199 FACULTY & STAFF Harding’s Healthy Eating Active Living (HEAL) program added a new activity to its agenda in fall 2022. HEAL founder Christi Swaid and Harding’s First Lady Lisa Williams collaborated to bring worship walks to Harding’s campus. “It’s really about getting together and encouraging each other,” Williams said. “This requires nothing but showing up.” Since HEAL’s inception in 2002, the main goal was to bring education about healthy living to young children in order to prevent diseases in a measurable, science-based health and wellness experience. As HEAL grew, it spread across age groups and economic classes to finally reach Harding’s campus in 2019. Swaid said that the worship walks came from a place of stress. She was on her computer one day, overwhelmed by stress, and decided that God didn’t intend for life to be that way. Thus began the worship walks. WORSHIP WALKS HEAL begins “Worship Walks” in fall 2022, and First Lady Lisa Williams joins in. “My obligations were really heavy, and I got overwhelmed,” Swaid said. “I shut the laptop. The Lord does not want this kind of busyness.” Once a month students, faculty and staff got together to walk, talk, sing and pray throughout campus. Although this effort began during the summer, worship walks found their way to campus during the fall semester because of their spiritual impact. The intent of the walks was to give an opportunity for women to break away from the stress of life and worship together in God’s creation. Swaid noted that even though these walks were created with women in mind, the intent was not to exclude the men; everybody was welcomed. The two women wanted to encourage a time of healthy worship and fellowship but did not close off the opportunity to anyone, especially students. “We love when the students come,” Williams said. “That’s the best part. It’s a bridge for us from young to old.” Senior Covington Crain joined these walks over the summer while taking classes and working for the admissions office. She said that even after a few interactions with Williams they bonded more than she expected and that they were kindred spirits. She especially stressed the impact of women who played a valuable role in mentoring and interacting with the students and how incredible it made the experience. “To bring women who are about health and spiritual wellness together is so influential and makes me feel like we can do both,” Crain said. “We can be both spiritually healthy and physically as well.” Written by: Bailey Ridenour AMBASSADOR FOR HARDING Lisa Williams is Harding’s sixth first lady. She worked to become actively involved in HEAL, as well as other aspects of the Harding community. Photo by: Julianne Baker
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