When Judith Brizuela decided to be a translator for a team of missionaries from Mountain Home Baptist Church of Mountain Home, Ark., she had no idea it would start a journey that took her from Honduras to Ouachita.
“I went to work as a translator; it was the first trip I ever went on,” Brizuela said.
Tommy Cunningham, pastor of Mountain Home Baptist Church, had no idea that when he and his wife, Susan, took a team on their church’s yearly medical mission project to San Pedro Sula, Honduras, last January that God would use them to help bring Brizuela to Ouachita.
“There is no doubt in my mind that God put Judith in our path,” Cunningham said in an interview with the Arkansas Baptist News.
Brizuela had already applied to the University of the Ozarks, Harding and John Brown, but many members of the Mountain Home team are Ouachita alumni and convinced her to consider OBU.
“When I learned Judith would like to attend a Christian college….I immediately thought she would be a great prospect for Ouachita,” said Wayne Clinkingbeard, a 1955 graduate of Ouachita.
When the Cunninghams and Clinkingbeard returned home they immediately began to look for ways to get Brizuela to Ouachita.
Cunningham contacted Ouachita officials to find out what it would take to get Brizuela here.
Ouachita offered her a merit scholarship and a global scholarship. Mountain Home Church members and OBU alumni raised over $6,000 while another donor gave $1,000 to add to the aid offered.
In the meantime, Brizuela had to take numerous tests including the TOEFL and the SAT.
Brizuela’s parents were apprehensive about sending their daughter to the United States to study. “At first they [her parents] were afraid, because they wouldn’t know the people or the environment,” Brizuela said.
However, after meeting members of the Mountain Home team and praying about it, Brizuela said “they were confident. God gave them that peace [about it].”
Her parents have also visited the school and now feel “good” about her being here, she added.
“I’m actually loving it,” Brizuela said of life at Ouachita. “People are really nice…the difference [here is that] people –even though we’re strangers—will still give you a smile, or a “hello.” It’s great, and [because] we’re in a Christian environment it’s even better”
Attending a bi-lingual high school has helped Brizuela transition to American college life and she has plans to complete graduate school after her four years at Ouachita. A psychology major, she wants to return to Honduras and work “with children that have learning disabilities, but psychology offers you a lot of opportunities to work in several environments,” she said.
