A New Wisconsin Tradition

I feel like an outsider here.

When I tell people that I'm from a state school and not a Christian school, reactions range from surprise to raised eye-brows - especially when you say you're from the University of Wisconsin.

I love Madison, and I love the UW. I remember several times, walking home at night or to class in the afternoon and being overwhelmed with joy and gratitude that the Lord had brought me to Madison and that He had been waiting for me there.

I grew up in the church, and who knows how God might have worked in my life had I gone to a different school, but I think I needed the experience of going to Madison to see Christianity in a different light - that it's not a small, exclusive group of Christians who keep to themselves but it can be a community of cheese-eating, beer-drinking, Badger sports-loving people who are crazy about Jesus and bent on living counter-culturally in a place where you might not expect to find God. But it was there, in the heart of a liberal party school, that God found me.

It's not that I have anything against Christian schools - I'm currently attending one. Both state schools and Christian schools have their pros and cons. But going to Madison exposed me to different kinds of people, ideas, and real-life situations that I might not otherwise have gotten. I also got to be a part of sharing the good news of the Gospel with some of the top college students in the world - the next CEOs, politicians, and leaders of our country. I will probably be in the minority of Christian parents who encourage their kids to go to a large, state school.

Who knows, maybe my experience was the exception to the rule, but I will forever look back fondly on my time in Madison and will love many of the close friends that I made there for all of eternity. I'm incredibly grateful for the people that made my experience what it was and that I got to be a part of the University of Wisconsin's newest tradition - men and women who leave a legacy on campus and carry the Gospel to the ends of the Earth!

We're Badgers and we GO!

On Wisconsin!

-CK