What a privilege it was for me to sit down with this couple and hear “their story,” what motivated them to enter into an Endowed Scholarship Fund with LeTourneau University, and just in general, what their impressions have been of this precious and special place!  

At the outset here, Mike and Delia’s story is not unlike so many (including my wife and myself in what we observed when landing upon LeTourneau University for one of our sons).  For the Huff’s two daughters, each with their respective focus (one who centered upon Biology; the other on International Business) found LeTourneau University to be the ideal place to study and grow-and grow they did, as their story continues to unfold!  I’m getting ahead of myself; however, because Mike and Delia’s story, in their coming alongside their daughters, reflects a mindset that many would share from their upbringing and life journey.

Mike’s life perspective arises from an upbringing for him that was informed by an agrarian lifestyle, with its limited income, but where education was highly valued, and pursued.  Mike’s six brothers and sisters, along with himself, all pursued higher education, including accomplishing advanced degrees.  Given their family’s limitations, Mike and his siblings all benefited from scholarships that were made available to them in each of their schools of choice at the time-which obviously led to lesser levels of debt for all of them, at their graduation.  Their academic pursuits launched them into meaningful career opportunities, that today, in the case of Mike and his wife, Delia, now allow them to “give back,” so others might enjoy the same opportunities, and assistance they experienced.

Back to their daughters, both benefitted meaningfully from endowed scholarships while studying here at LeTourneau University-but also benefitted from their environment.  Truly, as Mike and Delia have observed it, these two daughters were transformed here by what they experienced!  Faculty and Staff have been cited as having contributed to who they are today-including a basketball camp for the one (as well as a young man she met here, who is now her husband).  The other daughter who completed studies in international business was further impressed by the relationships she was able to foster with LeTourneau University’s many international students, even in that era, and only served to solidify her focus in that area.  Mike and Delia, during their daughters’ tenure here, were also equally impressed by everyone they came into contact with here!

The above said, Mike and Delia settled upon an impression from the Lord to help today’s students, in just the same way their daughters experienced-and how blessed we are as a University, and a supporting Foundation, to experience this, what 2 Corinthians 9 characterizes-”giving as they have purposed in their heart,” which has led to “thanksgiving on the part of the recipients of that giving”-and the manner in which it bespeaks Mike and Delia’s “professed subjection to the gospel message.”

In closing here, what would Mike and Delia say to anyone considering doing likewise-by entering into an endowed fund to assist students?  “Don’t hesitate,” they would say...”because you are investing in a young man or woman, who is here at LeTourneau University to not just get an outstanding education, but, most importantly, finding a life mission and purpose.”  They would have you, in this way, view this act on your part as “an investment in a life, or lives”-and where the testimony of these students so assisted will reflect upon the rounded experience they will have benefited from during their time here.