“God sees my perfection.”
That’s how Hope Martin began her address to students at ACU.
She then stepped to the side of the podium and introduced her best friend, Ethan Etter.
Ethan, clad in bright yellow, doughnut-print shorts, was especially “on” that day, telling students that “sometimes my mom drives me crazy.”
The lifelong friends are well known in the West Texas city where they’ve grown up, not just for their exuberant personalities and winning smiles but for their participation in events supporting the Down Syndrome community, of which they’re a part.
The duo recently made their fifth appearance on the chapel stage and brought many family members and friends from nearby Hillcrest Church of Christ with them.
Their special friendship was documented in a 2022 children’s book, “Extra,” co-authored by the pair’s moms, Angie Martin and Cheryl Etter. Its theme repeats again and again:
“They see things others don’t see,
Build things others don’t build,
Speak things others don’t speak,
And do things others don’t do.”
If Hope was nervous, it didn’t show. She said, “My name is Hope Martin because I have hope in Jesus —”
A closing prayer by Hillcrest elder Lynn Luttrell ended the service.
He prayed, “We pray you will bless us to love others, to be kind and to look at people as people — as children of yours rather than people who are different, because, Father, we are all different.”