If a SportsCenter trivia question asked which golfer finished high school ranked No. 2 behind Tiger Woods, most people would scan the PGA Tour roster for possible answers. But they would be looking in the wrong place.
If a SportsCenter trivia question asked which golfer
finished high school ranked No. 2 behind Tiger Woods, most people would
scan the PGA Tour roster for possible answers. But they would be
looking in the wrong place.
The answer, instead, was among the Dec. 17, 2005,
graduates of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary: Brad Zwetschke.
If featured in a SportsCenter segment, the avid golfer would have
plenty to tell about the way God led him to seminary and in the way God
cared for him and his family following Hurricane Katrina.
Zwetschke, originally from Chicago, was introduced
to golf at age 3. He began playing on courses at 4 and competed in his
first tournament at 6.
He was traveling to tournaments at 8 and touring the country at 13.
Such intense play at a young age allowed him to grow
up competing against many of the golfers presently on the PGA Tour, the
most notable being Tiger Woods. In 1991, Zwetschke came within a shot
of beating Woods at the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship.
As Woods took the fast track from college golf to
the PGA Tour, Zwetschke began tournament play with the hopes of
eventually making the circuit, but God had other plans in store.
In the midst of his first year as a professional golfer, Zwetschke
began to see God at work in his life. He was surrounded by some
Christian men who invited him to Bible studies and to church.
When Zwetschke’s father had a heart attack on the
golf course during one of his tournaments, God provided someone in the
crowd who was able to perform CPR until help arrived. The experience
changed his life, and during that tough time, Zwetschke turned to
Christ.
Another change came not long afterward when
Zwetschke met Christina Mauldin, a pastor’s daughter from the south
side of Chicago. The couple married about a year-and-a-half later.
After their wedding, they moved to Florida where Zwetschke continued
his golf career.
“When we first got married, we’d go (to tournaments)
together,” Zwetschke recalls. “Sometimes the hotels were too expensive
to stay in for four nights and we would sleep in the van in the parking
lot of the clubhouse. Depending on how expensive some things were, we
had to make do with what we had.
“But that’s the typical lifestyle of somebody who’s
trying to make it,” he continues. “There’s a lot of eating out and
sandwiches on the road and trying to find a place to do laundry. It
wasn’t glamorous by any means.”
As the young couple traveled together to tournaments
across the United States, they attended churches in the cities where
they were staying. Zwetschke’s practice of attending church while away
from home became an avenue by which God revealed his plans.
“I was at a qualifying in Australia and I was gone
from my family for three weeks,” Zwetschke recounts. “I had been there
for a week and I decided to go to this little church.”
Zwetschke and his wife had been praying for a year
about God’s will for their lives. If he placed high enough in the
qualifying, there was a chance the family would move to Australia for
him to play in the tour there. Zwetschke knew a lot was riding on his
performance in the tournament.
“He brought me up in front of the church and the
church leaders prayed over me,” Zwetschke adds. “He ended up preaching
this sermon on John 21. I heard God speaking to my heart about how
Peter had spent some time with Christ and that it was time for him to
give up fishing.”
The parallel between Zwetschke and the disciple
became suddenly clear. He, like Peter, had spent his life focused on a
trade – golfing.
“He spoke to my heart, saying ‘This is all you’ve
done,” Zwetschke says. “This is all you’ve ever known. I need you to
take care of My sheep and feed My lambs.
“I came home and told my wife, ‘I don’t know what
this means,” Zwetschke continues. “But I know that God is doing
something with us.’”
Before long, while traveling to a tournament in
Canada, Zwetschke heard the same message from John 21 on the radio. He
said he practically turned the van around – the decision was made.
Almost immediately, Zwetschke began attending the
New Oreleans Seminary extension center in Jacksonville, Fla., and
nearly three years ago, Zwetschke and his family moved to New Orleans
to live and study on campus.
As of last August, Zwetschke had just one semester
left before graduation and also did not know for sure where God would
lead his family next. Zwetschke and Christina were expecting a child in
September – their third.
Then came Hurricane Katrina.
As in countless other situations, God used the
hurricane to plant the Zwetschke family exactly where He wanted them.
When the storm drew near, Zwetschke took his family to Beatrice, Ala.,
along with several other seminary families. A church there looked
after the family for a couple weeks.
Foremost on his mind was finding a hospital for
Christina to have the baby, so they called the doctor in Sarasota,
Fla., who delivered their other two children. Shortly thereafter,
Christian Thomas Zwetschke was born on Sept. 27.
From there things just fell into place.
Zwetschke went by Colonial Oaks Baptist Church in Sarasota to see if the church had a place where he could serve.
They did.
For about a year, the church had searched for an
outreach and student minister. Almost at the very moment Zwetschke
walked in the door, someone from the church was dialing the seminary’s
number in hopes of offering it to a New Orleans seminary student.
Zwetschke was a perfect match.
When classes started up again in October, he
enrolled in the three classes he needed before graduation. The
Internet-based threaded discussion classes were challenging, but
Zwetschke persevered.
“I knew Hebrew was going to be the toughest online,
but I was able to get that done,” Zwetschke explains. “It was very,
very difficult.”
But he said that his Dec. 17 graduation in Birmingham, Ala., was worth all the tough work.
“The ceremony at graduation was incredible,”
Zwetschke recalls. “It was closure to us, because we didn’t go back to
campus (during the post-Katrina, post-flood move-out days).
“We knew we lost everything,” he adds. “To see everyone at graduation was just closure.” (BP)