Testimony Tuesday: God has a vision for your life

By Bella Agnello

During her field experience last semester, Olivia Luckhaupt, a junior Special Education major, worked with first graders. One of the first graders was a nonverbal student. For three months, she did not see any progress that revealed that he was learning how to use words to communicate. Whenever she handed him something, he could only nod in response.

One day, at the end of the semester, the boy finally said, “Thank you, Miss L!”

“My teacher and I looked at each other and we were just so excited,” Luckhaupt said. “What we were doing for those three months in the classroom was actually making a difference even though it was a small difference. I’d love to see those small milestones eventually turn into bigger milestones.”

Luckhaupt’s passion for teaching students with disabilities stems from her own experience with visual impairment. She was born with cataracts and needed a lens implant, but the doctors did not have the resources to help her in China. When she was three years old, her parents adopted her, brought her to the US and connected with doctors that would help her get the lens implant she needed. Even after the surgery, the doctors did not think she would be able to ride a bike or use a piece of chalk.

Though still classified under visual impairment, Luckhaupt learned to complete everyday tasks, though still struggles with depth perception. She was able to attend school, and by fifth grade she was enrolled in private school.

Luckhaupt’s parents made sure she attended church and enrolled her in private school, but they never pressured her to make the decision to believe in God, knowing that he would help her make that decision when she was ready. In eighth grade, while building the Romans Road of Salvation, she read verses that told her that she was not good enough to go to Heaven by herself, that she needed help and that this salvation could only come through personally acknowledging that she needed Jesus to save her from her sins.

From that moment on, Luckhaupt wanted to learn how to publicly declare her faith so that everyone knew she was a Christian and would come to know for themselves that Jesus loved them enough to save them from their sins.

As Luckhaupt learned to grow this voice, she also learned how to grow her voice to advocate for herself. From fifth grade through high school, she worked with an Intervention Specialist (IS) who grew her confidence to speak up when she needed help or accommodations for her vision impairment. Not only did she help Luckhaupt advocate for herself academically, but her IS also helped her communicate her feelings and thoughts when she was bullied for her disability.

“She could take off her academic glasses, put on her spiritual glasses and be like, ‘Alright, something’s wrong and we need to fix that before we move onto anything else,’” Luckhaupt said.

As Luckhaupt’s IS taught her how to communicate well, Luckhaupt’s love for the gospel, her faith and advocation for those with disabilities increased.

“I always say that God gives you a mouth for a reason,” Luckhaupt said. “God gave you a mouth so you can spread the gospel – advocating [is] one way you can do that.”

After graduating high school in May of 2021, Luckhaupt took a gap year and worked at Chick-fil-A while she figured out what she wanted to study, as well as what college she wanted to attend. Over the course of that year, she began realizing that she did not want to work with the company her whole life, though did not want to believe it completely. Working at Chick-Fil-A could not support her long term, but not yet knowing what to do, she stayed with the company. Still, God began to teach her the principles behind Jeremiah 29:11, that his plan for her life is much bigger than she could realize.

Knowing that God has a plan for her bigger than she could comprehend gave Luckhaupt a refreshed sense of purpose in the mundane. Because she knew that working at Chick-fil-A with these coworkers was temporary, she learned to joyfully invest in them with the time that she had.

“It’s one thing to love what you’re doing and it’s another thing to love who you’re working with,” Luckhaupt said. “Social interactions are key to being able to thrive and proclaim the gospel and live out the gospel every day. Those interactions fuel us to live out the gospel.”

When she began looking for colleges, Luckhaupt began searching not only for Christian colleges but for colleges that would be easy for her to navigate. Because of her vision impairment, she needed to find a university that was primarily flat, and in her search, she remembered Cedarville University, which she visited when her brother was looking for colleges. 

“I don’t think we appreciate how flat Cedarville is until you meet somebody who has terrible depth perception,” Luckhaupt said.

In February 2022, Luckhaupt committed to Cedarville and enrolled in the fall as a Business Management major with a focus in Human Resources. God had other plans for her. He began to reveal his plan for her during the GO Conference in the spring of 2023.

“The speaker said, ‘The best missionaries are those who have the most experience in their field,’” Luckhaupt said. “I have always liked advocating for others’ needs, especially those who have disabilities, and that’s when it hit me: my vision impairment actually is kind of [like] my career. I’ve learned how to advocate for myself; I’ve learned how to contact people that I need to contact.”

In her desire to provide security for herself, Luckhaupt forgot to consider how God wanted to use her. She recounted the profound impact her IS made on her life. Because of her IS, Luckhaupt’s confidence grew, how much her love for God grew, how much her love for people grew and how much her passion for advocacy grew.

And she knew that she wanted to make the same difference in a student’s life.

Now a special education major, Luckhaupt is growing more and more excited to help her students learn how to advocate for themselves and learn how to navigate life in and out of school. Her motto for education is:

 “Every voice, no matter the disability deserves an opportunity at this life that God provides.”

Luckhaupt is praying for God to give her students to champion and display the love of God to, and she is tuning into any hints that communicate that the students have a question about life or about salvation.

“The students have very interesting ways of showing that they have questions,” Luckhaupt said. “Some of it comes by drawing pictures – kids communicate through pictures a lot.”

Luckhaupt strongly believes that peoples’ stories hold the power to encourage, communicate and advocate for themselves and others. As she learns how to allow her story to be a “testimony of God’s grace and provision.”

“Every individual has a story,” Luckhaupt said. “When you understand that, it helps you put into perspective their needs.”

*Teacher Education Training (TEP) ceremony from left to right: Morgan, Connor, Olivia, Tricia, Andy; not pictured: Ryan, Drew

Bella Agnello is a junior Broadcasting, Digital Media and Journalism major with a concentration in Journalism. She enjoys thrifting, listening to records and reading classic Russian literature in her spare time.

Pictures provided by Olivia Luckhaupt