Rachel Morgan was at a crossroads during her junior year at Chesterton Academy in Edina. She was enjoying her time there, but it looked like she might have to switch schools.
Her dad got a job in St. Louis, and the family was deciding whether to take her there and finish at another school, or leave her at Chesterton.
“That was a hard, hard decision,” said Morgan, now a senior and a member of Holy Family in St. Louis Park. She wanted to stay, but important details would need to be worked out, like where to live.
Then one day, Chesterton teacher Alyssa Bormes overheard Morgan’s mother discussing the predicament and offered to house her for the year. Morgan now is nearing graduation, and she cherishes the experiences she’s had, including living with Bormes this school year and part of the last.
“She’s just so joyful, she’s just so awesome,” Morgan said of Bormes, who teaches humanities and speech, and has been at the school since it opened in 2008. “It’s just been amazing. … A few times, I’ve been known to have a problem and cry. And she always would tell me, ‘Crying is good. You need to get that out. You need to let yourself cry, but set a time period because you can only have so long and then God is calling you back to do his work.’”
Another source of support for her has been the arrival of members of the Pro Ecclesia Sancta religious community during her junior year. Father Adam Tokashiki and Sister Emy Ychikawa both serve at the school. Sister Ychikawa is Morgan’s spiritual director. Their conversations have included the idea of a religious vocation, and Morgan is going to spend her first year after graduation discerning, researching and visiting religious orders, including Pro Ecclesia Sancta.
One of the important parts of her education at Chesterton has been working with the school’s pro-life club. She became the president, and she has helped organize and run many events, including a baby bottle fundraiser that garnered more than $2,000 for Pro-Life Across America. This school year, the pro-life club merged with the service club to become the Life of Service Club.
Morgan also went to both national and local pro-life marches in January, the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in America. Connected to the marches were efforts she led to distribute bags to the homeless.
“It was amazing,” Morgan said. “That’s the type of influence Chesterton [Academy] has. It’s not the building. It’s what they give to their students, and what they teach us to do of our own means and our independence, and how we bring that to the world, how we are being filled with Christ and to bring him out.”
