FROM THE DIRECTOR OF ALUMNI

Letter from the Director of Alumni

T

HE PAST FEW MONTHS have been busy in the TCA alumni world. We have hosted several events and are busy planning more for the spring. I am very honored to work with the TCA Alumni Association Board that represents our alumni. The board meets monthly to plan and execute events and projects that connect TCA with alumni. Our mission statement is “to strengthen, serve and advance TCA’s overall mission by connecting alumni and alumni parents relationally, professionally and spiritually with the TCA community.” Let me introduce you to our new Alumni Association Board for 2021-22.

ALUMNI BOARD 2021-22

BRANDON WADDELL ’97, PRESIDENT LANE CONNER ’99, PAST PRESIDENT KATE LYNCH ’97, VICE PRESIDENT OF COMMUNICATIONS ASHLI BURBRIDGE AVERY ’98, VICE PRESIDENT OF LEGACY FAMILIES JO ANN FERRELL HODGES ’87, VICE PRESIDENT OF COMMUNITY EVENTS JACKIE SCHIMMER HARRISON ’86, VICE PRESIDENT OF ALUMNI ADMISSIONS TYLER GALVIN ’15, VICE PRESIDENT OF SENIORS ANNIE ARMES WOOD ’14 JOHN BUNDREN ’10 HALEIGH LEE MANHKONG ’09 CHRIS MILLET ’82 MICHAEL NOVAKOVICH ’15 JUSTIN RIDNOUR ’90 ERIN VITTETOE HAMMONDS ’97

Some of the projects we plan during the year are big events like the Homecoming Alumni Dinner and Spring Alumni Weekend, but we also do smaller events like the alumni parent lunches, care packages sent to the most recent graduating class, college visits to see our alumni in person and legacy family events during the year. Plus, we work on ways to better communicate with alumni by publishing quarterly newsletters and alumni profiles for Trinity Today, updating and gathering your contact information and posting alumni updates on social media.

Currently, we are working on plans for the Spring Alumni Weekend on April 22–24. We are so excited to finally hold it after having to cancel it the past two years due to COVID-19. All alumni and their families, including alumni parents, are invited to our weekend festivities. We are looking forward to seeing everyone in person!

SPRING ALUMNI WEEKEND 2022

FRIDAY NIGHT, APRIL 22 7 PM–10 PM AT THE STAR IN FRISCO We are kicking off the weekend with a party to celebrate all our alumni. Come see old friends, teachers and coaches at our event. It will be a night to remember!

SATURDAY, APRIL 23 1 PM - TCA VARSITY BASEBALL VS. THE ALUMNI BASEBALL TEAM Bring your family to cheer on the alumni team. We will have games for kids, a food truck and snowcones. If you are interested in playing in the baseball game, please email

Beth Harwell at bharwell@trinitychristian.org .

SATURDAY NIGHT, APRIL 23 Class agents will be in touch with plans for reunions for individual years. All reunions that were missed because of COVID will be held as part of our weekend festivities. • Reunions missed from Spring 2020: 1975, 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015 • Reunions missed from Spring 2021: 1976, 1981, 1986, 1991, 1996, 2001, 2006, 2011, 2016 • Reunions for Spring 2022: 1972, 1977, 1982, 1987, 1992, 1997, 2002, 2007, 2012, 2017

SUNDAY, APRIL 24 2 PM - TCA PERFORMING ARTS CENTER Bring your family to the matinee performance of the Upper School drama production of Matilda the Musical! Registration for the weekend will begin in February at www.trinitychristian.org/alumni.

Many thanks to our volunteer board members for the hours they spend working on events and projects that keep TCA connected to our alumni! If you ever have any suggestions or would be interested in serving on the TCA Alumni Association Board, please email me at bharwell@trinitychristian.org. We welcome your feedback!

BETH HARWELL

Director of Alumni

Dr. Hayden Mbroh ’12

CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST

VEN WHEN SHE

EWALKED THE TCA CAMPUS AS A STUDENT, Dr. Hayden Mbroh ’12 dreamed of serving in the pediatric mental health field as a psychologist, and the academic and faith foundation she found at TCA helped launch her dreams into reality as she now serves teens and young adults who are experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles. Hayden finds deep purpose in what she describes as “providing a safe space” through mental health care and is continually inspired by the stories of the youth she serves.

Hayden considered many undergraduate universities for pursuing her education in psychology. However, she describes her visit to Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, as a “God thing” once she realized Furman offered a minor in poverty studies that would specifically enable her to better prepare to serve the mental health needs of underserved populations. The minor in poverty studies featured unique interdisciplinary coursework and internships for undergraduates as well as study-abroad trips. An in-depth trip to South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe provided Hayden with opportunities to blend studies in psychology, sociology, photography and history to better understand multifaceted contributors to global inequality and also celebrate cherished aspects of various African cultures. “God is an inevitable part of the story of how I got into Furman and why I decided to go there,” she says.

Hayden’s decision to pursue a PhD in clinical psychology led her back home to Dallas via graduate school at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. She began her doctoral studies right after undergraduate graduation, a rare feat she credits to God’s gracious provision. She also was the recipient of the Cultural Diversity Scholarship, which is given to one first-year clinical psychology doctoral student who is passionate about serving underserved pediatric populations. This scholarship provided opportunities for conducting research projects and participating in clinical work specifically dedicated to this population. Hayden has learned to share her faith in academia through a commitment to integrating her love for Christ with her love for science. As part of one of the studies that Hayden helped conduct as Cultural Diversity Scholar, published in the respected Journal of Child and Family Studies, she assisted with the development of a culturally-tailored suicide prevention program for Latinx teens in partnership with a community mental health clinic. Amid the pain of many ofher patients’ stories, Hayden finds encouragement in knowing that while the patient may be currently experiencing “the darkest dark, I’ve also seen people come back into the light.” Similarly, her dissertation focused on posttraumatic growth (positive psychological change resulting from a traumatic experience) in pediatric solid-organ transplant recipients and their caregivers. Hayden is a firm believer that helping her patients recognize their unique Godgiven gifts and strengths is imperative to her role as a psychologist.

After graduating with her doctorate in 2020, Hayden moved to California for a two-year post-doctoral fellowship at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles that matches her heart for serving underserved pediatric populations, including young people experiencing homelessness and youth with chronic medical conditions. This work is deeply fulfilling for Hayden: “For me, God is a huge part of this work. Because of my faith, I pray for my patients.”

The COVID-19 pandemic brought much of California to a full lockdown just as Hayden moved to Los Angeles. It can be challenging to find Christian community when church is only online. However, sharing the ways in which her faith has influenced her career and overall perspective within the academic medical community allows her to be a gentle yet confident witness: “I have to bring up God to tell the story of my professional journey. I’m not afraid to testify that way; I’m not afraid to bring that up.”

Looking back to life at TCA before her 2012 graduation, Hayden points to joyful memories like senior trip, Homecoming week, being in Les Misérables, the eighth-grade Wilderness trip and the sixth-grade Sky Ranch trip as treasured experiences for which she will forever be appreciative. She felt completely prepared for college academically but is particularly grateful for the foundation TCA provided for her life as a disciple.

Keaton Schaeffer ’10

CO-FOUNDER, HOMAGE COFFEE SOURCE

EATON SCHAEFFER ’10 HAS FOUND what so K many Christian business leaders seek: a way to build a company that blesses people in need while remaining a successful for-profit enterprise. As a young entrepreneur with a heart for saturating his business with a Kingdom mission, Keaton weaves his faith and entrepreneurship skills together daily in the coffee industry.

Keaton is a lifer who “lived at TCA” as his mom worked at TCA in several roles. Remembering his life at TCA, he credits football position coaches such as Brandon Graham, Kerry DeWeese and Steve Mercer for serving as father figures. “They loved on me well, held me to high standards and meant it when they said to call if I ever needed anything.” Keaton “can’t say enough good things” about how his TCA football and basketball coaches discipled him, calling them “formative in the person I have become.”

Keaton laughs as he jokes about his academic life at TCA. He says he was not a very engaged student, and his top priority was not schoolwork as a teenager, but he links his success in business today with values formed in him while at TCA: “A significant factor in my work ethic today comes from TCA football.” He also points to the impression twelfth-grade literature with Fran Legband made on him, despite being “not much of a reader” during his senior year. He remembers Mrs. Legband as a wonderful teacher who was “fun and exciting because she made things come to life.” Like so many alumni, he had an awakening about the value of his TCA academic background after entering college. “In high school, I was mainly interested in being an athlete, but I didn’t realize until college how rare my education at TCA was. I was better equipped than kids from other high schools, and I had been taught to think. I didn’t realize how special it was that I had teachers who loved me. They were for me. My TCA teachers loved me just because they loved me, because they loved the Lord.”

At Texas A&M, Keaton discovered a love for economics classes, fascinated by the “trends and pragmatic nature of economics.” He “wanted to start a business to serve people, to facilitate relationships and community.” For a time he studied the process of opening a restaurant but realized the significant obstacles involved. Keaton and a friend stumbled upon coffee roasting and bought a roaster, producing coffee in a backyard shed in College Station for two or three years. During that time Keaton declared a major in agricultural economics and attended classes literally across the hall from the office of World Coffee Research, leading Keaton to research the coffee supply chain and realize “there could really be a significant opportunity for ministry” to coffee farmers in tropical locations at high elevation. He developed coffeerelated business plans as projects for several classes, and his business partner lived for over one year at a “coffee washing station” in Burundi, developing direct relationships with many coffee producers.

Finally, in 2017 Keaton and his business partner founded Homage Coffee Source, a coffee import/export and sourcing business. They desire to “equip and empower” farmers in Burundi, and now Uganda as well, by providing farmers with fair prices and access to markets, serving as their logistics and sales arm. Burundi, an “underdog” in the coffee supply chain, is passed over by larger exporters who are scared off by political instability. Burundi is one of the world’s poorest countries, but Homage “builds trust [with farmers] by doing business fairly and generously” with the goal of “farmers driving change in their own communities.” Homage is special in its highly transparent operations, resulting in high traceability for roasters who buy its imported coffee.

In 2020, Keaton and his business partner added a second company; Frame Coffee Co. roasts and sells coffee, differentiating itself with “higher quality at a good price—a well-roasted, bold, smooth cup of specialty coffee that is more accessible” than luxury brands but a big step up from the lower end of the market. “Ultimately, we want to be good stewards of the supply chain, because coffee should be simple, accessible—and can be purposeful, too.” Homage and Frame Coffee Co., both headquartered in the Dallas Design District, blend business with Kingdom mission, as Keaton and his colleagues are rooted in the belief that “Jesus is the reason for everything we do.”

Reflecting back on how TCA prepared him for business, entrepreneurship and a commitment to serving others, Keaton feels deeply grateful for the faith formation and wisdom he learned at TCA. He humbly reflects that “as a teenager, the high standards felt like just rules, but later I realized the structure was really good for me—the boundaries kept me from so many bad decisions. Now I can see how my education helped establish a firm foundation of faith, honesty and perseverance that has served me well in my career.”

Keaton Schaeffer ’10 and business partner Jake Smith tour the washing station at Manafwa Specialty Seed in Manafwa, Uganda, with coffee farmer Picasso Nduwayo. Keaton considers Picasso not only a supply partner but a close friend and trusted extension of Homage Coffee Source for projects in Uganda and Burundi.

Becky Cunningham Ellis ’04

JONI AND FRIENDS SENIOR DIRECTOR FOR TEXAS

T AROUND AGE 12, Becky Cunningham

AEllis ’04 experienced two life changes that would echo through her future for years to come: she started attending Trinity Christian Academy, and she began volunteering with her family at a summer camp for people with disabilities through the ministry Joni and Friends. After more than a decade of volunteering, Ellis was hired at Joni and Friends in what she calls “God-ordained timing.” Becky is celebrating ten years as a full-time employee at Joni and Friends, currently serving as senior director for Texas. She lives in Dallas with her husband, Ross, and her two daughters, Cannon (4) and Kaiya (1). Becky’s role involves developing the ministry to serve more families, investing in her employees and fundraising, and the Texas staff recently rejoiced as the ministry grew to open an office in Houston.

Joni and Friends is named for its founder, Joni Eareckson Tada, who suffered a diving accident as a teenager in 1967 that left her a quadriplegic. In the forty years since, Tada has shared the gospel through a bestselling book, movie, radio show and even evangelizing an audience of over 100,000 people at a Billy Graham Crusade in Budapest, Hungary. Her international organization seeks to equip churches to provide disability ministry. In addition, Joni and Friends provides outreach to families touched by disabilities, which includes taking the entire family to summer camps. A second program provides camps for families of wounded veterans, and a third program called Wheels for the World has provided specially fit wheelchairs for people with disabilities in countries with very high levels of poverty, delivering the 100,000th chair in Ghana in 2014.

Becky says that what she loves most about Joni and Friends is the ministry’s alignment with the mandate in Luke 14 to “go out into the streets and the alleyways, to find the poor, the blind, the lame and the crippled . . . to bring them in so that my house will be full.” Sharing why she believes this is so important, she says, “The disability community is the most unreached people group. Even here in our own backyard, families living with disabilities are turned away from church. At Joni and Friends, we desire to break down those barriers so that people affected by disability are not only welcomed but also seen as an integral part of the body of Christ.” Becky finds inspiration in the words of Joni Eareckson Tada herself: “God permits what he hates to accomplish that which he loves.” She finds comfort in the knowledge that “we may not understand the why of suffering, but we can rest in the knowledge that He is with us through it all.”

Around the same time Becky started volunteering side-by-side with her mom at the Joni and Friends summer camp, Becky transferred to TCA in seventh grade and “loved it,” finding fast friendships by playing all the middle school sports. Her favorite memories of life as a teenager at TCA involve teachers who invested in her, including

science class with Mr. Blagburn and history/English with Mr. Saffold. She became very close to Hank and Diane Harmon, Upper School Bible teacher and Upper School government teacher, respectively, who have invested in TCA students for several decades, and she is thankful for the blessing of Mrs. Harmon being a mentor to her. Becky also recalls the influence of former Upper School Bible teacher Steve Williamson: “Mr. Williamson had a very special connection with my class as a whole, especially after senior trip.” Becky explains that at TCA, “small classes created the opportunity to really get to know the teachers. TCA was all about relationships, which prepared me for my career.”

As graduation approached, Becky secured a volleyball scholarship to Ouachita Baptist University, where she majored in sociology. She remembers the TCA academic curriculum as rigorous, “which made college easy. Some friends in college struggled, but I was so wellprepared, which allowed me to handle being a college athlete.” Growing up in a Christian home meant that the discipleship she found at TCA was not new, but Becky is grateful that her TCA “Bible classes strengthened an already solid foundation” provided by her parents. As an adult looking back on those formative years, she had a realization: “I don’t struggle with compartmentalizing or segregating my faith from the rest of my life, because TCA taught me to incorporate faith in all of life—TCA normalized that for me.”

That syncretism of faith and career was on display in 2020. Right before the pandemic began, Becky traveled to Brazil for a Wheels for the World outreach trip. She watched as a young mother, about Becky’s age, carried her 12-year-old son up to a wheelchair distribution site. “He wasn’t small,” she remembers, “and you could tell she carried him everywhere.” After receiving his very own wheelchair, Becky describes that “the look in his eyes was priceless. Not only were we able to provide him and his mom with the gift of mobility, but we were able to provide him with dignity. Here in America, we are so blessed with so much. My time with Joni and Friends continues to remind me every day of the blessings we have been given. And to whom much has been given, much will be required. I see Joni and Friends not only as my job but an opportunity to advocate for families who are desperate for hope.”

OPPOSITE PAGE - Becky Cunningham Ellis ’04 with one of the children who received their first wheelchairs during the Wheels for the World outreach to Cuba TOP LEFT - Becky with the founder of Joni and Friends, Joni Eareckson Tada, during the ministry’s leadership summit TOP RIGHT - Becky with her lifelong friend Steve at Joni and Friends Family Retreat