Feature

THE COURAGE TO FOLLOW

BY JANELLE SUNDIN

Garett Cook grew up dreaming of coaching football. “It was something I always wanted to do,” he said. “I ate, slept, drank, and worshiped the game.” An intelligent and highly motivated young man, he quickly achieved his goal and began teaching high school biology and coaching football for a public school in Missouri. But God had more in store for Garett than he could have imagined.

Garett grew up Lutheran, but by the time he became a teacher, he no longer attended church on a regular basis. Then he met Hifsy – an Adventist woman who, like him, had lapsed a bit in church attendance. They fell in love and, as their relationship became more serious, so did their conversations. “She planned to raise her children in an Adventist church and wanted to know whether I’d be okay with that,” Garett explained. “Then she introduced me to an Adventist guy named Doug Batchelor.”

Garett soon found that he could not get enough. He began attending Bible studies with a local Adventist pastor. “I could finally see that there was a biblical purpose for everything, and I felt convicted,” he said. “It changed me. I came to know Christ and live with Him.”

As he learned about Sabbath, the act of resting and worshiping from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, Garett realized that he needed to reevaluate his career goals. He loved coaching high school football, but he had to attend games and practices during Sabbath hours. “In a sermon, I heard that all worship is what we spend our time on,” he said. “I thought, ‘If I’m not worshiping God on His Sabbath, I have to make a change.’” Garett completed his master’s degree and found a job as an assistant

Garett completed his master's degree and found a job as an assistant principal. He did his best to live out his faith at work. When someone asked for advice, he suggested prayer. When a coach asked to build a Fellowship of Christian Athletes, he said yes. But, he still found himself being asked to supervise events on the Sabbath. “I tried to trick myself by saying I was serving and building relationships, but I kept remembering what Jesus said about denying him,” Garett said. “There was this lingering feeling that said, ‘This is not okay.’”

One day, as Garett was praying about maintaining integrity in his position, he did something he had not often done before. He said, “God, I’m ignorant, and I don’t know what to do here. Slap me in the face with the direction You want me to go.”

Garett was soon reminded that the Associate Superintendent of Education for the Texas Conference of Seventhday Adventists, Raul Aguilar, had been trying to get in touch with him.

“God put Garett in my path,” Raul explained. “I ran into an old friend and mentioned that I was looking for someone to be the principal of a small school. He said, ‘My son-in-law would be a really excellent principal; he’s a new Adventist working in the public school system.’ I decided to see whether I could bring him into Adventist education. He didn’t know we had our own system, and when I explained that we had schools all over the world, he was blown away.”

“We spoke for two hours about Christian versus public school education and our experiences as teachers versus our experiences as administrators,” Garett recalled. Then Raul mentioned that he had a few schools in mind that might be a good fit for his philosophy and skill set. “I told him I was happy where I was,” Garett said. “We had a great community, we had just bought a house, and I had plans to work on my doctorate. We were committed for the next five years.”

Two weeks later, the Bible app on Garett’s phone had Joshua 1:9 as the verse of the day: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

“I thought about the lingering issues I’d been having with my career and spiritual life,” Garett said. He spoke to his wife, Hifsy, about the situation, and she asked where the schools in Texas were. Garett told her about the school in Conroe, Texas. She said she would never move to southern Texas.

So, Garett forgot about it – but God didn’t. As Garett continued to pray about his situation, Joshua 1:9 kept returning to his mind. Later, he had an epiphany while teaching Sabbath school. “We were going over the passage in Matthew 6 about laying up treasures in Heaven and not on the Earth,” Garett explained. “I kept asking myself, ‘Is my son going to grow up seeing me honor God’s wishes?’”

Garett discussed the situation with Hifsy once more, and she said they should see where the interview process took them. The first meeting with the board was exciting – the school needed someone with the same skills that Garett had been using as assistant principal.

“Each school has its own personality, and we’d had a hard time connecting with principals,” said Jeff Hughes, chairman of the school board. “We were looking for a person who could bring the calm back into our school, who had a vision for how the school would be run, and, most importantly, who was passionate about service.” “The key that unlocked the door involved the video I sent to introduce myself after I was hired,” Garett said. In it, he shared what he’d learned from Joshua 1:9. When the first viewing ended, a board member, Janet Salazar, stood up crying and explained that she was part of a small group that had been meeting every week to pray for a leader like Joshua.

“I don’t doubt one bit that God has put me here,” Garett said. “All I ask is that He continue giving me the strength to lead this school and the courage to follow His plan.”

Aaron Thomas Photography