CCO Campus Ministry

Home / Transformed Lives / Yvonne Darville

Yvonne Darville

darville_yvonne.jpg“I accepted Christ the first or second day that I was at college, and from that point, everything changed,” says Yvonne Darville. “CCO staff members taught me how to read the Bible. They taught me how to live in a new way.”

The CCO’s ministry had just started in the early 1970s, and was new to Waynesburg College (now University) when Yvonne arrived as a freshman. She calls it “a God thing” that brought her so far from home in the first place, and in touch with the CCO’s ministry.

“I had applied to two colleges near my home in New York State, and had not been accepted at either,” she remembers. She was dating her soon-to-be-husband, Wayne, and his best friend suggested that she should apply to Waynesburg College in southwestern Pennsylvania. “I thought, ‘Waynesburg, Wayne—that’s pretty cool!” she jokes. Her high school guidance counselor put in a call, and soon, Yvonne was heading south.

“Waynesburg was seven hours from my home, and I figured it would be good for me,” she remembers. “I also decided to study psychology instead of nursing, which is what I applied to other schools for. Looking back, that’s another God thing. Psychology was a better fit for me.”

Today, Yvonne and her husband, Wayne, live in Pittsburgh’s northern suburbs, where they are active members of North Park Evangelical Presbyterian Church. Yvonne splits her time between her job as a nursing assistant at Sherwood Oaks in Cranberry Township and babysitting her grandchildren. Yvonne points back to the mentoring she received from CCO staff workers like Chuck and Shirley Baily, Mark and Sue Bianchi, and John and Sue McElwain for providing models of Christian marriage for her follow.

“When I first arrived at Waynesburg, there were a few girls running around the dorm asking, ‘Are you a Christian?’” Yvonne remembers. The question confused her a little bit. “I had gone to church all my life, but I wasn’t as happy as they seemed to be. The first thing I noticed was their joy.”

Yvonne’s roommate, Joan, shared the Gospel message with her, and Yvonne was convinced that this was the piece she had been missing. She got involved in a small-group Bible study lead by Chuck and Shirley, and her faith continued to grow. “I remember Chuck saying to us, ‘You guys are young and you’re going to get married some day, and you need to think about who you’re going to marry. Are they a Christian? If not, they won’t be sharing a major part of your life with you.’

“In 1975, Wayne asked me to marry him, and I told him I can’t marry you, because you aren’t a Christian.” Ultimately, Wayne made his own commitment, and Yvonne says that the CCO’s ministry has influenced everything about their lives, including the way they have raised their children.

“Being a Christian sets you apart from the world,” Yvonne says. “It makes you think and act differently. I try to please the Lord in everything I do—from who I married, how we raised our children, our involvement in church, our interaction with neighbors and co-workers. We even have a different perspective on current events.

“The people from the CCO were such great examples of husbands and wives that loved each other, so full of joy. I remember Tim, another student in the fellowship group, saying that life as a Christian means living a higher quality of life. That’s something that I keep with me forever.”