Senior PhilipAshley discusses the highlights of a soccer game with friends from the Islands. Ashley played soccer three to four times a week and was involved in several tournaments. .Courtesyof Pluup Ashley Islands to the Mainland Missionary child trains to serve Senior PhilipAshley lived his days at Har~ ding like most other srudems; he chose a major, made friends, became engaged, worked an internship and antici pated a graduation date. Hovvever, wilike most smdenrs, instead ofwatching cartoons and dimhingjungJe gyms, Ashley spent his childhood days spear-fishing, building rainforest tree houses and helping his parents translate the Bible into a language spoken by people living in the Solomon Islands where his parents were missionaries. Born in Phoenix, Ariz., Ashley moved with his parents w the Solomon Islands before he was 2 years old. In 2000, a coup in the Solomon Islands required his family to evacuate to Papua New Guinea, where he lived and attended high school until coming to Harding. Ashley said the coup was such an extreme situation and experience that he remembered it well. ''A lot ofpeople from our grandparents' generation say they can remember what they were doing when Uohn F. Kennedy] was shot," Ashley said. "For me, I remember what I was doing when we heard on the radio that the Prime Minister was held at gunpoint in the Solomon Islands." Ashley said he believed his experience as a missionary's child was unique in both the length and use ofhis family's time. His parents' main focus was to ttanslate the Bible into Sa'a, a language spoken by about 10,000 people and one of the more than 70 languages spoken in the Solomon Islands. Even as a child, Ashley said he found ways to help his parents' mission. "I would occasionally help them with back translating, which is basically taking what they have translated and translating it back into English so someone else could do theological checks on it," Ashley said. He first heard about Harding University from a student who attended high school with him. Though he said he was still unsure ofwhat he wanted to do with his life, Ashley said he was interested in physics and chose Harding because it was one of the only Christian schools with a physics program. The high school he attended was a boatding school with mosdy American students, and Ashley said that learning about American culture through them made rhe adjustment to a new way of life in the United States a linie easier. "It was a big shock," Ashley said. "The first time J ever saw Harding's campus was when I arrived for registration. Harding is four times bigger than the community where rwent to high school and almost as big as the language group that my parents worked with. Most people complain about Searcy and Harding being small; when I first got here I thought it was huge." Ashley was homeschooled until attending high school and said that the lessons taught by his parents were valuable to him at Harding. "I was taught that I had to take responsibility for my learning," he said. "I've continued that at H arding where it's my responsibility to learn, not necessarily the professors' to teach me. [Though] I've appreciated, probably like every Harding student, that my teachers are always accessible." Ashley planned to graduate in May 2006, attend medical school and become a medical missionary. ''I'm really interested in physics," Ashley said. "But as I've gotten further into it, my heritage of growing up overseas in third world countries [has made] it hard for me to continue in physics because I see so much that needs to be done." Serving as an intern with NASA helped him feel stronger about his call to medical missions. "In my internship, I found it hard to get motivated for finding water on Mars when I knew there were people dying every day in the third world because they didn't have water here on earth," he said. "I want to be more immediately effective with my time, and that is why I switched to start pursuing medics." -Breonno Wood seniors 'S "
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