FOREVER CHANGED
Worship, calling and life direction — all reshaped by God’s hand. Discover how students like Reyna Golson and Hugo Cerrato are being forever changed through moments of surrender, truth and the generosity that makes it all possible.
Freshman year, Reyna Golson ’26 walked down the chapel aisle with thousands of singing voices shaking the floor beneath her. Dr. Thomas White, Cedarville’s president, had just given an altar call in a special worship service that much of the student body attended, even though it was voluntary. Her friend had grabbed her for support, and while Golson went with her right away, she doubted herself. “I felt so inadequate,” Golson said. “The Lord had not used me like that before.”
Golson and her friend huddled together on the stage steps, yelling back and forth to hear each other over the singing, but a few minutes later, the friends embraced and wept together.
When the song ended, Dr. White addressed the crowd. “We just had somebody get saved during that song. Let’s praise the Lord!”
The room erupted; students shouted hallelujah and clapped, joining the angels in rejoicing over a life forever transformed. Golson remembers being overwhelmed by the moment. “It struck me: This is the most important thing. One single person among thousands giving her life to the Lord.”
That night of worship continued for two hours, and while it changed Golson’s friend’s life, it also changed hers. Growing up in South Africa, she and her sisters were the only Christians in their school, and they watched as peers indulged in alcohol, drugs, and other vices. The worship culture on display at Cedarville gave Golson a different experience with her generation. “I got to see students my age so excited and on fire for the Lord. It was definitely a pivotal moment.”
That kind of life transformation is at the heart of Cedarville University’s mission.
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Even if Hugo Cerrato ’27 never attended Cedarville as a student, the University would have had a lasting impact on him. As he neared the end of high school, Cerrato was struggling with what his future might look like. His sister was already a student at Cedarville, but paying a second tuition would be difficult for his family financially.
One day, he listened online to a chapel service where Dr. Deforia Lane, a Cedarville trustee, sang a song to encourage students to entrust their plans to the Lord. The words became part of the wallpaper on Cerrato’s computer: “It's not in trying, but in trusting. It's not in running, but in resting. It's not in wondering, but in praying, that we find the strength of the Lord.”
God used the song to work in his anxious heart. “I needed to hear those words,” Cerrato said.
Through the kindness of donors, Cerrato was able to obtain enough financial help to attend Cedarville, where God’s work in his heart would abound.
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A year or so later, Golson, a communication major, sat in a Theology of Worship class, wondering if she was in the right place. Her classmates were deeper into Cedarville’s music scene than she was; many were worship majors who played in chapel or on the traveling HeartSong ministry teams. She worried the class would be more about the music side of worship than the theology behind it.
Her fears were quickly alleviated. Golson spent the whole semester furiously scribbling notes about the Scriptures’ teachings on the Sabbath, singing, prayer, fellowship, and other worship topics. But one day, Dr. Tom Hutchison, Professor of Educational Ministries and Applied Theology, said something that made Golson raise her hand. She needed to hear it again.
“He said turning a light off when you go to bed is worship because you are trusting the Lord will continue to have control over the world and over your life as you sleep.” Golson never forgot it. “It completely altered how I think about trusting the Lord.”
The lessons from that class did more than change her walk with the Lord; they inspired her to dedicate her future to Him. She hopes to use her communication skills in a ministry setting after she graduates.
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Cerrato loved Honduras, his home country, and knew he wanted to use public service to help his people thrive. But he struggled to know what role he could play because of long-standing problems in his native land.
“Honduras has been misgoverned for a long time,” Hugo said. “A lot of corruption. A lot of things that could have been done better.” That corruption has sometimes occurred at the highest levels of government. In 2024, the Associated Press reported that former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez had been sentenced to 45 years in prison for helping traffickers smuggle 400 tons of cocaine into the United States.
Cerrato questioned whether a Christian could serve well in government. “I’ve always been interested in politics, but I didn’t think there was anything good in it.”
Then Cerrato took Politics and American Culture, a general education course, with Dr. Mark Caleb Smith, who serves as the Dean of the School of Arts and Humanities and Director of the Center for Political Studies.
“I learned there could be virtue and justice and integrity in politics if you have the right mindset to serve God first and then serve the people. That shifted my perspective.”
The biblical perspective on public service has continued to shape his views in both his majors: international studies and economics. Cedarville has also provided Cerrato with opportunities to put this Christ-centered mindset into practice through the Model United Nations (UN) team, where he has seen plenty of success. In 2024, he received both the Outstanding Delegation and Outstanding Delegate awards at the National Model United Nations conference in New York.
Now, Cerrato has grand ambitions to serve in the Honduran congress, maybe even as the country’s president, but Cedarville has taught him Who deserves his ultimate devotion. “I’m an ambassador for Christ. Then I’m an ambassador for the people.”
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Transformed perspectives. Transformed futures. Transformed lives. For students like Golson, Cerrato, and many others, the spiritual growth that transforms their lives at Cedarville is only possible through the kindness of donors, and it does not go unnoticed.
“I would not have been able to do these things without the scholarships. It makes me tear up,” Cerrato said. “Their generosity is not in vain.”