Ouachita Stories

Previously published in the 2019 Ouachitonian yearbook

For Ethan Elkins, a freshman Christian studies and communications & media double major, just getting to college meant working extra hard. Elkins was diagnosed with autism in high school, though his struggles actually started earlier.

“In sixth grade, when I was about 12 years old, I started to see a kind of difference,” said Elkins. “I thought, ‘I’m not getting these concepts being taught. Why isn’t my brain comprehending what is going on?’ I started getting frustrated because, you know, you sit there in class and you’re getting bad grades, but you’re honestly doing your best. You could be getting D’s and F’s, and as soon as you get the concept they go ahead and move on to a different subject, so you’re pretty much just left in the dark.”

It wasn’t long before Elkins started getting bullied.

“A couple of kids realized I was different and started to pick on me,” Elkins said. “They would say things, like, basically, ‘You won’t amount to anything in life.’ It just went on and on at recess. There are a whole bunch of kids out there, and the teacher is not going to see everything. There was nothing physical, just a lot of verbal abuse.”

Eventually, Elkins reached the point where he had had enough, so he devised a scheme.

“We had these little lockers where we would place our lunchboxes before recess. I was a small fellow, about 4’5” and 75 lbs., so I could squeeze into my locker and just hide there for the rest of the hour. I did that for a couple of days until my teacher, Ms. Paulette, caught me sneaking out. She then started questioning me, asking me why I was hiding in my locker and why I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. Tears started running down my face, and she asked, ‘What’s wrong?’ I said, ‘I’m being bullied because of this.’”

As Ms. Paulette continued to talk to Ethan, he realized he had a choice.

“She said some words that I still remember today,” said Elkins. “There are two things you can do: You can sit here and wallow in your self-pity, or you can redefine yourself.”

So Ethan dedicated himself to working and studying even harder, and soon his diligence started paying off. He started to get better grades.

“I started getting C’s, B’s and even A’s,” said Elkins. “I learned how my brain works and how I learned the best. I was getting better at my resource classes, and eventually I was testing out. In eighth grade, I made it to get out of these classes. I did, and I was placed into an indirect program.”

During his freshman year of high school, Ethan felt a calling from God to go into ministry. At the time, however, he wasn’t so sure about it.

“I put if off into the back of my mind, like, ‘God can’t use me because I’m not smart. I’m not capable of it,’” explained Elkins. “This went on for about a month. I was fighting God on ministry. Then, I was on social media, a place where you don’t think you are going to find anything useful, and I found this Bible passage, 1 Corinthians 1:26-31. Just to sum it up, it basically talks about how God uses what the world thinks isn’t significant, and makes it significant. There is nothing the world has that is better than God. So I thought, ‘Okay, Jesus,’ and I answered the call to ministry.”

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