When a Scholarship Becomes a Ministry
He enrolled at Grace School of Theology with a calling on his heart and a hunger to go deeper in God’s Word. He completed his Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies in December 2021, walked across the stage at commencement in May 2022, and immediately set his sights on his Master’s degree.
Then everything changed.
A terminal cancer diagnosis pulled Michael away from his studies. And in July of 2023, God called him home.
The Grace community felt his absence. Staff who had walked alongside Michael during his time as a student showed up again, this time to plan and serve at his memorial service. It was a final act of love for a man who had given so much of himself to his faith and his family.
But Michael’s story didn’t end there.
A Legacy That Keeps On Giving
In the months that followed, Michael’s widow Vicki and their family made a decision. They would honor his memory not with a monument but with a mission.
They established the Michael Reed Scholarship Fund at Grace School of Theology, designated specifically for Dr. Cancel’s Doctrinal Summary courses. These are courses that sit at the very heart of what Grace teaches about the grace of God.
It was a fitting tribute. Michael had come to Grace to understand the Word more deeply. Now his family was making sure someone else could do the same.
The Gift, Received
Pamela Haley didn’t know Michael Reed. But in a very real way, he made a place for her.
Pam completed her Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies with a concentration in Chaplaincy, graduating with highest honor. She now serves as a hospital chaplain volunteer at Westover Hills Northwest, a volunteer at University Hospital System, and an active servant at Westover Hills Church.
She sits with the sick. She prays with the scared. She brings the presence of Christ into some of the hardest rooms a person can enter. And she does it with the theological foundation she built at Grace.
That foundation was, in part, made possible by the life, and the scholarship, of a man she never met.
At the 2026 Graduate and Alumni Banquet, something quietly remarkable happened.
Pam Haley and Vicki Terpening sat together. A widow who gave in grief and a chaplain who serves with grace. Two women connected by a scholarship, a man that impacted their lives in different ways, and a God is faithful.
What Your Gift Can Do
The Michael Reed Scholarship Fund is still active today. Michael’s family keeps contributing to it, not out of obligation but out of calling. They didn’t wait to be asked. They saw a way to keep Michael’s love of God’s Word alive in others and they acted.
The family said yes for Michael. And because they did, Pam Haley is sitting with dying patients in a hospital right now, offering them the peace of Christ.
That is one story. Grace has hundreds more just like it.
Your gift to Grace School of Theology doesn’t stay here. It goes where the graduates go—into hospitals, churches, communities, and countries you may never visit. It multiplies in ways you may never fully see this side of eternity.
But God sees it. And so do the people whose lives are changed by it.
