Look! What God Has Done for Us!

By Alvord Apau-Kese, Class of 2024

Psalm 50:1-6
The Mighty One, God the Lord, speaks and summons the Earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. Out of Zion, the Perfection of beauty, God shines forth. Our God comes and does not keep silence. Before Him is a devouring fire and a mighty tempest all around Him. He calls to the heavens above and to the Earth that He may judge His people. "Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice. The heavens declare His righteousness, for God Himself is Judge."
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This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
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2 Corinthians 4:3-6
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case, the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus' sake. For it is the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Mark 9:2-9
After six days, Jesus took Peter, James, and John with Him and led them up a high mountain where they were all alone. There, He was transfigured before them; His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. And there before them appeared Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." He did not know what to say; they were so frightened. Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: "This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to Him!" Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Hello, how's everyone doing today? My name is Alvord Apau-Kese; I'm a senior at Highland School of Technology. I would like to thank everyone for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today.


Today, I'm going to speak on how prayer has affected my life in a positive way. The most recent example I can think of is this morning. I was praying that I'd be able to come up here and not be awkward and speak to everyone. So, I'm hoping that works out positively; we'll see at the end.


My main three points that I want to speak on are my football career, my schooling career, and my Eagle Scout that I recently achieved. I'll start with my schooling.


I would find myself praying every morning before I went to school. I remember not being the most serious student going through Middle School. When I got into Highland, my parents asked me, "Albert, do you want to go to Highland?" Being who I am, I knew Highland had a very high academic reputation, so I was pretty scared and said no. But my parents did what would be best for me and applied for me anyway. I ended up at Highland, and every day my freshman year, I prayed that I'd be able to get through. My first day, I asked the teacher if Highland's reputation is as bad as it sounds. She said yes, which made me want to do better and reach those expectations. I believe that prayer was what was able to get me to where I am today. I am coming onto my senior year, having taken my academics incredibly seriously, and I've done nothing but the best for myself academically.


Football—Highland's football team is not the greatest team in Gaston County. I can vouch; I went 0-30 in my high school career, never won a high school game in my entire life. There were a lot of trials and tribulations. It was tough, but prayer is what was able to get me to get up after that big hit, get up after that big run, and do what I needed to do on and off the field. I had an event happen to me that truly needed prayer. A teammate of mine passed away last February, and that was a really rough moment for me. I don't think I would have been able to get through it without praying to God, asking for help, and seeing if He'd be able to help me out mentally. Our entire team came up with a tradition to gather around the number two on the field at the 20-yard line pregame and do a team prayer. That's my most prominent example, my favorite one to bring up because that was the roughest one that I've ever had to go through.


The last example, and this one might be the longest, is my Eagle Scout. I was in Boy Scouts for about ten years. It's been a long road. I remember when I first started, a neighbor worked at the Boy Scout shop down the road. He knocked on our door, and I saw the Boy Scout bags. My first thought was, "Oh, he's selling us popcorn. I'm going to get some popcorn today." He came in the house, and as soon as I looked in the bags, my heart dropped. I saw two Boy Scout uniforms for my brother and me, and I knew that this was happening in that moment. I was going to be a Boy Scout. It was a lot; I had to give up Tuesdays, things I wanted to do with my friends, but I couldn't because of camping trips, youth Sundays, and a lot of other Boy Scout activities. Going into my first day, a common trend, I prayed. I prayed that I'd be able to go through this journey because I knew it was a big journey. Boy Scouts is not just a one-day thing; it usually takes multiple years to do. Getting my Eagle Scout was one of the scariest things that I've had to do because I wasn't sure if I was even going to be able to reach it. I got my Life rank around the Covid-19 year, which really did stunt everything. It made everything very tough, but it was about how I handled it and how God helped me get back on my feet. I was persistent, able to get the project out of the way after a few months. I had to help my brother do his first, but we ended up getting to mine. We both got our Eagle Scouts, and I got a few Palms as well because I had a good amount of merit badges.


The common theme here is that prayer has helped me with each and every single one of these things. Everyone being here today shows me how seriously this congregation takes their faith and how everyone here has a great relationship with God. I'm working on my relationship with God, getting it to a place where I can be proud and rely on God for many things. So, I want to leave everyone with that thought and thank everyone for allowing me to speak here. Thank you.