When Rachel Sabo’s dad told her she should go to The King’s University interest meeting, she didn’t exactly want to. But, like parents often are, he was right, and she soon learned she couldn’t have been more wrong.
At the time, Rachel was majoring in psychology at a different university. “Psychology is all about the brain and how the brain works, and at the liberal school I was going to, none of the teachings left room for God and His healing or design,” Rachel says. “I just felt like something big was missing.” She decided it was time to find a Christian university to finish out her degree. The King’s University was not on her radar, despite her family being longtime Gateway Church members, but her dad told her she needed to at least check out TKU because of its great location in Southlake, its connection to Gateway, and its reasonable price. So she went to the interest meeting with those reasons in mind, and she came home with so many more.
“I felt like God was calling me to something more—not just to get a degree with a Christian background but to actually step into a ministry setting right after school,” Rachel says. “TKU was exactly what I needed because it’s about ministry and education together.” She couldn’t deny that having the campus 15 minutes from her house wasn’t amazing either! Rachel applied right away with an excitement and expectation for the rest of her education.
For Rachel, every class, every chapel, and every paper showed her a new level of pursuing God and doing ministry. But because her focus was on pursuing active ministry upon graduation, some of the most influential takeaways in her time at The King’s University were the ministry practicums. The practicums are a chance for students to come alongside ministries and pastors—at Gateway or another local church—to learn from them and receive practical training. While Rachel was at TKU, she did several practicums at Gateway including in the children’s, freedom, and Equip ministries, but the best one happened to be the one she was the most hesitant about—Gateway’s women’s ministry.
When she applied to do her final practicum, she really wanted to work with Equip because that was the one she felt she would like the most. But one of her good friends got the Equip practicum, and she was moved to Gateway Women. It was the last choice on her list, and she begged them to move her to a different ministry. She thought that women’s ministry wasn’t something she would enjoy because she wasn’t a super girly girl, but her professors told her to stick it out. “I’m glad they did. It was an incredible experience,” Rachel says. “Every person on the Gateway Women team took time each week not just to show us what they did but really get to know us and pour into us. They treated us special.”
Rachel and several other students were invited to be a part of a big retreat and every other event the Gateway Women team was involved in and the more she was there, the more she realized how many opportunities there were for women in ministry and at Gateway. Through, not only the Gateway Women team but the professors and staff at TKU, God really turned her heart toward women’s ministry. “It’s the true desire of my heart, and I never thought it would be,” Rachel says. “I may have gone in kicking and screaming, but God knew, and I may not have ever realized it if my professors hadn’t listened to Him and pushed me toward that practicum.”
After graduating, Rachel was offered an administrative assistant position for Lorena Valle with Gateway Women at the North Richland Hills Campus, and she gladly took it, knowing that it was exactly where God wanted her to be. “I love Gateway, and I’ve always wanted to work with Gateway,” Rachel says. “The King’s University made that happen and gave me a solid foundation so I’m not walking blindly into my job each day.”