Finding Healing, Community, and Calling at CTS

AMBER DAWN TREJO, MAMFT ‘20 

I grew up in California, so I had never heard of Christian Theological Seminary (CTS) before. I moved to Indiana, and I enrolled at Ivy Tech Community College for my associate’s degree. My professor for Abnormal Psychology told me about CTS because she knew that I was interested in working with married people, couples, and families. I was set once I toured the campus. I wanted to be a marriage and family therapist, but I had never done any work to heal my own childhood trauma before entering the program. I shared experiences with my cohort that I never felt safe enough to share before. I felt accepted. It was a very transformative and healing experience to have others be just as vulnerable with me. I have never felt as connected with another group of people. I realized that it was safe to open up and share. I appreciated the questions that they asked, the papers we had to write, and the group projects we had to do. I had two children when I started at CTS. I ended up getting pregnant during my last year in school, and I had my baby on March 12, 2020. It was challenging and hard, but I also couldn’t imagine doing it another way. Going through the program and getting my degree when I did made me such a better mom. I was prepared to graduate, and then everything shut down when the COVID-19 pandemic happened. My husband was in the Army Reserve, so he was mobilized to work in an Army hospital in Detroit for two months right after we had our baby. I was so close to giving up, but my colleagues surrounded me and helped me finish. They brought me groceries, cooked me dinners, and helped take care of my kids. That connected me to CTS on an even deeper level. I am forever grateful for the community and parts of me I found at CTS while on my journey there. 

 This alumni story is from CTS’ Oral History Project, A Century of Crossroads, which captured the stories and memories of our alumni from our first 100 years in printed and digital formats.