By Ella Alencar, Staff Writer
This year, the Wheaton College Billy Graham Scholarship Program celebrates its 50th anniversary. The program is hosting a reunion for alumni scholars to reconnect, share experiences and rejoice in chapel. Additional events throughout the week will give undergraduate students and the general public opportunities to meet the alumni.
Founded in 1975, the program is designed for “Christian leaders from around the world to earn advanced training to enhance the ministry into which God has called them.” Approximately 1,178 students have “benefited from the program.” Though the scholarship is named after the evangelist and alumnus Billy Graham ‘43, it was an anonymous Christian businessman who set up the endowed funds for the program.
A distinctive feature of the program is that the scholarships are loan-based. Scholars apply for educational loans to cover enrollment costs, and the program forgives 25% of that debt every year they spend ministering internationally after graduation.
April McLaughlin, Billy Graham Scholarship Program coordinator, explains that these scholarships are investments in Wheaton’s vision to promote Christ and His kingdom worldwide.
McLaughlin describes her job as “definitely not just handing money out, like an impersonal financial number that pops up on the student account.”
“I consider it a ministry, and it was birthed and sustained through prayer,” she said.
This year, the program introduced a new award, the “Global Leader Award,” recognizing remote ministry workers. According to McLaughlin, the mission field is changing, especially for individuals in Bible translation or related spheres.
“If people are doing an amazing online ministry, they might be living in the United States, but they might be impacting a very strategic part of the world,” she said.
Every Thursday morning, Billy Graham Scholars and faculty gather to pray together. Marlon Lahope, a scholar studying Biblical Exegesis, says the scholarship “reminds us that academia is for the church, it’s for the people, it’s for the Kingdom of God.”
Cecilia Mumbi, a second-year Billy Graham scholar studying clinical mental health counseling, believes a holistic approach to her ministry enabled her to reach students in her home country of Zambia. Mumbi said the alumni meeting, “could be a good place for discerning what God is calling you to as an individual.”
