freshmen on a MISSION Freshmen Kinley Cash and Trevor Koonce grew up in Africa as children of missionaries. After living his entire life as part of a missionary family in Africa, freshman biology major Trevor Koonce decided to follow in his family's footsteps and attend Harding. Koonce was born in Tobligbo, Togo and li ed there for 11 years before moving to Kigali, Rwanda. In Togo, he said his parents were traditional missionaries, but when they moved, they became more influential parts of the community. His mother taught art, photography and digital design at Kigali International Community School, and his dad started the Rwanda Taekwondo Federation. Ten years later, Koonce's parents retired, and the entire Koonce family moved to Memphis, Tennessee. Koonce's parents graduated from Harding, and his two older brother , Tanner and Taylor Koonce, decided to attend Harding as well. Trevor Koonce said he always wanted to go to Harding because it was a larger version of his previous school in Rwanda and because of Harding's rigorous pre-medicine programs. With an interest in pediatrics, Trevor Koonce planned to be a medical missionary. Trevor Koonce said growing up in a missionary family influenced his choice to become a doctor, but it was more because of the experiences from living in Togo. "With all the revolutions and everything that was happening all the time, we had to learn to grow up very fast," Trevor Koonce said. 17 6 freshmen "That's what we had to [do] just to fit our environment, because the seriousness [of] wanting to become a doctor was because of that." Freshman Kinley Cash,Trevor Koonce's girlfriend, had a similar background and passion for missions. Until her first year of college, Cash lived in Fort Portal, Uganda. Her experiences growing up differed from Trevor Koonce's. While an average day in Rwanda was similar to that of a small city in the U.S., Cash said there was no such thing as an average day in Uganda because there was no clear schedule. Everything depended on external circumstances, whether it was a rainstorm, politics or power outage. "[In Uganda], you just deal with what you have, and that's usually not very much," Cash said. Trevor Koonce's oldest brother, senior Taylor Koonce, said as a missionary kid, he learned to appreciate the effect different kinds of missions had -- short term, long term, international or domestic. "I've been blessed to see so many lives transformed by the power of the gospel,"Taylor Koonce said. "I've seen joy in unimaginable poverty. I've seen forgiveness after genocide. I have no excuses to be any less of a Christian than my brothers and sisters in Togo and Rwanda." story by Hannah Read
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