Mr. Hellier roughdraft By Trey and David

Mr. Hellyer had an ideal life growing up with great parents. He lived in Atlanta for the first 12 years of his life and had good experiences. He went to Briar Lake Elementary School and later moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana for middle school and high school. He didn't like it there and felt like an outcast. Then his family moved to Greenville, South Carolina where he attended Riverside High School. He didn't do well in school and struggled with reading and writing. He went on to study math at Wheaton College and initially didn't plan on becoming a teacher. After college, he went on a short-term mission project in Sierra Leone, Africa, but it was a miserable experience. He had no idea what to do after college and ended up teaching at Wheaton Christian High School as a joke with his roommate. The first year of teaching was miserable, but he stayed for three more years. Eventually, he left teaching and worked as a network administrator in Atlanta. During So today we will be interviewing Mr. Hellyer about his walk of faith. So my first question for you is, how was life growing up? I had a pretty ideal life growing up. My parents were great. They did pretty much everything for us. They provided for us. I had two brothers. We had good experiences in our life growing up. So ideally, from a family perspective, I had a pretty ideal life growing up. If we are talking younger years, I lived in Atlanta for my first 12 years of my life. Those are just great memories, healthy memories, great experiences up to that point. I don't know how far you want me to go as far as growing up is concerned. What school did you go to? In Atlanta? Yeah. I went to Briar Lake Elementary School, which I don't think it's a school anymore. I lived over on the northeast side of Atlanta, kind of the Decatur area, a little north of Decatur. I guess they call it North Lake. But yeah, then when we moved out of Atlanta, I was still in elementary school, so that's where I went. Was it like a Christian school? No, it's just a public elementary school. Primary school, I guess, is what you'd call it. Where did you go for middle school and high school? So we moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana when I was 13. So we lived in Baton Rouge, 13 and 14 was primarily my middle school years. That was not a great experience. I didn't like it there. I didn't like the school I went to. I went to a private Episcopal school. And then I guess that's when I got my first taste of people being idiots, because I moved in and didn't have any friends and didn't really click with a lot of people there. So I was a little bit of an outcast while I was there. So my time didn't really fit in well at the church either, the kids that were in the church, but middle school years are pretty much tumultuous for everybody. And so that was my first taste kind of real life and having to deal with people who are sinners, especially at the middle school age, which amplifies kids being idiots. So yeah, that's where I went to middle school and high school. After our two years there, that wasn't a great experience for any of our family. And then we moved to Greenville, South Carolina, where I went to high school. I went to Riverside High School. And initially, again, going into a school and not knowing anybody, it was pretty rough. And actually it got so bad, and I wasn't a very good student. I hated school. I didn't do well in it. I was never very good. I always tell the joke to a lot of my students that I didn't get a B until I was a junior in high school. And it was the greatest day of my life because before that I got all Cs. So high school was not, I mean, I didn't do school well. It was rough. And my first year in high school was so bad that my parents made the decision that they needed to get me out of the situation. So they sent me to a boarding school for a year, which was great. It was actually a great experience. I kind of fought it to begin with, but it was a great experience for me. And then when I came back, I repeated the grade that I was in. So I had two sophomore years in high school, and that helped me in two ways. One, it got me out of the class that I was in my freshman year in high school, which wasn't a good class. I mean, it was a big public school. So it was, you know, again, I didn't fit in very well. But when I came back, I was able to kind of get caught up a little bit academically. And also I was able to restart at the high school I was at. So I went away as a sophomore. Then I came back, repeated my sophomore year, and then finished out my high school career in Greenville at Riverside High School, which is a pretty big public school in the area. Did you play soccer in high school? I did. I did. And that was a good experience in the end. You know, I played JV the first couple years and then made the varsity team, but didn't really play until my senior year. But my senior year was a great experience. And that's where most of my friends were from the soccer team. No, where did you end up going to college? I went to Wheaton College, which is a Christian college in Illinois, right outside of Chicago. What did you major in? I majored in math, which would make sense. But that was the only thing that I really, I struggled. I would what I have what would be considered today is some learning. I don't know what the proper word is right now. But I'd say learning disabilities. That's what they were called back then. I was, I am dyslexic. I think I would, at this point in time, I think if I had gone through the testing, I would have been ADD. But so I really struggled with reading and writing. That was really difficult for me. And so I really couldn't stand the classes that had a lot of reading and writing in them. So I kind of gravitated towards math just because of that. But I have somewhat of an aptitude towards math. I'm certainly not a genius. I didn't get great grades. But that was what I did best as far as academics is concerned. Did you ever see yourself becoming a math teacher? No, actually. My senior year in high school was the first, it was actually the first year I had a teacher even acknowledge my existence. But it was a calculus class. It was what we would call honors calculus. That's the class I was in. And one of the teacher kind of noticed something in me and her name was Miss Busby. And I remember one time after class, she pulled me aside. She said, Steve, you know, you really ought to consider maybe being a teacher in the future. And I looked at her and I said, Miss Busby, there is no chance I will ever be a teacher. I remember that, which is odd. I know the Lord allowed me to remember that because of what I am in right now. But that's kind of a unique situation that you recognize where, you know, you don't ever know. You don't know what the Lord's calling you to do. You don't know what his purpose for you is. And it's not terribly healthy to try to decide that, especially when you're a teenager in high school. So no, no, no thoughts towards being a teacher at all. So how long after college did you become a teacher? Well, I had somewhat of these grandiose plans going through college. I wanted to get an engineering degree and then I wanted to go overseas and do work in maybe some country in Africa or something where people were, where I felt like people were at a disadvantage and use my skills as an engineer to try to help them while at the same time being somewhat of a tent maker missionary, try to establish a church, try to work with a church as best I could. Those were my, those were what we would maybe call my dreams growing up. That's kind of what I want to do. And so my senior year, between my junior and senior year in college, I went on a short-term mission project, two months. And it was in Africa. It was in Sierra Leone, Africa, the country of Sierra Leone. And that's, those two months were two months of absolute misery for me. And I believe to this day, it was the Lord basically saying to me, Steve, you don't really know what I want you to do and you shouldn't be deciding that. You should be looking to me to direct you. So it was miserable. I put away all those ideas of being a missionary. So my senior year in college, I had no idea what I was going to do that year. I just, I was very up in the air, didn't have any idea what to do. During that year, I had a roommate that was in the same situation. So kind of as a joke, we said, there was one private Christian school in the area. It was actually called Wheaton Christian High School, where they were actually really looking for teachers. They really needed teachers. They came to the school asking people to maybe consider being teachers. So we said, there was also a lot of wildfires in Colorado. And so there were people trying to recruit men graduating from college to go to Colorado to fight wildfires. So recruit firemen. So we decided we were going to apply to both of those things. And whichever both of us got accepted to, we were going to go do that. So we had the choice. I mean, we were looking to either go fight wildfires in Colorado or be teacher in the local school. And so we both got accepted to teach at the school. No clue what they saw in us. But that's what we wound up doing our first year out of college. So it's kind of no, I mean, had no desire to do it. Just didn't know what else to do. Do you still know the guy that you did that with? Oh, yeah. We're actually, I would, for what it's worth, I would call him my best friend. We stay in close touch. We talk on the phone a lot. He's just a, he is a brother in Christ and we are very, very close. So we taught, so the first year of teaching was maybe the most miserable year of my life. It was just, I had no idea what I was doing. It was a disaster. And so I committed after that year to say, I've got to get out of teaching. I got to figure out something to do. But in the meantime, I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't that bad. So I stayed three more years to actually try to even try to be at least a mediocre teacher. But then after four years, I left and I moved back to Atlanta. And did you pick up at Whitfield after that? No, I actually had a job as a network administrator. So I got a job installing a network into a company because this was right when computers were starting to take, like, be a big thing in companies. So I was hired by a company to install a network, to get all the PCs on everybody's desk, and then manage that network. So I had that job, kept that job for four years with a local company in Atlanta. In that process, I met my wife, I met my future wife, and we got married in those four years and had our first two kids. How did you come to teach at Whitfield? During those four years, as I was working, I kind of enjoyed the work, but I did not believe that that was my calling. And over those four years, praying and spending time with the Lord and just kind of thinking through things, the Lord slowly brought me back around to the fact that he had called me to be a teacher. And so in that process, I started coming to the point where I wanted to get back into teaching, and I was starting to apply to schools in the area. And by that fourth year, I was sure that I wanted to get out of what I was doing and get back into teaching. So I'd applied to several schools, just to see, one of them was Wesleyan, one of them was a school in Gainesville, and one of them was Whitfield. And I was offered a job at two of them, and I made the choice to come to Whitfield between those two. And speaking of the Lord a lot, when did you come to learn about him? I am one of those people that was, that grew up in the church, that was taught the Bible. I was, my family was very, very Christ-centered. My parents were very Christ-centered in their upbringing, and so I'm not going to be able to put a finger on, you know, a specific day, but I've always grown up believing that there is a God, and that he does care about us, and that he, that we are to have a relationship with him. I've always believed that, even at times when I've had real doubts, when I've really kind of stepped away, I'm like, there's no way, there's no way. I've never been able to even come close to believe that we live in this world and that kind of thing, and there is not a great God who is in charge of it all. I can't, I've never been able to believe that that's the case. But I've had certain times in my life where I believe the Lord's really deeply worked in my life so that I have, so that he has kind of changed my perspective or drawn me closer to him over those years, and that's not just one time, it's like four or five times where I've had those real deep experiences where I think the Lord has drawn me into even a deeper relationship with him. But I can't, I mean, I'm not going to declare, I would say that I've always been called by God since I can, since I can remember. So in your faith journey, have you seen God, like, change your plans in life? Well, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I had no intention of being a teacher, none. And, um, and it's, it is, and that is maybe the greatest apologetic to me in my life, that there is a God, is that, that he really led me to something that I know that I was created to do and that I love doing for the most part. I mean, there are those days, but I love doing it and, uh, love teaching. Um, but I had no plans, no dreams, no intentions to even come close to school. I hated school, hated education the whole time I was growing up. So how long have you been at Whitfield for? This is my 24th year. 24. What is probably the craziest thing you've seen as a teacher? Craziest? Like, like, student-wise? I've seen a lot of crazy things, even though this is, I'm sure that there have been other worse crazy things in other schools, but I'm not really sure I can, I'm not sure it's necessarily something I should share. Um, but I can't, I mean, I guess one of the, one of the things is, is that a lot of times, there are a lot of times when the person, the peep, some of the students that I think are the furthest away from the Lord, when they, when the Lord calls them to him, what a drastic change that occurs in their lives, and that's pretty unique and crazy that I would definitely acknowledge is something that's, that just amazes me a lot of times. So do you, is there like a person or event in life that has like shaped your faith of God? I've had some, I've had, again, I would, I would say there's, you know, at least four or five. You know, at least four or five. I think that, um, my first year out of, out of college was a time when the Lord broke me really, that he really broke me of my trust in the world, and that had to do with a, I was a very good athlete growing up, played soccer through college. It had to, that it came through three things that happened. One being the fact that my, I found out that my dad was terminally ill with cancer. Number two was I had a really, really bad knee injury, and I'd never been injured before in my life, and I, I mean, it, it took me out of all kinds of competitive athletics. And then there was another thing that I won't talk about specifically, but it was something very personal to me that was very, very devastating, and I actually, it drove me to the point of realizing through some really, really, really dark times that I was not in control of my life, that I had no control over my life, and I had to make a choice. I had to make a choice as to whether I really did trust God with my life and trust him knowing that I can't control things in my life, or that I was going to reject God and, and, and make an effort to try to put up boundaries in my life and try to control it as best I can, but that was the time when I realized that I really couldn't. So that was, that was the first crisis of faith in my life that was most significant, and I remember it extremely well. And I will also say this, because I think this is a unique thing that the Lord did in my life, was that one of the person, one of the people that helped me through that time was a guy that in my freshman year in college I absolutely hated. We actually almost had a couple of literal fights until he was kicked out of Wheaton for doing something, for doing something he shouldn't did, and I, I, I rejoiced in that day. I was so glad he was gone. I said good riddance to him or something, but the Lord brought all of that full circle to the point where we happened to be living together my first year out of college, so this is four years later. We still didn't really we still didn't really like each other that much necessarily, but through a mutual friend we wound up living in an apartment together with those mutual friends, but this guy who had actually had a, had a, a revival in his own life was the guy that stood by me through some of my darkest times in life, which is another beautiful apologetic for who God is and how he loves, I mean, how we can't, we've got to be so careful about how we judge other human beings. If you could look back to a younger you, what advice would you give them? My total advice would be do not trust in yourself because the decisions you make and the dreams you have and the things that you plan on are for the most part driven by selfishness and the beliefs of lies that Satan constantly tells us through all kinds of different medias. Do not trust in yourself. Put your trust in God. If I, I would say the, the things that I struggle with, the things that I still struggle with in life, the consequences that I have in my life that I still struggle with all come from me thinking that I know best what is good for my life and acting upon that. Those are the most destructive things in my life is when I fully rejected what God has laid out for my life and I chose what I wanted. Do not put your trust in your own wisdom or the wisdom of the Lord. So we have a few rapid questions for you. So the first one is what is your Chick-fil-A order? The market salad with the apple cider vinaigrette dressing. That's because I'm old and I can't eat the chicken anymore. Who would you say is like the goat of soccer? The goat? Yes. Oddly enough, I'm not a huge soccer fan. I love the game. I, and I love coaching, but I don't follow it that much. But I, I mean, how else, who else can you say but messy right now? Yeah. What is your life verse? The horse is prepared for battle, but victory is in the hands of the Lord's. Proverbs 21 31. That's a good one. Definitely speaking towards, we do, we, we work, we work hard. We do what the Lord calls us to do, but we, we fully depend upon him for whatever the result is. We don't try to drive it ourselves. What's your favorite sports team? I'm going to have to say the Oklahoma Sooners at this point in time, even though for the most part, I would have, I would say Georgia Tech, but they're so bad at everything right now. It's hard to admit that, but Georgia Tech has been always, they've always been my favorite team until my, I had one of my sons go to OU. So if you were in the cereal aisle, what are you going to pick? Raisin Bran. What is your favorite book of the Bible? Can I pick one from the Old Testament and the New Testament? Daniel in the Old Testament, James in the New Testament. Do you have a book that you're currently reading? I have a book that I'm currently reading and it is called Believing is Seeing, and it's written by a scientist who is rejecting the terminology that seeing is believing. Believing is seeing. That's all we have for you today. Thank you for this wonderful interview. You're very welcome. I've enjoyed it. Transcribed by https://otter.ai