A crowd of 10,000 people attended the graduation ceremony for Atascocita High School, held at NRG Stadium in Houston. That included more than 900 senior classmates of valedictorian Campbell Lino.
A valedictorian generally shares the overall goodbye for the class and offers hope and wisdom for the future as many students prep for college, entering the military or workforce. But in her message, Campbell aimed much higher, toward heaven: “So, the future that matters for my classmates was their eternity,” she explains, “and He (God) had given me those two minutes to speak to them and I wanted to use that platform just to offer them a chance to look at salvation.”
Her classmates’ spiritual forever was at the heart of Campbell’s appeal, which you can watch further below in our story.
At graduation, Campbell also offered transparency about her own life, acknowledging that at one time she was “very self-centered” and “struggled to find happiness.” We asked her how she overcame those issues. “That was very clearly a work of the Holy Spirit in my life. And as I fell more and more in love with Him, I fell out-of-love with myself.”
Campbell’s mother and father, Nicole and Nathan, were in that gigantic audience, too. Pastor Nathan shares his dad moment watching her lift up Jesus. “It was just a surreal moment as a parent to go from ‘Oh, man, our 17-year-old daughter is about to address thousands of people on a subject they may or may not want to hear about – what’s going to happen?’ - to suddenly people are clapping, then you can just see the anointing of God on her as she speaks. It was just such a surreal moment.”
Listen to our complete podcast interview just below as Campbell shares the decision she made at age 7 that changed everything. Also, learn about her goal after college at Cedarville University to become a missionary Bible translator in whatever nation or region God chooses. You’ll also hear from proud dad, Pastor Nathan.:
Below is the YouTube video of Campbell’s May 26 Valedictorian Address, which has gone viral on various social media:
