When Kendra Baguley felt the prompting to return to Brigham Young University-Idaho and finish her education, she had no idea just how important following that prompting would become.
The Prompting to Return
She started at BYU-Idaho right after graduating high school and met her husband through their Home Evening group. “We got engaged after five months, and we were married that September, so I feel like it was quick,” Kendra said. “But ten years later, we’re here, and we have four kids.”
While pursuing her degree initially, Kendra struggled with knowing what she wanted to study, so she decided to take a break. After she had her first child, however, she felt drawn to English education.
“After I had my oldest, I was like, I want to do English education. I had a one-year-old and was figuring all that out. I was pregnant with my second by the time I started coming back to school,” Kendra said. “I felt a strong prompting to do so.”
Prepared for the Unthinkable
Working through her degree while raising a family was already taxing for Kendra, and then in February 2023, her husband slipped on ice at work and damaged the vertebrae in his neck, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down.
“The night before my husband fell, I was pregnant and in school, taking four classes at the time. He was working and busy. And I just felt so stressed,” Kendra said.
After surgery and extensive physical therapy, Kendra’s husband has defied the odds and is now able to walk with a walker.
“It’s something that we are extremely grateful for,” Kendra said. “Everyone we talked to during rehab said it’s slim to nothing when you have that type of injury.”
But even with his recovery, it would still be some time before he was able to work, and Kendra had to prepare to be the primary financial provider for her family.
“When I started school, I didn’t know this would happen,” Kendra said. “I kept thinking, if I hadn't followed that prompting, where would we be now? I would be starting from the very beginning. I feel like that was such a blessing.”
A Faith-Building Scholarship
A need-based scholarship and the Financial Aid Office helped make this possible for Kendra and her family.
“Receiving the scholarship meant a lot. Finances were definitely a lot tighter. My husband’s accident left him out of work, and I was a year from graduating,” Kendra said. “We had a lot of support from everyone I've worked with on campus, all of my teachers, and just everyone. Being able to still go to school and get assistance from the donors and from school, and everything was great for our family. I could continue to do that and be able to make a change for the future.”
The support that Kendra received during this difficult year not only allowed her to persist in her degree but also grew her testimony. “I think without my faith, it would have been so consuming. It would have consumed my entire life,” Kendra said. “I say thank you to people all the time, and I'm so grateful, but I don't think it really expresses how grateful I am to so many people. I think this has strengthened my testimony in communities and having one another. It strengthened my testimony in service, gratitude, and graciousness about things.”
Kendra graduated in Spring 2025 and now works as a 9th-grade English teacher in Texas.