ORU students remain upbeat

Trials make you stronger, two Oral Roberts University students said Wednesday, reflecting on months of tumult and a peace they now sense on campus.

“I’m not looking for things to be easy,” Vawnshekia Brown said.

“When you go through trials, you come through stronger.”

She believes ORU has triumphed because it was God who told Oral Roberts to build the university, and ORU remains “God’s university first,” before belonging to any person.

“The minute someone says this is not God’s university,” she said, and she plunged her hand down, indicating ORU’s demise.

Destiny James said God called her to attend ORU, and that calling has not changed.

As ORU slogged through the publicity of a lawsuit, accusations against its president and continuing changes in leadership, James learned to trust God more, she said.

Now, she said she senses a unity among people on campus and a rallying behind ORU’s founding vision to give students a spiritual education and send them into the world to spread their Christian beliefs.

Students, employees, alumni and former professors packed into ORU’s chapel on Wednesday for a service to honor Oral Roberts and his founding

Roberts turns 90 on Thursday.

Old photos of the former president and chancellor flashed by on a screen; in one, Roberts sat at a desk behind a small sign that read, “make no little plans here.”

The crowd watched old video clips, set to sweeping music, of Roberts speaking strongly about how God had affected his life.

In past decades, he led evangelistic crusades, appeared on national TV and made headlines for bold visions and messages he said were from God.

Roberts, who has returned to his home in California, did not attend the service.

In a video shown to the crowd, Roberts recalled praying in the early 1960s about how to create a university.

He also praised the Green family, which has offered to donate up to $70 million to ORU.

“I have confidence in this family,” he said. “ . . . They’re precious people of God.”

Student Erica Rivera said the past few months were crazy and chaotic, but now, “It feels like a new season that’s coming.”

“You feel it on the campus, an overall peace.”

April Marciszewski 581-8475
april.marciszewski@tulsaworld.com