Full Circle: A Surprise Encounter with a Familiar Face from My Past

A journey of faith, friendship, and fulfillment

Gorgeous Sorgius!

I didn’t say that when I introduced myself to him, but it was my first thought. Had we called him that to his face? It was the perfect rhyme and made his a name I would not forget.

“I’m Sara… Souders,” I said, almost forgetting to provide my maiden name instead of Dagen.

“I remember,” Mike Sorgius said.

Did he? I’d been a college student at the University of Florida—36 years back—when I last saw Mike, the leader of our Campus Crusade for Christ (now called Cru) movement.

And here he was, in the flesh. Me, too. I’m not sure which was more surprising.

“We’ve gotten a little older,” I said, after telling Mike who I was. It seemed an awkward thing to say, but his response was even more awkward.

“I’ve had open heart surgery,” he told me.

It wasn’t until later that I realized I could have said, “You were responsible for my open-heart surgery” in response. Because he was.

Not physical surgery, thank God, but a rending of my heart and mind in my college years that forever transformed my life. I had entered UF as a junior, transferring from an all-girls college with a student population of 350, a hundred times smaller than UF’s 35,000.

At Cottey, I’d been a big fish in a small pond, president of my class and valedictorian. I wasn’t sure how I’d fare at UF. Certainly, it was an ocean in comparison.

About a week before I left for UF, I got the call that would turn UF into a small pond.

“Hello?” I answered the phone and recognized the voice that responded.

A trajectory-changing friendship

It was Donna Beede, a high school friend. I hadn’t heard from her since she graduated a year before me. My gap year between high school and college put me two years behind her.

She and I became fast friends during my junior year of high school, her senior year. We were both new to the drill team, Sarasota High School’s Sailorettes, the pompom squad with the tagline, “Sailorettes shake it!”

To be clear, we shook pompoms, one orange, one white, each weighing two pounds. Not our rear ends, which, for most squad members, were covered by a modest skirt. (We also wore a long-sleeved, white turtleneck shirt.)

By “most squad members,” I mean everyone but me. Not that I was intentionally immodest. Just that my mother—who sewed my uniform—missed the instruction to have me raise my arms above my head before she measured two inches of skirt below the bottom of my rear end.

My mile-long legs made me the tallest girl on the squad and positioned me front and center on the 50-yard line during each football halftime show, where most of our routines had us hefting our poms above our heads. My skirt, suffice it to say, was rarely two inches lower than my black panties.  

Donna had a uniform fitted appropriately, but we became friends the summer before we hit the football field in uniform.

The ‘random’ roommate assignment

That summer, the drill team traveled from Sarasota to the University of South Florida in Tampa for camp, and Donna and I were assigned to share a room.

As we unpacked, she sheepishly—almost apologetically—pulled out a cassette tape player.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she said, “but I brought this to play my Amy Grant tapes.”

Her cassette player was about as big as what I pulled out of my bag in response.

“I hope you don’t mind,” I responded, showing her my Ryrie Study Bible, “but I brought my Bible so I could have my quiet time in the morning.”

We laughed and breathed a sigh of relief.

Out of all the girls who were strangers to me on our squad, I was paired with Donna, a fellow believer in Jesus. The blessing was only beginning.

The days that followed were hard. Each squad was competing against squads from other schools as we learned challenging new routines and practiced disciplines intended to unite us.

The girls on the other squads seemed unfriendly and overly competitive. Our own teammates complained so much about the experience that they talked themselves into leaving.

Are you kidding me?

I had worked hard to raise the money for this opportunity, and I wanted to get the most out of it. So did Donna. But if our teammates left, our ride left, too. After some scrambling, Donna was able to convince one of her brothers to come and pick us up after the camp, and we said goodbye to our teammates and stayed.

At the end of the challenging week, the camp awarded Donna and me the coveted “Spirit Pom.” Our determination and perseverance had been noticed. We had mastered the routines, and when we returned to high school after the summer break, it was our duty and joy to teach them to the rest of our squad.

When we drew names for squad secret pals, I got Donna’s name. I hand-sewed a pompom doll—with a modest uniform—as one of my gifts, humble though it was.

Donna graduated and left for the University of Florida. By the time I graduated with my Associate of Arts degree from the two-year Cottey College, she had graduated with her bachelor’s from UF. A week before I was to head to UF myself, she called.

The ‘chance’ phone call…

“I’m going on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ,” she told me. (It was likely a call to ask for financial support until I told her I was heading to UF myself.)

“Oh! I’m so excited for you!” she said. “You’ve got to get involved.”

She told me more about what the student group did on campus, and I was excited to find them.

“Go to the colonnade at the Reitz Union the first week of school and find the Campus Crusade table,” she told me. “Ask for Bev Jones and tell them you know me.”

Instead of meandering through the student union like the newbie I was, I went on a mission—and found the table just as Donna had said. The colonnade was a shaded, open-air, covered hallway lined with columns and long tables. Various campus organizations stood behind their tables, hoping students would stop and learn about what they offered.

I went straight toward a sign on a table: Campus Crusade for Christ.

“Donna Beede told me to ask for Bev Jones,” I said to the woman and young man standing there. The woman was Bev Jones, who would become my mentor and Bible study leader during my years at UF.

How Cru changed everything

Getting connected with Cru changed everything. I immediately had a like-minded group of friends and fun activities to do.

And Gorgeous Sorgius—it was too perfect a rhyme not to use it—and his beautiful wife, Lee Anne, were at the head of the group. They had three or four young children and often opened their home for cookouts and other gatherings.

Cru was cool. It publicized its meetings starting at 7:27 or 7:31 p.m. or some other oddball, memorable time, and included skits, worship songs with a fun twist, as well as a clear message.

It wasn’t just fun; it was spiritually challenging. I met with a group of other students and Bev each week for Bible study, and many Cru students and staff members gathered to attend football games and other activities.

While Cottey had been a wonderful experience, I hadn’t had a group of Christian students to grow in faith with. I had clung to Jesus mostly on my own during those two years, and the community at UF was incredible.

I believed in Jesus and had committed my life to him, but Cru’s teachings and trainings helped me understand the Bible so much better. I learned, for instance, that my salvation wasn’t based on anything I did or how I felt. It was because of what Jesus did for me, dying on the cross for my sins. What I couldn’t do for myself. What I couldn’t earn.

I learned how to share my faith and saw the potential to change the world by reaching the hearts of college students with the message of Christ.

In fact, by November of my first year at UF, I told my dad I wanted to go on staff with the organization when I graduated. He was fully supportive.

The next summer, I went on a stateside mission trip to Wildwood, New Jersey. One of my Cru friends, John, and a new leader of our UF group, Barb, recommended it.  Both had gone to Wildwood previously.

Going on a summer project meant missing my best friend’s and my sister’s weddings, as I couldn’t afford the money to travel home. The project meant sacrifice in many ways. I had to raise support to get there and pay for housing, find a job for the summer weeks I would be there, and leave everyone I knew behind.

And it meant finding the man I would marry.

I had signed up for the summer project, knowing Cru advocated for “creative dating,” and my boyfriend from UF had encouraged me to enjoy dating in Wildwood so I’d know for sure he was the man for me.

So I dated Troy, who became my best enemy on the project; developed a crush on Mark, who was a great friend and had no idea I thought more of him; and, innocently and completely, fell in love with Bill Olson, a love that would survive that summer and make me know for sure the boyfriend back home was not the man for me.

I also formed close friendships with the girls and staff members, and grew in my faith and love for the Lord.

Bill was from Oshkosh, Wisconsin, half a country away from Gainesville, Florida. Letters, along with the occasional costly long-distance phone call, bridged the distance until the next summer, when we both returned to Wildwood.

By the end of the second summer in Wildwood, we knew we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together and work with Cru. At Christmas that year, I went to Wisconsin to meet Bill’s family—and returned home with a ring on my finger and plans to marry the following August.

Mike made a difference

Obviously, being engaged made an enormous impact on my life. However, before I left for Christmas break in 1987 and 1988, Mike Sorgius and some Christian faculty members made a statement in the student newspaper that caught my attention.

“Wise men and women still seek him,” a half-page advertisement read, an image depicting the three kings who visited the baby Jesus in Bethlehem. Under it were columns of names of UF faculty who counted themselves among those wise people, seeking Jesus Christ.

The following year, Christian faculty published an ad inviting others to engage with them to discuss “The Solution.” The advertisements got the attention of The Gainesville Sun, which interviewed Mike and others for a story about what was happening at UF.

Mike had begun to transition from leading the student ministry to developing a faculty ministry, and he had clearly made a significant impact in a short time.

It certainly made an impact on me at the time. Today, it affects me even more.

Best-laid plans go awry

In May 1989, I graduated with my Bachelor of Science degree in journalism from UF and started working full-time as a copy editor at The Gainesville Sun.

My plan to join the Cru staff was delayed. Instead of graduating with a degree in music, Bill changed majors—and then moved to Florida to marry me. He would pursue his new degree at Florida, engaging with Cru student ministries, while I worked nights as a copy editor at the local newspaper. Once he graduated, we would follow our original plan.

Except Bill got sick instead, and we spent the last six months of our two-year marriage—his life—trying to get him well. When my dear husband died unexpectedly from complications after ulcer surgery, our dreams died with him.

But God wasn’t done with me yet. I had a lot of life to live and give—marrying the second love of my life, Steve, and parenting five children. Meeting “Gorgeous Sorgius” after so much life had passed reminded me of where I am today. Full circle.

The circle makes a turn

Eleven years ago, I began working at UF as a marketing and communications staff member. Shortly afterward, I began receiving a weekly email invitation to join a faculty prayer time. I wasn’t a faculty member, so I deleted it. Every week. After I read through it again, looking for the words “faculty and staff.” I never saw that addition, but I never unsubscribed.

Last summer, I finally took a chance and joined the 7:15 a.m. Zoom prayer.

“Is it OK if I join?” I asked. “I’m staff, not faculty.”

“Of course!”

It was a small, welcoming group, part of Faculty Commons. It is the Cru ministry begun by Mike all those years ago!

Ever since, I’ve been joining them on Tuesdays, and recently, a revival prayer group on Friday mornings as well. I’ve started meeting with several women in my building for Bible study during our lunch breaks on Thursdays. It’s exciting to see God work through me on campus, as I always desired.

In September, I attended the faculty lunch, where the speaker, almost as an afterthought, announced the presence of “almost royalty,” Mike Sorgius, the founder of Faculty Commons, as the meeting ended. I would not have noticed him in the full room otherwise.

I weaved my way through the maze of round tables in the crowded room, determined to say hello. No one fought me for an audience with him, and I approached him with incredible joy at this reunion. He looked at me politely, but his face showed no recognition until I told him my name. Even then, I’m not certain he knew who I was.

Perhaps that was why I managed only a superficial conversation, instead of expressing the depth of gratitude I might have felt.

But it was a gorgeous moment, nonetheless.

Afterward:

A month later, I attended an All-Cru Gathering on campus, which included not only UF’s undergraduate Cru, where I had participated as a student, and the Faculty Commons, but also Cru organizations for graduate students, fraternity/sorority students, and athletes. (Wow!)

We shared and prayed in small groups. Afterward, I noticed Mike Sorgius and his wife, Lee Anne. I approached her and said what I’d said to Mike.

“Hi, I’m Sara Souders!”

“From Sarasota!” she replied with enthusiasm, instantly recognizing me. We hugged. “I knew it was you.”

When I was six, my family had moved to Sarasota, Florida, and I had been afraid that people would make fun of my name, since it sounded so much like my new hometown. In truth, no one noticed until I went to college—where “I’m “Sara Souders from Sarasota” became, obviously, my claim to fame.

Maybe as catchy as Gorgeous Sorgius?