If you ask me how Milo Adventist Academy has changed my life, the story that you would get wouldn’t start out to be a happy one.
When I came to Milo, I didn’t want anything to do with responsibility, yet desired to be in control of everything. Milo has taught me that with any power or control comes great responsibility; that no matter what you do, you must take responsibility for your actions. Now I have had the privilege of becoming the head resident assistant for my dorm. I loved the responsibility and the opportunity I had to change lives around me.
When I came to Milo, I didn’t know what it meant to have really good friends. After four years here, I understand friends are a constant source of support. My friends may be spread throughout the states, but I know if I ever needed any of them, they would stop and help me out. I now realize time moves faster than anything else, and I have learned to enjoy every second of life with people who love me.
Don’t get me wrong. Milo isn’t a magic cure-all, but it does offer the chance to start over. The staff helped me so much, especially early on as I struggled to find myself. Chaplain "P.J." Deming made me come talk to him once a week and helped me stand on my own two feet much better. There are teachers who come in on Sunday to help you make up your work or get up at five in the morning to open the school and listen to you complain for the hundredth time that they gave you too much homework. We have coaches for every sport, deans who give you unfailing support and people behind-the-scenes who you rarely remember but when you see them, they never forget your name.
This is what Milo is to me: a place devoted to showing me God is in everything that the staff does; a safe place that teaches me how to deal with the world. Milo is home. Milo has changed my life completely, and I wouldn’t change one day of the past four years for anything this world has to offer. The most important thing Milo has taught me, though, is to look forward to Jesus coming back and taking me home with Him. That is the family I was designed to have.
(Carol Bovee)
