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AMAZING GRACE
Gym Dog Georgia's 'perfect little ambassador'
TYLER ESTEP
Issue date: 2/27/09 Section: Sports
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Grace Taylor, the Gym Dogs' three-event dynamo and all-around good person, is the consummate Christian and the epitome of both parts of the word "student-athlete." A health promotion major and aspiring missionary, last year's NCAA beam champ is so much more.
"She's our perfect little ambassador," coach Suzanne Yoculan said. "She represents us in every aspect of her life and how she conducts her life."
Taylor was homeschooled during her childhood in Aiken, S.C., and raised in a tight-knit, Christian family with her two sisters and brother. College has turned her into an Academic All-American with a 3.97 GPA, but it was her experiences at home and in Aiken that have made her who she is, and what she wants to be.
Taylor said she still calls her mom "four or five times a day," and
both of her sisters have been plagued with illness throughout their lives. Her sister Hannah, 18, was not expected to survive birth, and still lives with Turner syndrome, a chromosomal disorder that manifests itself in physical and mental deficiencies. Her other sister, Phoebe, 15, was diagnosed with diabetes at age six.
"I remember when I woke up and [Phoebe] wasn't there, because she had gone into a coma, she was vomiting and almost died," Taylor said. "So to see my mom provide that care, I was always interested in medicine, how the body worked and science."
It was Hannah that lead her to her church family in Aiken.
"When we moved to Aiken from Baltimore, we were looking for a church that would bury an infant, because my sister was probably not going to survive birth," she said.
The Taylor family stopped at a small church, and found a man tending to the yard, pulling weeds and raking. That man was Steve Taylor, the pastor of, appropriately enough, Grace Brethren Church of Aiken. His brother, Mike Taylor, is a missionary to Africa.
"He's just a [physician's assistant], but he goes over there and
delivers babies and saves lives," Grace Taylor said. "He got to be
more than just a physical person, he was there for these people, and knew them. They were his friends and he made a difference in their lives. He's one of the people that I've seen in my life that is the most fulfilled with what he does. I feel like the Lord has just kind of prepared me for it my whole life."
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