Sam St. Cyr graduated from New Life Academy in 2017. She attended New Life in high school from freshman to senior year. Currently, Sam is attending Wheaton College in Illinois, double majoring in English and Secondary Education. She was motivated to choose her majors due to the relationships she had with her teachers at New Life. They encouraged her and set a positive example, leaving Sam confident in her calling and desire to teach.
Sam has always wanted to love people in practical ways. Having both positive and negative models of teachers throughout her life gave her many different reasons to want to work in education. “Teachers are given very unique opportunities to grow relationships with the students they interact with every single day,” said Sam. “The idea of being even just a fun and trustworthy adult in the lives of middle schoolers gets me so excited!”
Her decision to teach English also comes from her passion of discovering all the ways language is used. “All English-speaking humans have the same bank of words to form their thoughts, so the diversity found within literature and rhetoric is really amazing,” said Sam.
Being a part of the NLA drama program and participating in musicals with friends is a significant part of Sam’s New Life story. “Everyone involved became such a tight group through the rehearsals, performances, and running to Applebee’s after shows,” said Sam. “I loved the community that was formed, and it was such an encouraging and fun thing to be a part of!“
Sam also enjoyed participating in decade dances and choir tours. “Many of the memories that vividly define my high school experience and friendships were made during choir tours, and it was such a tangible way to enter into communities and tell them about the Lord through music,”said Sam.
Looking back, Sam has really seen the Lord work in her life through her time at NLA. She came in reluctantly her freshman year, not wanting to leave the friends she had made in middle school. “However, once I got to New Life, I realized that my faith was something important that I needed to take ownership of,” said Sam. “In addition to learning about God in Bible classes, I was also being fed through teachers that cared about me tremendously, chapels that continuously sparked ideas and conversation, and relationships that were rooted in the kind of faith that I learned and desired.”
[su_pullquote align=”right”]“Going into college, I felt equipped to maintain a balance between learning about God for school and engaging in my personal relationship with Him,” said Sam. “Right now, I feel like God is continually reminding me of prayers He’s answered, times where I have heard very clear instructions from Him, or ways that I’ve seen Him working in my relationships.” [/su_pullquote]
Sam comes from quite the New Life legacy. Her parents Jenni and Jeff St. Cyr both went to New Life and were high school sweethearts. Her grandparents also attend New Life Church, and Sam loves how everyone in her family is really connected to the New Life community. “This environment softened me. Although my parents made the decision to attend New Life for me, I ended up loving the people and environment around me, and I learned to better love and serve the Lord through my teachers and classmates,” said Sam.
Sam believes that God really worked in her life and in her heart during her time at New Life. “Honestly, my whole season of life at NLA is a big part of my testimony,” said Sam. “It was a time that I learned to make my faith my own and was given some excellent role models.”
Now at Wheaton, Sam has participated in women’s chorale and gospel choir. She is able to serve others through working as an assistant RA and leading a bible study. She’s involved in her church, serving on the media team. Sam loves photography and cheering on her friends at sporting events.
She’s excited about what she’s doing right now and where the future is taking her. Her time at New Life equipped her to live fully and serve the Lord. Sam is grateful for her time at NLA where she discovered her passion and calling for teaching and to the place where she built lifelong memories and relationships.