The Answer to Onalee’s Prayer: How The Master’s Global Scholarship Brought Onalee Miller to Her Dream School
In the fall of 2021, Onalee Miller wrote the following in her prayer journal: “Lord, if it’s your will that I go to The Master’s University, will you somehow give me the means?”
Onalee—currently a first-semester senior at The Master’s University—wrote those words shortly after touring the school for the first time. As soon as she stepped on campus, she knew TMU was where she would go if she could pick any school in the country.
“I’d never really spent any time at a private Christian school,” Onalee said. “So the prayers at the beginning of class, the God-centered chapels three times a week, the tight-knit community where everyone confesses Christ was all a whole new world for me.”
Growing up, Onalee attended public schools in Northridge and Granada Hills, San Fernando Valley communities 10-15 miles from the university. At Easter and Christmas, her parents took her to a Lutheran church, but outside those semi-annual trips, she hardly thought of God, the Bible, or Christianity. That didn’t change much after a friend invited her to church her sophomore year of high school.
“I went because it was a fun event,” Onalee said. “They had snow cones, puppies, a fog machine, all the things you’d expect at a summer youth event. I wasn’t there to learn or understand. I was there for my friends.”
Onalee continued to attend this church because her friends were there, but she didn’t read the Bible or think that much about her soul. That started to change in 2019, the middle of her junior year of high school, when the darkest of trials consumed her life.
“In November of 2019, my mom was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer,” Onalee said. “Before getting that shocking news, everything was going along seemingly normal. I was focused on friends, school, and the cheer squad. Then one day everything changes as my mom suddenly finds herself facing the real possibility of death.”
Fast-forward four months, the COVID pandemic shuts down school, cancels Onalee’s cheer season, and forces the church where she attends to go remote. Suddenly, she’s at home, watching her mom get sicker and sicker.
Adding to the burden was the fact that Onalee’s parents divorced when she was in third grade and she had rarely seen her father since then. As a result, Onalee had to face her mother’s final days alone.
“It felt like the Lord was taking everything away,” Onalee said.
During these trials, Onalee started to truly read her Bible. New friends invited her to a youth event at Grace Community Church. She started listening to John MacArthur sermons. She watched a documentary called American Gospel that features Pastor John. As she consumed quality, clear, biblical content, she realized her approach to church and Christianity had been all wrong. For years, she had prioritized people instead of God. She had thought of herself as a good person who just needed to make sure she did a lot of good works, not a sinner in desperate need of a savior.
In December of 2020, winter break of her senior year of high school, Onalee’s mother passed away. Still only 17 years old, Onalee lived for a time by herself in the condo she’d shared with her mother, continued to attend school, work as a cheer instructor, and come with friends to Grace Community Church on Sundays. Through all the suffering, Onalee didn’t become bitter. She saw the Lord’s guiding hand in her life. She realized that he’d brought her to saving faith and she needed to be baptized. That happened in the fall of 2021. Through that act of obedience the Lord brought an answer to the request she’d written in her prayer journal.
“A few days after Austin Duncan, the college pastor at Grace Church, baptized me, he calls me,” Onalee said. “He knew a little about my story, but he wanted more details. After I tell him more about my mom, my testimony, my current circumstances, he encourages me to apply to The Master’s University and request financial aid. I wasn’t sure if it would go anywhere but I decided to give it a try, figuring this was my dream school so I might as well see what happens.”
In the coming months, Onalee was accepted into The Master’s University. She also received The Master’s Global Scholarship, which is funded by the John MacArthur Charitable Trust. Through that scholarship, along with a Cal Grant that provides some tuition relief for eligible California residents, Onalee was able to enroll at TMU in the fall of 2022. The experience on campus was everything she’d hoped it would be, and then some.
“TMU has been the sweetest gift from the Lord,” Onalee said. “My first year was truly amazing. I loved that everything I was learning connected back to the truth of God’s Word. I’m studying to be a teacher and TMU has changed how I think about that. Teaching is a ministry and it’s another opportunity to serve others and honor the Lord. First semester of my second year, I was able to go to Israel through the IBEX program. Other than a couple short trips to Mexico, that was my first time out of the country and I’m so grateful my first overseas trip was to Israel.”
Unfortunately, Onalee and the rest of TMU’s IBEX students had to return home midway through the semester after the war between Israel and Hamas began on October 7, 2023. But even though she was only there for six weeks, Onalee will never forget what she learned during that time.
“I didn’t grow up with a biblical foundation, so that trip taught me so much about Scripture,” Onalee said. “Getting to see where it all took place was so helpful. I think my favorite part was seeing the city of David, the place where he wrote Psalm 121. As I’m reading ‘I will lift up my eyes to the mountains from where shall my help come from? My help comes from the Lord,’ I’m looking out and seeing the mountains David was writing about. It makes the Scriptures so much more alive and powerful.”
Today, Onalee is in her second-to-last semester at The Master’s University. After she graduates, she plans to become an elementary school teacher. She knows that wherever she goes, and whatever the Lord has for her life, she will always be grateful for the Christ-centered community that came alongside her during her greatest trial. The people at Grace Community Church and The Master’s University have become like family. And she knows that much of her life now, especially her education at TMU, wouldn’t be possible without The Master’s Global Scholarship and the people who give to the John MacArthur Charitable Trust. She didn’t know it at the time, but they were the answer to that prayer she wrote in her journal. The means she asked the Lord about were always there, in the form of a scholarship and through the investment of so many who partner with the John MacArthur Charitable Trust.
