loud, “In my Father’s house/There’s a place for me/I’m a child of God …”
“I am scared,” Audrey said. “I’m not gonna lie.”
What Audrey jokingly called a “cryfest” continued.
There was joy in an event that Dean of Students and University Pastor Dr. Tim Griffin described as a rite of passage in parenthood, when “you are going to be hugging them, kissing them, and wandering off to your car and leaving them here.
“This is such an incredible stage of life. Families, I hope you are prayed up and you’ll pray for them on a regular basis as you leave them here on campus and they begin to find a way into a new stage of adulthood.”
There was worry, as parents do. One mother said that she only hopes that when her son is alone and struggling he doesn’t get discouraged but seeks assistance to get on a pathway to success.
There were tears, as parents shed for children in good times, too.
Joey Weertz sat between dad Chris and mom Jamie. Chris is a firefighter near Detroit, Michigan. “I’m not even going to be able to talk,” he said, clearing his throat. “I don’t think we realize it …” before giving up an attempt.
Mom Jamie picked it up, talking of her son, “He is very sensitive and caring, wears his heart on his sleeve and is a great leader who tries to role model Christ.”
Dad recovered, his voice suddenly strong.
“He leaves it all on the field, no matter what he is doing. Anything in life, he is all in, so we are confident he will be all in when he is here.”
Joey was asked if he wrote anything on the slip of paper in his hands, the prompt to fill out what he was taught and thankful for. It was blank. Without hesitation, he just looked at his parents and said this:
“Dear mom and dad. I’m glad you taught me how to live out my own faith. I’m glad you prepared me to live on my own.
“I’m thankful that I know you guys will always be there to support me and my decisions.
“I will call you when I miss you guys or something new happens or when I am excited about something. I’ll call you when I want to feel close to home.”
Grand Canyon University senior writer Mike Kilen can be reached at [email protected]
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GCU News: Welcome to the club, all 110 of them
GCU News: Freshman enjoys spirit of move-in during university's milestone 75th year
GCU News: 75th anniversary brings largest enrollment ever at Grand Canyon University
GCU News: Welcome Week operations mastermind helps keep things running smoothly
GCU News: Sports club creates own legacy with third female president
GCU News: Message to students at emotional commissioning: 'You are not alone'
GCU News: Campus celebrates 75 years with surprise at move-in
GCU News: Welcome Week is thrice as nice thanks to trio of big events
GCU News: GCU's Welcome Week spirit anchored by faith
GCU News: These students came to play at Intramural Sports Field Night
GCU News: Welcome Week Monday slideshow
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GCU News: Welcome Back at the CAC, Silent Disco, Project L
GCU News: Spirit rally for President Brian Mueller
GCU News: Intramural Sports Field Night
