Oral Roberts at 90: Celebration amid turmoil
BY APRIL MARCISZEWSKI World Staff Writer
Thursday, January 24, 2008
1/16/13 at 6:00 AM
For more: Read the latest ORU stories, view the lawsuit and other documents and watch slide shows and video.
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 of the university.
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
Associated Images:
A man walks past two historic photographs of Oral Roberts in Christ’s Chapel on the Oral Roberts University campus Wednesday as theuniversity celebrated Founder’s Day.
A man walks past two historic photographs of Oral Roberts in Christ’s Chapel on the Oral Roberts University campus Wednesday as theuniversity celebrated Founder’s Day.
Terry Law, a 1969 graduate of Oral Roberts University,speaks in Christ’s Chapel on Wednesday as a slide show ofOral Roberts’ photographs flashes on the screen behind him.
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