Reccomendation for Rachel

Dear Scholarship Selection Committee:

I am writing to recommend Rachel Shaheen for one of the Alumni/ae Merit Scholarships. Rachel is an outstanding young woman—personable, caring, bright and attractive. My wife and I met her through our son when they were both students at the University of Texas. We have known her for three years and watched her maintain a healthy balance while achieving success in academic, social, emotional, and spiritual areas of her life. In addition to being an A student and outgoing, she is in top physical shape—she is running a marathon in Los Angeles this weekend!

Rachel is attending Fuller Seminary because of her deep interest in helping others overcome some of life’s tough obstacles. This desire to help others comes at least in part from her personal experience of deep grief and family dysfunction. When Rachel was in elementary school, she watched her two-year-old brother go through a lengthy illness which resulted in his death. This experience greatly shook the whole family; eventually, when Rachel left for college, her parents divorced. By God’s grace, she was able to find personal solace and salvation in Christ who, in time, enabled her to respond to these severe circumstances victoriously. Her mother, father and younger sister all began to look to Rachel for counsel, comfort, support and stability—and she was able to give it to them.

This experience helped lay the groundwork in her heart to help others respond to grief, tragedy, and difficult personal circumstances. She experienced the devastation personally, yet also experienced healing. Her heart is tender with a desire to help others do the same.

In college, Rachel began finding ways to express her desire to come alongside others who were experiencing pain. She became a volunteer leader in Young Life, going back into high schools and assisting the full-time workers, then becoming a staff member herself after graduation. She continued to find herself drawn to those who needed a listening ear and heart, and much of her ministry centered on those with particular hurts and concerns.

My wife Bonnie and I have seen Rachel’s ministering heart on two occasions recently as she has partnered with us in our ministry with Campus Crusade for Christ. She was an adult sponsor with Bonnie in taking 50 African-American teens to Kids Across America camp (part of the Kanakkuk-Kanakomo family of Christian sports camps in Missouri). Rachel knows no ethnic boundaries and is warm and open with anyone. Some of the teens come from particularly troubled homes, and during the week many sought out conversations and prayer with Rachel for their difficult situations. Rachel has an unusual ability to quickly make people feel safe and loved in her presence. Then she tops that off by finding ways to offer specific help.

After ministering to these inner-city teens, she joined us as a worker at a national conference our ministry hosts in Washington, D.C. for Christian faculty from secular universities. For those professors and staff who choose to bring their children to the conference, we offer childcare and Rachel was one of our workers. She planned and directed our program for teenagers and once again, teens and their parents were quickly comfortable with her leadership and her care for the teens. It wasn’t long before these teens began to seek out Rachel’s counsel for various areas in which they were struggling. It’s as if she wears a sign that says “I understand, I care, Let’s talk!”

God has given Rachel personality strengths which will aid her professional contribution to assist others in their mental health. She is by nature optimistic and cheerful, and just enjoys people with all their differences. Rachel likes being with people, and they like being with her. Her own family and extended family has an interesting mixture of types of people and backgrounds, which has served to broaden her definitions of “what people should be like.” People don’t feel any condemnation around Rachel because they might be different from a perceived norm.

I believe that Rachel has aligned her God-given abilities with her own self-discipline and character to become a person that God can use as His instrument to help others. She digs hard into His word and looks to Him as her primary source of strength and wisdom. This is what will give Rachel the ability to serve God as a professional in the field of mental health. Her personal faith in Christ has been tried and found to be strong. She knows how to draw on Him herself, and she desires to increase her ability to draw others to Him in the midst of their pain.

A scholarship to help Rachel pursue this God-inspired passion to help others would be a wise investment, which I believe will give you a hundred-fold return. Bonnie and I would unreservedly recommend her and believe she certainly exhibits unusual potential for contributing to the field of Christian mental health after graduation. If you have any questions or need any further information, please don’t hesitate to call or ask.

Sincerely,




Richard L. McGee
National Director for Development,
Conferences and Events