Finding Christian Community | Uchenna Victor Onwudinjo ‘23

Hello everyone, my name is Uchenna Victor Onwudinjo. I’m from Enugu, Nigeria. I grew up in a family of eight children and we were all raised Catholic. I grew up attending church with my sisters and mom, which made me fall in love with God and the church. I also had close family friends who were priests, and who inspired me to want to become a priest and serve the Lord as they did. I went to a catholic secondary school to learn more about God and how to become a priest. I did learn a lot about God and the Bible during the school’s Bible studies, through which one of the priests in the school mentored me. My mom and my sisters were big influences in my choice to attend Catholic school.

After graduating from secondary school, my family went through a lot of challenges, which led to my doubt for God’s love and to me taking a step back from church and being a priest, but my mom held my head up through it all.

Coming to America, I didn’t have my mom, my sisters, or Christian community around me to keep my head up and I completely fell out of faith. What brought me out of that was coming to Charlottesville, and meeting Theological Horizons and other Christian communities. They helped me a lot with my personal growth and drew me back to God.

When I was younger I dreamt of becoming a Catholic priest and also hopefully a soccer player, but coming to America I decided I wanted to focus more on soccer. I started playing college soccer in West Virginia and was hoping to go pro. Unfortunately, I started dealing with a lot of injuries which made me quit. I left devastated and with no idea what to do for my career. I did still have a lot of passion for soccer, and after a lot of thought, I decided to try coaching, though I didn’t know where to start. Coming to UVA, I met Christy and Karen, who connected me with Theological Horizons and Horizon Fellows. Horizon Fellows connected me with a lot of coaching mentors and hooked me up with a lot of job opportunities in coaching and in my other fields of interest. I am currently coaching with SOCA and I love teaching the kids and helping them work hard to achieve their dreams. All in all, I appreciate and thank God, my mom and sisters, UVA, Christy, Karen, Theological Horizons, and my mentors who have been there through it all.

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