Photography by Hannah Caprara Written by Kahlie Cowell Dorothy Barr remembers a time in her life when she questioned herself. Her childhood was spent growing up on an isolated farm lost amidst the plains of Wisconsin. Following the death of her husband, Barr’s mother struggled to make ends meet. For Barr, this made affording college impossible. As the youngest of her siblings and unable to attend college, she never regarded herself as unique. Later in life, after she married and had kids of her own, Barr’s struggles with self-doubt began to manifest themselves. “When my husband and I moved, I knew no one in the new area,” Barr recalls. “The…

Photography by Meagan Garton Written by Heather Pape You look into a mirror and see yourself; you see your appearance, you see your reflection. This is you. But is this really you? Or is this just a single perspective of who you are? This same concept can be applied to personality tests. At Biola, many professors ask their students to take personality surveys like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or the StrengthsFinder test in order to help their students figure out who they are and what they want to do. However, it is easy to become defined by these results or find identity in them. In actuality, these tests can only…

Written by Ian Mayta Luis Daniel Arias, a high school student at the American School in Honduras, queued behind a line of boys and girls holding hands. He waited patiently to be “married” by an upperclassman dressed as a minister, who distributed plastic rings and made-up wedding certificates. In line with other student couples, Arias held the hand of the girl next to him tautly. This event was part of “Carnival” — an annual junior-senior fundraising event. This might be an unfamiliar and bizarre scene to the average American high schooler or Biolan. Yet, during my sophomore year at Biola, girls and guys wearing wedding gowns and suits had a…

Photography by Jaicee Almond Written by Cassandra Acosta Five years ago, Joe Gonzalez was busy focusing on his sophomore year of high school and enjoying the life of a teenage boy. Though his aunt had been sick with cancer for quite a few months, he had great hope that she would make a full recovery; not knowing that only months later, she would go home to the Lord. “My aunt was more of a mother to me than an aunt. She went to every baseball game and every kind of celebration. As she began to get sick, I sat by her bedside every single day, reminiscing on good times and…

Photography by Christina Bryson Written by Kahlie Colwell Pause a moment and imagine your life without memory. Perhaps it goes something like this: to begin with, you do not recognize your surroundings. Determining your location is impossible because you cannot recollect how you arrived there. Furthermore, you are unable to seek assistance from friends because you do not know who your friends are. Did you ever even have any? Desperate, you turn to the stranger next to you, hoping he might direct you. But when you open your mouth, nothing comes out. You have forgotten how to speak. Of course, directions are irrelevant anyway because you cannot remember the address…

Photography by Alissa Sandoval Written by Rebecca Nakashima “Name me one thing, one, that we’ve gained from technology.” Greg Kinnear’s character incredulously asks Meg Ryan in the 1998 romantic comedy “You’ve Got Mail.” In the film, Ryan’s character enters the exciting new world of email and eventually develops more of a relationship with her online pen pal and the “you’ve got mail” screen on her laptop than with her real-life boyfriend. Thankfully for her, Tom Hanks is the one on the other side of the screen and they eventually meet up in perfect Hollywood fashion. However, before his untimely exit, Kinnear points to his then-girlfriend’s computer in frustration and says, “You think…

Photography by Jonathan Hagen Written by Caleb Wheeler For just over 100 years, the art of capturing thousands of pictures and projecting them onto silver screens has sparked an industry, inspired generations of visionaries and etched itself into the legacy of human storytelling. We are, after all, a visual species: God gave us eyes to see, ears to hear and imaginations that equip us to dream. What are movies at their foundations but elaborate dreams refined and shaped for the enjoyment of many? They indeed can become nightmares, or so fantastical that they bend the world we know into something grander and far more unpredictable. Films may depart from reality,…

Written by Cassandra Acosta When we think of Biola, we often think of a place filled with people whose lives have been anything but difficult, where everyone has been a Christian from the time they were just a young child. Break away from the stigma! It is far from the truth. Beneath the surface, Biola is made up of more than just lifelong Christians — it is a diverse community of people who come from all kinds of religious backgrounds and who bring suitcase after suitcase of issues from home. Not every student at Biola is fortunate enough to have a family full of believers; some struggle daily to work…

Photography by Adam Lorona Written by Tonika Reed “I got loans because I didn’t know what else to do,” says sophomore art major Andrea De Luca. After applying for financial aid and many scholarships, De Luca still did not get enough awards to attend Biola debt-free. De Luca says that she doesn’t keep a budget and doesn’t know how much money to save for emergencies. But De Luca is not alone. According to a recent survey of 100 Biola undergraduates conducted by The Point Magazine, 70 percent of students surveyed say they don’t make a budget, and 33 percent do not save money for emergencies. In the wake of continued…

Written by Rebecca Nakashima Sherry Mortenson answered the phone in 1978 from inside her University of Minnesota sorority house to hear a questioning female voice. The girl, a student at Bethel University, wanted to come to share her testimony. As the sorority president and someone who was worried about the drinking habits and relationship choices of her fellow sorority sisters, Mortenson quickly agreed to the visit. It was this first encounter that ultimately led to sophomore Mortenson praying to receive Christ later that year. Not having grown up in the church, she went almost immediately from graduating college with a degree in broadcast and consumer affairs to working at becoming…

Written by Claire Callaway Being unable to speak the same language as your parents is probably unthinkable to most Americans, but for Amy Ortega and her family, it’s an everyday reality. Each year thousands of Mexicans make the huge sacrifice of leaving their home country and come to America in search of better opportunities for their families. Often, one of the secondary effects of this decision is that the immigrants’ children are born and raised as members of a culture that is foreign to their parents. Since most immigrant adults who come to America spend considerable time working to provide for their families, their children might not get to spend…

Written by Cassandra Gonzales Introduction: When the word “chastity” is mentioned, some people might wrinkle their noses or scratch their heads in confusion. It is a word that is either revered and readily understood or repressed and approached with indifference. In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis defines chastity amongst the Christian community as, “the most unpopular of all the Christian virtues.” While some might argue that this notion is still true in the Christian community, perhaps this statement most aptly applies to the college age generation. Many forget that chastity is, indeed, a Christian virtue and a spiritual discipline that is to be practiced within the community. Theological giants such as…