Dorine Hawkins Stewart was only 13 years old when her father, an Oklahoma pioneer minister, posed the question, “Sister, what do you want to do when you grow up?” “I think I either want to be a missionary or a movie star,” she replied. His challenge to her: “Choose wisely, but remember the reward of being a missionary. You can serve the Lord until you are 60 or 70 or maybe even 80.” Two years after that conversation, she made her commitment to mission work, eventually to Brazil.

She arrived at OBU in October 1935. Classes had already begun, but she decided to attend class and anxiously watch the mail for her “letter from God,” she says, money for tuition. It arrived. The president of the southwest district of WMU mailed her confirmation of a scholarship to attend the first semester. Support from the WMU continued through OBU and on through seminary.

With school completed, Dorine left for mission work in 1945. She arrived in Rio de Janeiro and says, “For a little farm girl to make a difference in this big world humbled me. I was beginning to believe God could take this Oklahoma preacher’s daughter and use her to glorify him. And that old dream of being a movie star or ballerina didn’t hold a candle to this one!”

After intensive language study, Dorine taught high school students until 1949, when she became director of the Southern Brazil WMU Training School that served nearly 30 Brazilian young women, two Brazilian teachers, and 10 missionaries.

Between furloughs, she completed a doctorate degree, and in 1976, her life took an unexpected turn, when at the age of 60 she married Buford Stewart. They settled in Austin, Texas. “My new life and very different ‘mission’ had begun,” she says.

Soon, Dorine began discussing a return to Brazil. They attended Foreign Mission Week at Ridgecrest Baptist Conference Center. Challenged by the pastor, they decided to go to Brazil together. They served until 1980, and now live in Austin.

“The idea that what I do could make a difference motivates me,” says Walter Grubbs, vice president of human resources for California-based Vision Service Plan for the past 10 years, one of Fortune Magazine’s best places to work in America. “I suppose you could say it’s providential. One opportunity or experience has led to another,” he says, “and it has culminated in working for a great company that shares my values and ethics.”

After OBU, Walter completed a Master of Divinity degree from Golden Gate Seminary to prepare for pastoral ministry. He followed seminary with two years of full-time clinical pastoral education in general hospital and mental health settings. He proceeded to take a role as associate pastor of a church, but came to the realization that he should pursue something else. “It became a painful and disappointing time of transition,” he says. “I was afraid that years of study and preparation might be wasted.”

He found a place where his skills and training transferred well, a career in management and human resources, beginning a long employment with First Interstate Bank of Oregon and California and moving into work with Vision Service Plan. “We want Vision Service Plan to be a place where people consider long-term careers,” he says. “We’ve analyzed it, and the factors that most strongly influence employee retention are treating people with respect and supporting career development. This is made easier when we keep the perspective that we’re dealing with children of God and not disposable resources.”

Regarding OBU, Walter especially recalls professors and fellow students who challenged his faith in a healthy, constructive way, and did not take a “lazy” approach, intellectually or morally.

“It was a course on dying,” Sheila says in reference to the reason she decided to complete the nursing program. “We read the autobiographies of people with cancer and discussed how nursing can impact lives.” Juanita Milsap, professor emeritus of nursing and now a legend among OBU nursing graduates, taught the class. “This class worked as one of several events that directed me to a career in nursing,” says Sheila. “I never planned a career. I have tried to recognize the next opened door; I only wait for guidance, and then journey forward.”

Sheila, a member of the fourth nursing class, was working in an Oklahoma City hospital after graduation when another door opened. Late in filing applications to several schools, Sheila did not expect everything would work out so quickly. In a matter of weeks, she moved East and began graduate studies at Yale University in maternal and newborn nursing and midwifery. While at Yale, she completed a midwifery internship in Chicago. “I had always learned about pregnancy in regards to a hospital stay,” she says, “where women came in lying down, medicated, and helpless. In Chicago, I learned about midwifery firsthand. In my inaugural outing, I climbed the stairs to a third floor and opened the door to a small apartment. Inside, the mother labored in the back room while she directed her other children with homework assignments and dinner plans. She impressed me, her control of the situation and awareness of her surroundings.” During this time, she began research on how nurses assist pregnant women. “This study focused my thinking about the nursing profession, the importance of identifying patients’ needs, and what nurses do to change their outcomes,” she says.

Sheila’s journey brought her back to Oklahoma as an OBU professor for several years, at which time she met her husband during a book discussion group in the library – another door. After marriage, a door opened to work in West Virginia for five years before she returned to Oklahoma and, in 1975, began teaching at the University of Oklahoma. She now holds the title, Professor Emerita of Nursing. “My purpose in teaching is to encourage nurses to think… to think about God’s options and then to listen,” she says. “That’s difficult to hang on to when many in the healthcare world do not acknowledge the spiritual as part of care.”

In 1993, she began working with bedside nurses through Baptist and Children’s hospitals and was instrumental in establishing the Center for Clinical Nursing Research Utilization and Development. The purpose of the Center is to help nurses identify what they are doing to change patients’ outcomes and to increase their use of knowledge already available in our nursing journals. Today, she continues that work in the OU Medical Center exploring the clinical infrastructure of nursing, asking how nurses make a difference in patient well-being.

“I never have experienced an epiphany from God like Paul did,” she says. “God just continues to open doors. I plan to continue walking.”