Covenant News

Mother and Daughter Receive Degrees

CHICAGO, IL (June 8) - More than three decades after Caren Hayward came within weeks of completing her college studies, she received a long-delayed bachelor's degree from North Park University.

The event was made even more special because her daughter Johnna was one of the audience members applauding. "It was just a blessing," Caren says.

The next week was her turn to bless as she watched Johnna graduate from North Park Theological Seminary. "It made the whole experience feel complete," Johnna says.

The double graduations were an end to an unlikely journey neither imagined they would make.

Caren had attended North Park from 1965 to 1969 but left to get married with only a semester of classes needed to graduate. "It was always in the back of my mind to finish, but I never thought I would," she says.

That time came when Caren visited her daughter at the seminary. One of Johnna's friends encouraged her mother to finish her degree. "God gave me the strength to talk to student services," Caren says, adding she was able to transfer most of her credits but had to take an extra semester.

The times had changed, though, since Caren had been in a college classroom, and she had to learn new skills. For example, she says, "I didn't have computer skills when I came back." Still, the other students, all of who were younger than her daughter, made her feel she belonged. "Even though I was the oldest one in class, everybody was so gracious to me."

Johnna might never have attended North Park nor learned much about her mother matriculating there were it not for a coming together of circumstances. "I didn't talk much about it because I never finished," Caren says of her college days.

While attending Luther College in Iowa, Johnna began attending a congregation that would soon affiliate with the Evangelical Covenant Church, a denomination about which she knew nothing. She only learned of her mom attending North Park when her family visited her during parents weekend and remarked how Luther reminded them of her mother's college.

Her then-pastor Mike Blevins encouraged Johnna to consider mission work with the Covenant, and she traveled to Japan, where she worked for two years. "That's where I fell in love with the Covenant," she says. "I love their holistic approach to ministry."

Caren is hoping to find a job as a caseworker at a children's home. Johnna is involved in multiethnic ministry.

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