Spring/Summer 2017 Voice by Dordt University

VOLUME 62

NEWS SPRING/SUMMER 2017

OF DORDT COLLEGE

ISSUE 3 OF 3

THE

REFORMED, ALWAYS REFORMING Students and alumni explore what it means to learn and live "reformationally," as followers of Christ.

WORLD PREMIERE MUSICAL 8 PRE-VET LIFE 25 THREE ALUMNI TAKE ON SEX TRAFFICKING 341

Leading Off WITH THE PRESIDENT

WHAT’S IN A NAME In November 1618 in the Netherlands, a group of theologians gathered in the small town of Dordrecht for a church meeting. It lasted nine months. Dordrecht—Dordt for short—is the reason Dordt College received its unusual name. Since Dordt’s theological roots are linked to that city and that synod, we’ve started conversations with Dordrecht city and church officials to celebrate and commemorate the 400th anniversary of the Synod of Dordt through a special conference. It’s more than a year away, but we’re excited about what’s ahead. In preparation, we’re digging into various aspects of that synod—Voice readers will hear more about the 400th anniversary celebration over the next two years. Here’s some of what we’ve found so far: The 1618 gathering was international and drew more than the Dutch. An Englishman named Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich in the Church of England, was supposed to attend as a delegate, but he became ill and couldn’t attend. Bishop Hall is the author of a favorite quote of mine, “God loveth adverbs,” which appears here in a longer setting—and captures a sentiment that echoes across this campus in so many ways: The homeliest service that we do in an honest calling—though it be but to plough or dig—if done in obedience and conscience of God’s commandment is crowned with an ample reward. Whereas the best works of their kind—preaching, praying, offering evangelical sacrifices—if without respect of God’s injunction and glory, are loaded with curses. God loveth adverbs and cares

not how good, but how well. Hall’s thoughts are another way of expressing the heartbeat of this college. Paul, in his conclusion to his letter to the Romans, said it this way: So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so welladjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. (Romans 12: 1—2, The Message) Both of these quotes describe what we try to do at Dordt. We want to help our students consider how we move Christ into our lives as an adverb, not an adjective—taking our everyday, ordinary, walking-around life and doing it Christianly, as well as we know how, so that God’s glory may be seen and known among the nations. Enjoy this edition of the Voice, and look forward to more Synod of Dordt updates in the next months. Soli Deo Gloria!

DR. ERIK HOEKSTRA, PRESIDENT

Voice THE

OF DORDT COLLEGE

SPRING/SUMMER 2017 VOLUME 62 | ISSUE 3 The Voice, an outreach of Dordt College, is sent to you as alumni and friends of Christian higher education. The Voice is published three times each year to share information about the programs, activities, and people at Dordt College. www.dordt.edu (712) 722-6000 Send address corrections and correspondence to voice@dordt.edu or VOICE, Dordt College, 498 Fourth Ave. NE, Sioux Center, IA 51250-1606 Contributors Aleisa Dornbierer-Schat, editor Aleisa.Dornbierer-Schat@dordt.edu Shelbi Gesch (’17), student writer Kate Henreckson, contributing writer Sally Jongsma, contributing editor Lydia Marcus (’17), student writer Sarah Moss (’10), director of marketing and communication Sarah Vander Plaats (’05), associate director of marketing and communication Jamin Ver Velde (’99), art director/ designer John Baas, vice president for college advancement John.Baas@dordt.edu Our Mission As an institution of higher education committed to a Reformed Christian perspective, Dordt College equips students, alumni, and the broader community to work effectively toward Christ-centered renewal in all aspects of contemporary life. On the Cover At Dordt, we are building on a tradition that is deeply rooted in history, yet alive enough to speak into new contexts in new ways. Here, some of Dordt's recognizable faces appear alongside those of 16thcentury reformers depicted in The Reformation/Die Reformation, an 1862 mural by Wilhelm von Kaulbach.

Inside

Editor’s Notes

THIS ISSUE

ALEISA DORNBIERER-SCHAT

WHERE DO WE FIT?

recently returned from two weeks in the Holy Land with a group of Dordt College students on a summer study abroad trip. One of the places we visited was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the traditional site of Jesus’s death and resurrection.

No quiet church, it is loud and chaotic. For centuries, several Christian traditions have vied for control of the sacred space, and its architecture and iconography reflect its Armenian, Greek Orthodox, and Franciscan custodians (among others). During our visit, we saw tourists and pilgrims, crowding around Jesus’s burial stone, kneeling to touch or kiss it. We breathed in incense, elbowed through crowds, and were once shooed to a corner as Orthodox monks swept by in long black robes, bells clanging overhead.

STUDYING THE HOLY LAND This May, 15 Dordt College students participated in a two-week immersion course in Israel-Palestine, where along with visits to biblical sites, they studied the current political conflict from a variety of perspectives. Here, students take a walking tour of Bethlehem, in the West Bank, following a visit to the nearby Lajee Center for refugees.

NEWS

Dordt students explore the relationship between language, justice, and identity at a Dordt-hosted conference.

Lindsay Mouw (’17) studies abroad and gets serious about creation care and climate change.

Dordt’s newly formed institute for research and scholarship is expected to bring in more external funding.

FEATURES

Students and faculty reflect on Reformed identity and Core 100, the first-year course that sets students on a common kingdom trajectory.

Microbiology and marketing students take on the invisible realm of the human microbiome.

Pre-vet students and alumni talk animal care, ethics, and the program’s long and unique partnership with local vet Dr. Fred Sick.

In the collision of Christian traditions evident around us, one of our group stopped to ask (well, shout): “Where are all the Protestants?” Where did we fit in this bustling scene? And what, implied the questioner, did all of this have to do with our small college in Iowa, with its austere chapel auditorium and its reformational identity? In this issue, we address that question directly, if provisionally, in our feature about the Core Program, the foundational curricular expression of Dordt’s mission and vision. But the question is there in every story we tell: What does it mean to be Reformed? And, importantly, how do we acknowledge the contributions of other traditions while also nurturing what’s good and valuable in our own? Dr. David Henreckson turns that question toward the matter of Christian cultural engagement in our regular feature from In All Things, and Dordt microbiology and business students work out what that means through their partnership with a local business. Jerusalem is a fitting place to reflect on the significance of Christ’s death and resurrection. It is, after all, the climax and fulfillment of a very Jewish story—a story unfolding in history, in which we ourselves are called to be actors. This understanding is at the heart of a reformational perspective, and it’s born out in the stories on these pages. To approach education reformationally requires rigorous intellectual engagement. But it is a form of engagement that points us, always, back toward the world, where we are called to be good neighbors, justice seekers, Jesus’s hands and feet.

ALEISA DORNBIERER-SCHAT, EDITOR

NEWS

EXPLORING LANGUAGE, JUSTICE, AND IDENTITY World language educators from across the country convened at Dordt College in April for the 27th annual Christian Association of World Languages (CAWL) conference. The conference featured the usual assortment of speakers and sessions, but this year was unusual for the number of students in attendance. Dordt language students turned out in force, and over the course of the two-day event, many of them sat in on presentations of academic research and scholarship, discussing and reflecting alongside scholars from sister institutions of Dordt College. “Some sessions had up to 40 students,” says Rikki Heldt, Dordt professor of language studies and this year’s conference organizer. “There were sometimes more students in the room than conference attendees.” Heldt encouraged her students to attend sessions that intrigued them and then reflect in writing on what they learned. This year’s conference theme was “Language, Justice, and Identity,” and Heldt says students were especially responsive to sessions exploring the relationship between language study and social justice.

JAMIN VER VELDE (ʼ99)

“Presentations that touched on issues related to justice resonated deeply with students and with questions they’re asking in their own lives and classes,” Heldt says.

Students were challenged to consider the value of short-term mission projects, for example, and to reflect on their motivations for language study and travel overseas. “Sometimes these trips are more harmful than helpful, and students interested in missions-based study abroad programs were reflecting together about what it means to do that well,” Heldt says.

language learners learning from each other,” says Heldt. The conference also gave students and scholars an opportunity to explore the rich relationship between language and culture and to consider how that relates to their calling as Christians. “Language learning is as much about learning a culture as it is about vocabulary and verb tense,” says Heldt,

Dr. Leendert van Beek, Dordt language studies professor and a conference presenter, also encouraged his students to attend conference sessions. He says a presentation — Rikki Heldt, Dordt language studies professor about teaching today’s generation of millennials led to a lively conversation among who notes that language study, paired students. with rigorous attention to cultural and historical context, is a way to facilitate “The students felt somewhat authentic cross-cultural relationships. mischaracterized and resisted some of the presenter’s conclusions,” says van “If a student travels to Nicaragua, for Beek. “They became vocal during the example, and hasn’t studied the history discussion, raising questions and offering of American political and military constructive feedback.” involvement in Central and South America, it’s easy to gloss over the pain The presenter responded by inviting of that history and those injustices,” she students to submit their reflections in says. “I want students to consider how writing to help her fine-tune her research to use their language skills to be justice and conclusions. seekers and, in seeking justice, to create partnerships with the host culture by “It was a great example of teachers and establishing authentic relationships.”

“Language learning is as much about learning a culture as it is about vocabulary and verb tense.”

ALEISA DORNBIERER-SCHAT

Conference attendees gathered for a multilingual praise and worship service led by a Dordt student worship team. 4

SPANISH/NURSING COURSE BRIDGES BARRIERS

Faculty Notes

If you or a loved one have ever needed emergency medical care, you know the feeling of disorientation and confusion that typically accompanies an unscheduled trip to the emergency room or medical clinic. PHOTO SUBMITTED

Imagine complicating that experience with a language barrier. Knowing this situation is a reality for many in Sioux Center and beyond, Dordt offers a Spanish language course for nursing students and those studying to enter other medical fields. Designed to be practical and fit into the already packed schedule of the busy nursing student, Spanish for Health Professionals is a one-credit conversation course built on roleplaying situations. Developed by Nursing Professor Amy Van Beek and Language Studies Professor Rikki Heldt, the course includes both medical vocabulary and vocabulary that helps patients interpret insurance and legal forms and communicate vital information before a certified hospital interpreter arrives. Instructors often use recorded conversations to help them teach, says Heldt. Some of the situations are so unusual they cause students to laugh. One such scenario, however, involving a patient who came in bleeding because he’d tried to cut off a wart, proved closer to reality than students expected. The next day, says Heldt, a student came in having observed the same scenario in the clinic. Nursing students put their learning into practice by working alongside medical professionals at Promise Community Health Center, a Sioux Center medical clinic that serves much of the city’s growing Latino population. By working with Promise, students can fulfill two program requirements at once and get

Senior Stephanie Haan was one of two Dordt nursing students selected to travel to Guatemala for 10 days to assist local nurses and gain clinical experience in a cross-cultural context.

real-world skill practice—an opportunity they appreciate. One student wrote about her experience shadowing an interpreter at the Promise Community Health Center: “I was surprised at how much Spanish I have picked up in such a short time. I was able to follow most of the conversation and understand what the patients needed and what assessment questions the CNA and translator were asking the patients. It was an awesome experience to interact with Spanish-speaking people in a medical setting and be able to understand what was going on.” SHELBI GESCH (’17)

NEWS

Language Studies Professor Dr. Leendert van Beek recently received his Ph.D. in education, with a specialization in postsecondary and adult education. For his dissertation, van Beek interviewed 16 language teachers who had been granted excellence in teaching awards. “Most participants, both Christians and non-Christians, agreed that loving your neighbor was a necessary component of excellent teaching,” says van Beek. Education Professor Dr. Dave Mulder received his Ed.D. in Educational Technology from Boise State University. His dissertation was about pre-service teachers and tech integration. Mulder says administrators often look to young teachers to bring technology to the classroom, but his research suggests that this is not an effective approach. “Even though young teachers are often perceived to be tech savvy, there is a difference between being able to use social media and cell phones and being able to integrate technology into the classroom in a way that supports teaching and learning,” says Mulder. Integrating technology and education requires technological adeptness, but pedagogical knowledge is “even more important.” “Learning to match the right tools to both the teaching methods they will use and the content they will teach is an essential part of becoming an effective teacher,” says Mulder. Social Work Professor Dr. Erin Olson completed her Ph.D. in social work from Baylor University. Her dissertation focused on the concept of calling as it relates to social work. Olson found that both religious and nonreligious students who had a stronger sense of calling tended to have higher levels of life satisfaction. “While calling is something we talk about a lot at Dordt, within the Social Work Department we hadn’t had a lot of time to consider how our majors might experience their calling a little differently, and how having a sense of calling might help them persevere when working with broken and vulnerable human beings gets difficult,” says Olson.

NEWS

JAMES SCHAAP TELLS STORIES FROM THE PAST

THREE FACULTY LEAVE THEIR MARK AT DORDT

DR. WAYNE KOBES

e call people ‘senile’ when they don’t know the past anymore. Sometimes I think as a culture we’re approaching a kind of senility.” Emeritus Professor of English James C. Schaap’s latest venture with a local radio station is helping provide an antidote through stories of local people and events mostly lost from memory. KWIT radio, NPR’s Sioux City, Iowa, affiliate, has partnered with Schaap to broadcast a James Schaap weekly radio show called Small Wonders. Addressing an audience of listeners across Siouxland, Schaap shares stories he’s written about the region’s past and people, bringing to life an earlier era. “Siouxland is my adopted home. Sometimes I think we don’t appreciate the lively history of the region as much as we might,” says Schaap, a Wisconsin native. “Making that history a joy to the listener is a great deal of fun.”

“We call people ‘senile’ when they don’t know the past anymore. Sometimes I think as a culture we’re approaching a kind of senility.” — Dr. James C. Schaap, emeritus English professor

In one of his favorite pieces, “Music of the Spheres,” Schaap shares a piece of history with a hint of imaginative embellishment. Peaking out at the world through the memoir of a young schoolteacher who traveled west to teach in a tiny sod hut in Iowa, Schaap reveals her sense of isolation on the prairie. “It must have been really lonely out there in those days, and I could feel her loneliness in the way she talked about the children,” Schaap says. SARAH VANDER PLAATS (ʼ05)

Small Wonders is a Monday feature on KWIT radio. Stories also air online at kwit.org/term/small-wonder. Schaap continues to post on his blog, “Stuff from the Basement,” at siouxlander.blogspot.com.

Professor of Theology Dr. Wayne Kobes, who first came to Dordt as a student in 1965, has served as a faculty member for 44 years. “As I look back and think about how I’ve changed since I set foot on this campus as a student until now, there’s a deeper joy knowing that this world belongs to God, that in Jesus Christ all things are being made new so that we can live out our lives in a bold humility,” says Kobes. “Those really essential truths of Scripture come off Wayne’s tongue very, very easily because he believes them, he knows them, he lives them; I think we could all learn from that,” said Dordt President Erik Hoekstra in a retirement tribute to Kobes at the end of the year.

DR. ART ATTEMA Professor of Business of Dr. Art Attema has served Dordt for 37 years. “He is a wise man who has an uncanny ability to see perceptively and find wisdom in people,” says Agriculture Professor Dr. Duane Bajema, who served with Attema for nearly four decades. Attema, who also attended Dordt as a student, intends to move to Minnesota with his wife following his retirement so he can spend more time pursuing his love of fishing and being part of the local community. “He has really enjoyed his work, and that has been obvious. He’s going to be missed,” says Laura Eekhoff, academic affairs executive assistant.

SANNEKE KOK Coordinator of Academic Services for Minority and International Students Sanneke Kok served Dordt for 30 years. Kok was an adjunct language studies professor, teaching English for Academic Purposes and French Conversation. “Sanneke has a unique ability to empathize with those around her who are hurting and celebrate with those who are joyful,” said a co-worker in tribute to her service. Another said, “Sanneke has a deep sense of justice and advocates tirelessly for those who feel unheard.”

ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES STUDENTS HELP RESTORE PARK

De Haan’s goal for the project is “to restore the structure and function of remnant ecosystems to their original state through the removal of invasive species, to reintroduce natural disturbances, and to increase the number of education programs and opportunities for recreation in the park.”

ROBERT DE HA AN (ʼ85)

rofessor Robert De Haan’s Restoration Ecology class is the capstone course for environmental studies majors. The course ends with a real-world environmental restoration project.

Dordt environmental studies majors sit down with members of a park conservation board to put their learning into practice. The group helped plan a restoration project as part of their major’s capstone course.

This year, the class chose Buena Vista County Conservation Park, near Peterson, Iowa. Once beautiful, with streams, prairie, woodland, and savannah, the park had lately fallen into disrepair. So, its new conservation board director, who has a background in ecosystem restoration, asked the class to consider his park for its project.

When asked what they enjoyed most about the project, students agreed it was putting their learning into practice.

“He was so enthusiastic about it,” says senior Nathan Struyk. “We knew that he would actually use our plan.”

Dylan Bartels, who graduated this spring, says the project gave him a chance to use skills and knoweldge he’s acquired in a variety of courses at Dordt. “I enjoyed putting my knowledge into action and developing skills I can use in the future. It’s important for people go to out and engage God’s creation. Hopefully the maps will help people do that.”

Work on the project began in February. The students made many trips to the park, sometimes leaving as early as 6:30 in the morning. They hiked the trails, collecting GPS points, compiling species lists, and taking water samples. Neil Brouwer, who is now a senior, took the GPS data and created the first-ever trail map of the 309-acre park. Students in the class also mapped out all habitat types in the park to illustrate the different ecosystems and how best to care for them.

Dordt College senior Jenna Veenstra has been awarded a Goldwater Honorable Mention by the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation. Veenstra, from Cedar Falls, Iowa, is the first Dordt student to receive this honor and one of only two Iowa students to receive the award.

NEWS

Campus Kudos

Dordt College ranked second in Christian Universities Online (CUO) 25 Most Beautiful Colleges and Universities in the Midwest 2017. A $10,000 grant from the Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy, Inc., will help fund a $25,000 Shimadzu GC2014 gas chromatograph. The chromatograph will allow introductory and intermediate chemistry students to be more actively engaged in chemical processes and give them tools and techniques they can use as future scientists.

“It was amazing to get out into wild, semi-untouched areas,” says junior Katie Eschelman. “I learned about relying on others and how to work together as a team.”

“The whole process was rewarding,” says junior Jordan Peters. “We were nervous, but giving the presentation to the conservation board and seeing their faces–their renewed excitement for the park–was an awesome experience.” KATE HENRECKSON

Dordt College construction management majors took first place in the John Brown University 6th Annual Disaster Shelter Design Competition, sponsored by Samaritan’s Purse International Relief, in April. The competition provides students with an opportunity to create practical solutions to real problems—like the current refugee crisis. This is the second time in three years that Dordt has taken first place in the overall competition. Digital Media Production Professor Mark Volkers and four Dordt students won a 2017 gold Hermes Creative Award for their film Balisna: The Shepherds of Lesotho, which tells the story of unreached shepherds living in the mountains of Lesotho in South Africa.

EMI STEWART (ʼ20)

NEWS

Faculty and Staff Awards Theatre Arts Professor Dr. Teresa Ter Haar received this year’s Excellence in Teaching Award. Nominators highlighted Ter Haar’s dynamism as a professor, teaching prowess, and ability to relate well to students. “She has a knack for being able to help students understand ideas and progress toward important learning goals,” said Provost Eric Forseth in his award speech. Education Professor Dr. Kathleen VanTol received this year’s Noteworthy Scholarship or Service Award. VanTol is serious about her role as a teacher and about serving the nonacademic community. She reflects Dordt’s reformational perspective by helping students see the interrelatedness of each field of study, and she has advocated for improved teaching practices for special education students in Nicaragua. Physics Professor Dr. John Zwart received this year’s John Calvin Award for his 30 years of service. Zwart embraces Calvin’s belief that science is a valuable and appropriate endeavor for Christians and has mentored many students. He has also contributed to hands-on learning events for middle and high school students. “John passionately believes that learning physics means students should have a strong intuition about how the physical word works, not just the ability to plug numbers into equations and get answers,” said President Erik Hoekstra in his congratulatory remarks. Mike Byker, Dordt’s sports information director since 2001, has come to be known as the voice of the Dordt College athletic department. Byker’s enthusiasm and commitment to Dordt athletics has endeared him to students, staff, and alumni. One nominator said, “I appreciate how he interacts with the coaches and all of our studentathletes. He really cares about them and goes beyond simply broadcasting their events. He connects with them on a personal level to find out how they are doing and encourages them along the way.” In congratulatory remarks given at the end-of- the-year dinner, Coordinator of Facilities and Services Cindy Groenweg was compared to a “musher in the Iditarod—she keeps all the dogs running in the same direction, encouraging, guiding, and sometimes speaking firmly to them when they bark.” Her organizational abilities, servant’s heart, patience, and efficiency have been a blessing to those she works with as well as those who simply need help reserving a car or reporting a plugged toilet, noted one coworker.

Fossé filmed footage for The Way Out, an award-winning short film he wrote, produced, directed, and edited in 2016.

SENIORS CREATE ORIGINAL MUSICAL New graduates Kyle Fossé and Anna Krygsheld gladly took the spring theatre production and ran with it. A Prison Called Freedom was written by Kyle Fossé, a digital media production and theatre arts major from Mozambique, and directed by Anna Krygsheld, a theatre arts major from Illinois. Performed in the New World Theatre in April, it is the first time a student-created work of this scope has been produced by the department. “In the show, a man named Mortimer wakes up in a prison called ‘Freedom’ after his adventures have gone awry. In there, he meets Liesle, who knows nothing of the outside world,” says Fossé. “Beset by a bitter father, a frustrated narrator, and some

extras who want their own voices to be heard, the two set off on a journey to discover what true freedom is all about.”

Directing a show written by a peer gave Krygsheld an opportunity to observe the production process from beginning to end. The musical’s script was still in progress when production began. “Our vision of the show kept changing with the revision of scripts and the addition of songs. We had to figure out how to interpret it as a whole as we were still building it piece by piece,” says Krygsheld. “But, I had my playwright right here. If I had a question, I could ask.”

“Our vision of the show kept changing with the revision of scripts and the addition of songs. But, I had my playwright right here. If I had a question, I could ask.”

NEWS

Two years ago, Fossé wrote an early draft of the script (coined Prison by the theatre folks) for a playwriting class, and it was presented readers’theatre style at a short play festival. Dordt Theatre Arts Professor Josiah Wallace encouraged Fossé to continue working on the play.

While crafting Prison, Fossé learned something about himself and the kinds of stories he wants to tell. “I learned how I want to approach questions that I have,” says Fossé. “I loved it. Writing was

The collaboration between playwright, director, and production team highlighted the many ways different people can interpret the same story.

“Our department believes strongly that the best way for our students to grow — Anna Krygsheld, student director as artists is to be given the opportunity to present their work to an audience. This fun. Collaborating with the production means that our students not only get team was fun and sometimes frustrating. to act, but write, direct, stage manage, Watching it was terrifying, but really and design fully realized productions for gratifying, too.” audiences,” says Wallace.

“It was interesting to watch everyone bring their own ideas to the show,” says Fossé. In the short films he has written and directed, he was the guiding force throughout production. With Prison, he gave up artistic control when he surrendered his script to cast and crew. PHOTO SUBMITTED

“At times, I thought, ‘Oh, that’s not how I pictured it.’ But the process was really good because these people had read what I wrote and made it their own and made it a reality,” says Fossé. “Anna was the creative force behind the production. It wasn’t just my play anymore. It was our play. And that was really cool.” After graduation, Krygsheld hopes to work as a stage manager in Chicago. “I like being organized, and I also like the creative process, which is what drew me to theatre in the first place,” she says. “In the fall of my sophomore year, after taking just one theatre course, the Theatre Arts Department allowed me to stage manage the mainstage production, Tom Sawyer. I loved the entire process, even the monotonous emails.” Fossé would like to work in film production after graduation and eventually write and direct movies. As a director, filmaker, and storyteller, Fossé says he found his voice during his time at Dordt. “I’ve learned to be critical of what I create and what others create—but also to analyze and respond. I’ve learned what I want to say in what I do.”

Krygsheld, who directed this year’s spring musical, played Anger Bird in Ash Girl, a retelling of Cinderella, in 2015.

LYDIA MARCUS (’17)

It’s safe to say that Lindsay Mouw’s (’17) semester in New Zealand changed her life. Mouw, who studied abroad through the Creation Care Studies Program (CCSP) in the fall of 2015, says the environmental science-focused program changed the way she thought about everything. “That is when I first encountered the idea of creation care and sustainability and began considering them a part of my faith,” says Mouw. CCSP got Mouw interested in—and eventually passionate about—caring for the earth and its resources, and she applied these ideas to her other classes when she returned to campus. “I remember the moment I decided within myself that creation care was something I needed to do something about,” says Mouw. “For the first half of my semester in New Zealand, it was all pretty new to me, so I was pushing back against the majority of what I was learning. One day in Marine Biology, I remember being presented with the horrors of what we had done to our oceans—the ocean acidification and the death and damage that’s being caused by the plastic that we put into our oceans. I realized that I played a part in contributing to that, and that shocked me and broke my heart.” After returning to the United States, Mouw became active in stewardship efforts on Dordt’s campus. She began the EcoDefenders club to help educate students about environmental stewardship, and she took on a leadership position on the Dordt Sustainability Committee, which works with the administration to improve stewardship of campus resources. These groups helped Dordt adopt a more rigorous recycling program, increasing recycling by an estimated 50 percent.

PHOTO SUBMITTED

NEWS

TAKING CLIMATE ACTION Evangelicals for Climate Action (YECA) and now serves as a YECA fellow. In April, that role prompted her to take part in the 200,000-person People’s Climate March. “In the context of the march, climate action meant advocating for our politicians to enact policies that would better our environment and reduce the impact humans are having on climate change,” says Mouw. “For me as a Christian and for YECA as an organization, we act on climate change because of our faith. We believe our Christian faith mandates that we act on these issues. It is a justice issue—we’re fighting for the ‘least of these.’” The march also served as a capstone for Mouw’s Public and Environmental Policy independent study. YECA, along with the Social Justice Office of the CRC and Climate Caretakers, arranged for its participants to receive lobbying training and spend a day meeting with politicians in their offices, discussing the importance of climate action. “Climate change is something that affects everybody, no matter where you are and no matter who you are. It is an issue that everyone should care about,” Mouw says. “A lot of people think ‘climate action’ means caring more about the

While in D.C., Lindsay Mouw (left) was interviewed for a documentary. The episode featuring her interview will air at the end of the summer on Hulu. “It was cool to see so many news outlets taking notice of Christian groups who are vocal about creation care,” she says.

“A lot of people think ‘climate action’ means caring more about the environment than people, but in order to care for the well-being of people, we need to care for the environment that sustains them.” — Lindsay Mouw, recent environmental studies graduate

“It’s great the administration understands that, as a Christian college, this is something we should be doing,” she says.

environment than people, but in order to care for the well-being of people, we need to care for the environment that sustains them.”

Mouw also became a member of Young

Mouw intends to work for a year or

two before attending grad school for sustainable community development or research. LYDIA MARCUS (’17)

The Defenders’ spring seasons came to a close in late April with a number of highlights. senior from Knoxville, Iowa, cleared 6-11.5 in the high jump at the Sioux City Relays on April 21 and then claimed the high jump title by clearing 7-1 at the prestigious Drake Relays on April 29.

KIMBERLY KNOCHENMUS (ʼ18)

The Defender baseball team secured a berth in the GPAC post-season field for the first time since the league was formed. The team leaned heavily on a senior group of 11 players, many of whom have been regulars in the lineup for three and four seasons.

Entering the GPAC Championships in early May, the Defenders had Jacob Moats four relay teams and seven individuals meet automatic or provisional qualification standards for the NAIA National Championships in late May at Gulf Shores, Alabama. At the GPAC Championships Miranda Velgersdyk claimed a 400-meter championship and also led the Defender 4x400 relay team to a title.

Cam Gingerich will leave Dordt as the all-time hits leader and is the only player in the program’s history to surpass 200 career hits. Jake Thayer, who dealt with injury much of the first half of this season, leaves Dordt with nearly 200 hits and ranks second all-time. During the course of this season Connor Hopkins became the all-time strikeout leader at Dordt, surpassing a record that had stood since Barry Miedema graduated in 1979. Colton Van Otterloo, a junior, also had a season to remember with two walk-off homeruns in league play, a batting average of .355, and a team high 55 hits when the regular season ended. He also surpassed 100 career hits early in the season. The softball team featured just one senior on its roster and surpassed pre-season expectations with a 21-20 season record. The Defenders were in the hunt for a runner-up finish in the GPAC regular season race going into their final doubleheader of the year. Michal Huizenga put together a strong senior season. She had a .339 batting average, knocked in 23 runs, and moved

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BASEBALL INSPIRES OTHER SPORTS TO NEW HEIGHTS

Cam Gingerish (above) and Connor Hopkins (left) set Dordt career records in hits and strikeouts respectively.

into the top-20 with 125 career hits. The Defenders qualified for the GPAC post-season tournament for a fourth straight season. The track and field team posted several new school records, and high jumper Jacob Moats punctuated the regular season with record setting performances on two straight weekends. The

The men’s golf team finished its year in late April with junior Tony Kallevig and sophomore Will Mulder leading the team with 78.2 averages. Kallevig earned GPAC Player of the Week honors after claiming the individual title at the Midland Spring Invite. The women’s golf team saw marked improvement with an influx of young players. Four and sometimes five freshmen made up the lineup for the Defenders this season. Alyssa Fedders and Erin Olsen lead the way with scoring averages of 87.6 and 87.8 respectively. MIKE BYKER

A. Fedders

Erin Olsen

SCHOLAR-ATHLETES The Defenders continued to perform well in the classroom. Sixty-eight Dordt student-athletes earned NAIA/Daktronics Scholar-Athlete honors. To qualify a student must be a junior or senior and maintain a cumulative 3.5 GPA.

IN ALL THINGS IS COMMIT TED TO A CHRIS T WHO S TRE TCHES AT LE A S T A S WIDE A S THE COSMOS

hanks to a handful of rather dour portraits, we tend to imagine the reformer John Calvin as a stern man with eyes that burst with brimstone, crags in his forehead deep as canyons, and a thin, narrow frame suggesting that he rarely enjoyed a fine meal (not true). With an appearance this grim and gaunt, it’s easy to assume that Calvin’s gospel is no good news, and that a Calvinist view of the world is a dim one at best. Certainly, aspects of this representation are true. Yet, for all that, this image of Calvin misses the bigger picture. Calvin was clearly in love with the world, particularly its natural beauty and power. He often wrote of the grandeur of God’s creation—a grandeur so terrifying and overwhelming that it could temporarily evoke faith in even the most hardened heart. The natural world, he said repeatedly, is the theater of divine glory. It is a vast stage on which God moves the planets, sun, moon, and stars about for his pleasure.

already at work in his creation. And not just in the natural world, either. In the Institutes, Calvin tells his readers that God “fills, moves, and invigorates all things through the Spirit.” All the arts and sciences, including those cultivated by “impious” persons, are gifts from God: “physics, dialectics, mathematics, and other similar sciences.” If we neglect these divine gifts, Calvin writes, “we will be justly punished for our sloth.” Notice two very striking claims here. First, any form of human activity may be thoroughly charged with divine inspiration—God’s Spirit is at work even among those who fail to revere him. Second, Calvin reminds his readers—many likely devout Christians studious enough to plow through hundreds of pages of challenging systematic theology—that if we fail to value culture and science as

sluggish in her pursuit of good things. She is unwilling to do what she is called to do.

PORTRAIT OF JOHN CALVIN BY TITIAN

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Culture as Divine Gift

So, we need to ask ourselves: Are we guilty of this vice? Do we habitually shirk our divine calling to engage with the overwhelming beauty, complexity, and diversity of human culture? How can we avoid being cultural sluggards? If we listen to Calvin, the answer seems quite straightforward: we have to be on the lookout for God’s

To be slothful is not merely having trouble getting out of bed on time, or putting off the kitchen remodel that your spouse has been requesting for years. Rather, the slothful person is habitually sluggish in her pursuit of good things.

Calvin got some dimensions of this theater wrong. He rejected Copernicus, after all: he thought the earth stood still as the stars and planets danced around us. And many other aspects of the theater were simply unknown to him. He lived hundreds of years before Einstein predicted the existence of black holes. The theater of divine glory turns out to be much, much bigger and stranger and more fascinating than Calvin could’ve imagined. Even so, his fascination with the cosmos still applies. God is always

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gifts of God, we are guilty of the vice of sloth. What a strange accusation. What does it mean to equate neglect of human culture with slothfulness? For Calvin, we should remember, sloth is not the same as being lazy. To be slothful is not merely having trouble getting out of bed on time, or putting off the kitchen remodel that your spouse has been requesting for years. Rather, the slothful person is habitually

Spirit at work in the world, and then be willing to follow wherever it leads us.

DAVEY HENRECKSON , EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF IN ALL THINGS, IS ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY AND DIRECTOR OF THE ANDREAS CENTER AT DORDT COLLEGE.

In All Things is a journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation. We want to expand our imagination for what the Christian life— and life of the mind—can accomplish. In pursuit of this end, we will engage in conversation with diverse voices across a wide range of traditions, places, and times.

“Dordt has a long history of research and scholarship across the disciplines,” says Dr. Nathan Tintle, director for research and scholarship. In April, the board of trustees approved a new Research Institute that Tintle says will further increase support for faculty and student academic research. “This is not a fundamental change, but a way to do even more,” Tintle says. When he became director for research and scholarship in 2014, Tintle sat down with every faculty member and asked what kind of scholarly work they would like to do if given the opportunity.

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“They all had ideas,” he Nathan Tintle says. But two obstacles surfaced: time and money—which often end up being the same issue. At tuition-based teaching institutions like Dordt College, heavier faculty teaching loads make finding time for rigorous scholarship more

difficult. Salaries, facilities, and student aid dominate budgets that are based on a set faculty-to-student ratio. At least two things contributed to the move toward a Research Institute. A $4 million grant from the estate of Lowell Andreas several years ago allowed Dordt to support some faculty and student research projects. In addition, Dordt faculty members have been increasingly successful in obtaining outside funding for their scholarly work. In the past five years, Dordt College has been the top recipient of external grants to fund research among private colleges in Iowa, and as Tintle notes, funding momentum often leads to new sources of revenue. So, the time seemed right to try a new model that could increase funding resources for research, especially for releasing faculty from the 24-credit annual teaching loads required to keep tuition costs manageable. The Research Institute will buy part of a faculty member’s contract, allowing the college to hire someone else to teach that course or courses for the duration of the project. “The Research Institute is one way we hope to encourage a broad range of scholarly work and ensure that more resources are available to support it,” says Provost Eric Forseth. Why is this so important? Being engaged in their fields and that of their colleagues encourages the growth of excellent and energetic faculty and has an impact

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NEW RESEARCH INSTITUTE BRINGS NEW FUNDING SCHOLARLY WORK Some examples of recent faculty scholarly work include for following: • Dr. Channon Visscher was a visiting scientist last summer at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado, and co-author of an article published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature Geoscience, which presented research done at SwRI about how the Moon became the Moon. • Dr. Kathleen VanTol has been working with Ministry of Education officials in Nicaragua on special education programs that are bringing students who had previously been unable to attend school into classrooms. • Drs. Justin Vander Werff and Joel Sikkema gave presentations at the Christian Engineering Conference on “Distinctively Christian Engineering: Implementing Guiding Principles in our Civil Curriculum.” • Dr. Walker Cosgrove was recently accepted to a competitive workshop accepting a very limited number of participants on the “Verbal Art of Plato,” sponsored by the Council of Independent Colleges.

on student learning and engagement, Forseth says. “Involvement in scholarly work directly contributes to faculty’s ability to provide a contemporary Christian response to the direction of society and the world,” says Tintle. Dordt’s annual “Faculty Scholarship, Achievements, and Service Report” lists 89 percent of the faculty at least once in its pages. (Most of the publications produced are archived in

Education Professor Dr. Kathleen VanTol doesn’t make simple distinctions between her roles as teacher and researcher. She invites her students to participate in her scholarly work as a learning opportunity. 13

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“Many think of research as discovery, but it can be much broader,” says Tintle. Dordt’s program will follow what is known as Boyer’s model of scholarship, which includes discovery of new ideas and results, application of discoverybased knowledge, integration between disciplines (including understanding the role of faith in learning), and teaching and learning scholarship.

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Dordt’s digital collection, which can be accessed through the Dordt website.)

But the Research Institute will do much more than help find outside funding.

Dordt Biology Professor Dr. Robin Eppinga was

“I think the Research Institute will help recently awarded a grant to promote sciencefaith integration among Christian young adults. us become a bit more formal about our faculty development program and processes,” says Tintle, who will play a key role in the process and has a wealth of experience in applying for grants to fund research. He has received more than $4.5 million in funding in the past five years and recently — Dr. Nathan Tintle, director for research and scholarship published a textbook that takes a new approach to teaching also help open the door to further statistics. As director for research and institutional funding for projects scholarship, he and a team of faculty proposed by his colleagues. Agencies members help others through the are frequently predisposed to awarding application process, drawing on their money to people and institutions that own experience to determine the most have a proven track record. And donors helpful ways to proceed and most helpful get excited about contributing when they avenues to pursue. see increasing levels of activity and new Tintle’s history of grant funding may outside funding.

“There are many projects our faculty want to work on and that we want them to work on that may not be good candidates for outside funding,” says Tintle. By getting more projects funded externally, more internal money can be freed up for projects deemed important at Dordt but that may not fit the interests of a funding agency. It will also be a place Dordt’s donors can demonstrate their support for original scholarly work. While the primary reason for the Institute

“Involvement in scholarly work directly contributes to faculty’s ability to provide a contemporary Christian response to the direction of society and the world.”

RECENT AWARDS In the past couple of years, Dordt faculty from a variety of disciplines have received awards that recognized their work or enabled them to take on interesting projects: • Engineering Professor Dr. Kayt Frisch received a Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust Grant to set up a new biomechanics lab. • Dr. John Visser received the Chewning award for Christ-likeness in scholarship and commitment to the integration of Christian faith and learning. • Dr. Robert De Haan received a $20,000 grant from the Iowa DNR to write about his water quality research. • Drs. Tim Van Soelen and Mark McCarthy received funding from the Fulbright program to bring an education faculty member from South Africa to Dordt. • Computer Science Professor Kari Sandouka received a $10,000 grant from the National Center for Women and Information Technology for creating academic programs focused on recruiting and retaining women in computing. • Dr. Robbin Eppinga and colleagues received a $25,000 grant from the Science and Theology for Emerging Adult Ministries (STEAM) program to develop materials to engage young adults in issues of science and faith. Visit the Dordt website for more comprehensive news stories about these projects.

is to expand funding opportunities, Tintle sees other reasons for the new body, too. In an increasingly litigious society, having a separate institute puts up some legal barriers between the college and research conducted by professors and students. “The world is changing and increasing numbers of rules and regulations come into play in the awarding of grants,” says Tintle. Setting up the Research Institute as a separate entity allows the institute to somewhat separate its legal status from that of Dordt College and its assets. Meanwhile, Dordt maintains oversight of the kind of work that is funded by administering a detailed faculty evaluation and approval process for projects. Over the next five years, college donors have committed $750,000 to use as seed money to get the Research Institute started. Tintle’s office plans to develop a database that will help them match faculty research ideas to funding sources. He believes these efforts will spawn a range of new scholarly work. “I’m very optimistic about the possibilities this presents,” says Tintle. SALLY JONGSMA

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CORE 100 SETTING STUDENTS ON A COMMON KINGDOM TRAJECTORY hen new students arrive on campus each August, they show up in force, crisscrossing lawns and sidewalks, carrying laundry baskets, struggling under the weight of plastic crates full of books. The parking lots are packed. Vehicles host odd configurations of boxes, futons, wastebaskets, lamps.

Each year’s crop of new Dordt students comes from across the country and around the world. They represent a variety of cultural backgrounds, have been nurtured within an increasingly diverse assortment of church communities, and are destined for dozens of different majors and programs.

It’s a zoo. Parents pitch in with the heavy lifting, but eventually they coalesce into little groups and stand watching, somewhat removed, not sure where to stand.

But for all their differences, each of these new students has one thing in common: a single line on their Fall semester course schedule, “Core 100: Kingdom, Identity, and Calling.”

Core 100 is the 12-week course that initiates first-year students into Dordt’s academic and spiritual community. Professors from across disciplines take groups of 20 or so under their wing, walking them through the nutsand-bolts of registration and, more importantly, grounding them in the language, concepts, and stories of the Reformed tradition. It’s some students’ first introduction to the breadth of a Reformed perspective, and it provides a foundation for the rest of their studies at Dordt.

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of the campus community.

Dordt Business Professor Shirley Folkerts has been teaching the course since 2008. She says it requires some patient hand-holding: “Students are learning to navigate the stresses and S. Folkerts new responsibilities of college life, and this course helps them to get their feet on the ground their first semester away from home.”

In Core 100, Christians began to situate her story within a bigger story—God’s story—and she grew to understand that “all of life is mission.”

But Core 100 is also meant to open students to the big, wide world of intellectual inquiry and to help them begin to see how that inquiry can be guided by a reformational perspective and rooted in the shared life and worship

“Core 100 helped take the stress out of choosing a major,” says sophomore Anna Christians. “When I started college, I thought I needed to know exactly what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I felt like I had to figure out exactly what God willed for me in choosing a major and that my major should lead right into a specific career path.”

“We talked a lot about vocation in class, and I learned there’s no separation between work and our calling. You can be part of God’s redeeming work in the world — Senior Victoria Cast no matter

JORDAN EDENS DE GROOT (’13)

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“If that foundation had not been laid that first semester, college life would have been a lot harder,” says Victoria Cast, now a senior. “Core 100 was my first sighting of the thread that’s woven through every class here at Dordt. I looked forward to each class period because—even in the middle of the stress of college life—it brought my focus back to what was important: God’s kingdom and his calling and purpose for my life.”

Sophomore Anna Christians (left) took Core 100 last fall. She says it made her think in new ways about “calling” and gave her the freedom to change her major.

“If that foundation had not been laid that first semester, college life would have been a lot harder. Core 100 was my first sighting of the thread that’s woven through every class here at Dordt.”

JAMIN VER VELDE (’99)

what job you’re doing or what major you choose,” says Christians. That freedom—to choose a course of study knowing that, ultimately, all of life belongs to God—is what Folkerts hopes students will take from the course. “For some students, this is the first time they’ve thought deeply about what we mean when we talk about ‘the kingdom of God’ or asked questions about what that means for how they live as Christ’s disciples,” says Folkerts. “At many institutions, an orientation course like this would focus more on practical matters—the ins-and-outs of registration, major options, teaching study skills,” Folkerts says. “Core 100 brings these two things together. When we walk through the process of registering for classes, we also talk about kingdom work and about what it means that all areas of life are under the lordship of Christ.” Dordt Dean of Chapel Aaron Baart co-authored Vivid: Deepening Your Colors, one of the texts read by all first-year students at Dordt. The book includes stories from his own life and is intended to introduce students to a Reformed perspective.

For some students, a focus on the kingdom of God and the narrative continuity of Scripture is utterly new.

In several early core courses, students are introduced to a “historical/ redemptive” examination of the roots of Western culture in a global context.

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They may resist it. Or half-understand it. But for many students in Core 100, the seeds are sown for lifelong engagement with the tradition’s central ideas about Scripture, God’s work in history, and the pivotal role played by Christ’s resurrection in God’s plan for redemption.

Christians recalls being in three of those courses at once. “Suddenly, everything was coming together. I was beginning to see how connected the whole Bible is, from the Old to the New Testaments, and to understand the narratives of Scripture as something that actually took place in history, in a political world and a certain cultural context. And I began to see more clearly the way that my calling—my story—fit into a much bigger one.” Like Christians, many students come to college feeling anxious about choosing a major, but by the end of the semester, much of that angst lessens. “The question isn’t, ‘Should I be a real estate agent, or a teacher, or an engineer?’ It’s bigger than that,” Folkerts says. “It’s, ‘How do I live life—my whole life—as a kingdom servant and child of God?’”

STORY IS THE WAY IN Rather than focus on abstract terms and concepts—irresistible grace, sphere sovereignty, Christ-centered renewal—Core 100 students are invited to explore the Reformed tradition through story. Story, in Core 100, is central to helping students situate their own lives and callings within the narrative of God’s kingdom and within the plan of redemption God is working out in and through human history. Understanding how their story relates to God’s story puts students in the center of the paradox of the here and not yet here. While Core 100 students are introduced to some of the key ideas and terms

HOME TO MANY VOICES The glue that holds the Core Program together is a rigorously biblical, distinctively Reformed perspective. At Dordt, that perspective grows out of a “reformational” strand of Reformed thinking associated with 19-century Dutch theologian and statesmen Abraham Kuyper. That perspective has been built upon over the decades and continues to be enriched by new and diverse voices. Dordt Theology Professor Dr. Benjamin Lappenga says the Reformed tradition has also been nurtured by scholars and communities outside of it, and the designation “Reformed” is, at its best, defined by a spirit of welcome and ecumenism rather than a preoccupation with labels and limits. “It’s not as if there isn’t any way to identify what’s Reformed and what isn’t,” he says. “But it’s important to recognize the contributions made by different expressions of Christianity over the ages and across the globe. If we’re not catholic, in the wider sense, then we’re not truly reformational.” Course texts across the core feature some of the tradition’s stalwarts: John Calvin, Abraham Kuyper, Herman Dooyeweerd. But there are also glimpses of a growing plurality. Students might be assigned an essay or novel by Marilynne Robinson, a renowned if unconventional Calvinist. In Lappenga’s core Biblical Foundations course, one of the required textbooks was written by a Wesleyan minister, a woman, who models a characteristically reformational approach to biblical scholarship. One of the ways Core 100 students encounter the growing diversity within the Reformed tradition—as well as reformational perspectives from without it—is through required attendance at Dordt’s First Mondays lecture series. Students attend talks, then reflect on them in writing. Last semester, Core 100 students attended a First Mondays talk by Jemar Tisby, a popular podcaster and president of the African American Reformed Network; the year before that, they heard from a Navajo activist who writes and speaks about the relationship between American history, culture, race, and faith. Students bring these voices into conversation with what they’re learning in Core 100 and with their own experiences and denominational backgrounds—whether they grew up Reformed in Michigan, E. Free in California, or Baptist in Texas. Dordt History Professor Dr. Paul Fessler says, “Brainwashing students into a particular perspective isn’t the point. The early, foundational courses in the core are intended to root our students and give them a place to stand conceptually. “I often point out to students—I didn’t grow up Dutch; I didn’t grow up Reformed. Half my family’s Catholic. But I encourage them to see it as a helpful way to think about the world going forward—because they’re going to be challenged.”

Paul Fessler

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JAMIN VER VELDE (ʼ99)

CORE SURVEY Dordt’s original first-year orientation course, GEN 100, was, by many accounts, underwhelming. Core 100 was conceived as an answer to that course’s shortcomings. Last semester’s student course evaluations make one thing clear: the course is succeeding. “Students rank the course exceptionally high in two areas: progress on course objectives and excellence of teaching,” says Dr. Ryan Zonnefeld, director of the Core Program. Dr. Charles Veenstra, Dordt communication professor emeritus, who taught the course since its inception, says Core 100 “was designed by committee from the ground up” to function as an “introduction to the kingdom vision of Dordt College.” “In that way, it’s wonderful preparation for the rest of their studies in the core,” Veenstra says. The Core Program’s design reflects the cohesiveness of creation,” says Associate Provost Dr. Leah Zuidema. “Core courses are designed to work together. It’s not simply a cafeteria approach, where students sample a little bit of this discipline, a little bit of that one. Whatever your life’s work and vocation, you are better equipped for those callings when you recognize the interconnectedness of the disciplines and of the world God created.” Veenstra says Core 100 is one of the most gratifying courses he’s ever taught. “I think a special bond develops between students and faculty in Core 100, and that bond lasts,” he says. Professors often invite students into their homes for a meal, and students and faculty often sustain the mentoring relationships established in the course all the way through to graduation—and often beyond. Now a senior, Hannah Klos says, “Looking back, I see now how crucial this class was in shaping the way I think—about everything. I grew up in a very small town, and in school I was generally told what to believe, but never to ask questions like ‘Why?’ or ‘How?’ Dr. Veenstra pushed me to think critically. It was my first experience with a teacher who really pushed me to think outside the box.”

Core 100 is designed to help students reflect deeply and think broadly about what it means to be Reformed.

associated with the Reformed tradition, those concepts take human shape in the stories collected in Vivid: Deepening Your Colors, co-written by Dordt Dean of Chapel Aaron Baart and former Dordt Theology Professor Syd Hielema. In the book’s preface, Baart writes, “The heart of God is revealed through stories, and our own lives are the echoes of the stories we read in Scripture. As we surrender our lives to Jesus these stories intersect and we are ‘made alive together with Christ,’ as Paul says. Or, to use an old English word, we are ‘vivified’—we become vivid, our colors deepen.”

live “in Christ” by asking: Who are we? What is God doing in the world? And how do we, in light of who God says we are, enter into his work?

Like the course itself, Vivid meets students in the middle of their social contexts, their test anxieties, and their uncertainty about the future, and it walks them toward a much bigger vision for their lives than simple doctrinal correctness and upright living.

Vivid, a refreshed and updated version of a book written by Hielema in 2003, is separated into three sections: “Identity,” “Kingdom,” and “Calling.” As they make their way through the book, students are challenged to discover what it means to

Baart opens the book’s first chapter with a story about being high—“very high”— and crossing the Canada border with a group of friends who’d been smoking pot. He’d left home on uneasy terms, was floundering a bit, and was trying to figure out what sort of life he wanted to live.

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“On the first day of Core 140, Dr. Fessler started talking and I wrote down every word. And then he told all of us in the room diligently taking notes that everything he just said was not true. It was the most perfect, hands-on lesson of discernment I have learned to this day.” — Kendra (Potgeter) Broekhuis (’11)

From within his spinning, half-conscious mind, Baart recalls looking into the face of a border guard and seeing something unexpected: the face of Jesus. Just when the reader begins to expect a conventional conversion story, Baart makes it less a story of personal transformation—a “come-to-Jesus moment”—and more about God’s invitation to let go of his own plans for his life and participate in something bigger. Like the course itself, the text meets students in the middle of their social contexts, their test anxieties, and their uncertainty about the future, and it walks them toward a much bigger vision for their lives than simple doctrinal correctness and upright living.

“Before coming to Dordt, I mostly understood my denomination in terms of its stances on certain issues or by the way it approached certain questions of biblical interpretation,” says new graduate Caeden Tinklenberg, who grew up in the Christian Reformed Church. “Being Reformed was mostly about how we identified ourselves to the outside world or the positions we took on issues like the preservation of saints, or total depravity, or whether we affirmed female pastors or promoted Christian education.” From Core 100 on, Tinklenberg was challenged to think more broadly about the world God created and the role he was called to play in it. “During my time at Dordt, my understanding of my faith tradition

Senior Ashley Bloemhof joins the conversation in Dr. David Henreckson’s Contemporary Ethics class, an upper-level core option in Advanced Reformed Thought.

evolved into something richer. It grew to encompass a mindset and not just a collection of beliefs. At Dordt, I’ve learned that I’m called to be a cocreator with God and to seek redeeming purposes and qualities in everything I do. This understanding gives purpose to everything,” says Tinklenberg. JAMIN VER VELDE (ʼ99)

The Core Program is designed to be more flexible, interdisciplinary, and challenging than its predecessor, the General Education Program. 19

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CORE 100 in a Nutshell Core 100, originally called GEN 100, has been around since 2003 (its predecessor, GEN 10: Introduction to College, was last offered in 1995-1996). Core 100 sets first-year students on a trajectory of foundational, interdisciplinary coursework that unites students from across disciplines and culminates in Core 399: Calling, Task, and Culture. Dordt’s Core Program is the sequence of courses that make up the heart of a Dordt education. Its stated goal is to prepare students in any vocational calling “for faithful, ongoing Christian discipleship in the common areas and responsibilities of contemporary life.”

Dordt Education Professor Dr. Ryan Zonnefeld has directed the Core Program since 2012.

As the stories in Vivid unfold, students begin to see that a life of Christian discipleship has little to do with their small desires and visions of “the good life.” Instead, God calls us to something bigger and richer and more exciting than that. Vivid demonstrates how God turns us outward, pushing us beyond narrow self-concern and toward the world in which God is already at work, establishing shalom and restoring creation to the purposes God intended for it. Dr. Ryan Zonnefeld, Dordt education professor and Core Program director, says this understanding of faith and calling “energizes students.”

“I came in as a very close-minded freshman who didn’t have much of a global perspective,” says Klos. “I’d never thought about calling in the way Dr. Veenstra explained it to me. He shared a Buechner quote with us, about how ‘your calling is where your talents meet the world’s greatest needs.’ I’d always seen college as a way to get a good job. But

“During my time at Dordt, my understanding of my faith tradition evolved into something richer. It grew to encompass a mindset and not just a collection of beliefs.”

“Students begin to see that — Recent graduate Caeden Tinklenberg they can live their lives in service to God every day, Core 100 taught me to see my life within in everything they do,” he says. “It frees God’s story, and to recognize that my them to pursue something they love.” life is not my own; I’m called to use it in Senior Hannah Klos took Core 100 with service. It’s just a much more fulfilling, Dr. Charles Veenstra, emeritus professor purposeful, and exciting way to view of communication who has taught Core life,” she says. 100 every year of its existence, even following his retirement last year. ALEISA DORNBIERER SCHAT

In the spring of 2008, the Core Program officially replaced Dordt’s General Education Program, which had been undergoing gradual redefinition since the early 90s under the leadership of former Dordt History Professor Dr. Hubert Krygsman and Emeritus Dordt Mathematics Professor Dr. Calvin Jongsma. The new program solidified Dordt’s move away from its earlier, distributive model for general education, which had students choosing from a menu of introductory courses from across the disciplines as a base for more specialized learning. Today’s Core Program still has much in common with its predecessors, and it continues to serve as the curricular outworking of Dordt’s educational mission and vision. But in the redesigned and renamed Core Program, the emphasis is less on introducing students to a particular major and more on laying a core foundation and making connections across disciplines. Core courses are meant to equip students to understand the relevance of what they’re learning for their own lives and callings—as church and family members, voting citizens, and working professionals. Coursework highlights the interrelatedness of God’s creation and the interrelatedness of all learning.

YOUR GUT

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Following

ordt College students and professors are finding themselves connected to one of the most interesting developments in human health research today—the human microbiome and how it helps keep people healthy. While most people have heard about the Human Genome Project, fewer seem to know about the Human Microbiome Project or related efforts like the American Gut Project.

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Collaborating with a local business is a win-win for microbiology and marketing students

The human microbiome is made up of hundreds of strains of microbial species and millions of bacteria. These microorganisms make up 90 percent of our bodies and inhabit everything from our exposed skin to the deepest crevices of our intestines. Researchers are mapping the human microbiome by studying and identifying the bacteria in healthy people. What they are finding, many believe, has the potential to dramatically change how we think about health and healing. Google “microbiome” and you’ll find an assortment of popular articles with titles designed to get your attention: “Findings from the Gut,” “Some of My Best Friends are Germs,” “The Pit in Your Stomach is Actually Your Second Brain,” “The Zoo We Bear,” and “Nose-y Bacteria Could Yield a New Way to Fight Infection.” New York’s American Museum of Natural History has even created an exhibit on the topic: The Secret World Inside You. Scientific journals also have published numerous academic articles on the topic, albeit with far less imaginative titles. And

Dordt microbiology students have access to state-of-the-art science labs and equipment. Some of these students have been putting their expertise to work in the community, partnering with a local start-up company, entegro, that produces, markets, and sells a mixed-culture probiotic product.

Amazon has pages of titles related to the microbiome and gut health. These sources identify and describe what scientists have learned about the role “bugs,” “germs,” or, more politely, “good bacteria” play in human health. Research in this area has taken off partly due to a variety of cultural practices that adversely affect gut health, incuding widespread use of antibacterial products, diets that include few fermented and cultured foods,

and a general aversion to dirt. Researchers are finding that the microorganisms that share our body space hold an important key to overall health. The microbes thought to promote a healthy balance of bacteria in the gut—what we’ve come to know as “probiotics”—may improve digestion, regulate the immune system, protect against disease-causing bacteria, control weight, counter autoimmune disorders, impact mental health, and more.

MICROBIOLOGY’S CONTRIBUTION

they would need themselves and only use it occasionally, they decided to donate to Dordt a quantitative PCR (qPCR) thermocycler, an instrument that amplifies and detects DNA. Ploegstra then found the genetic sequences needed for the strains in flourish and worked with advanced microbiology students to identify strains and monitor

Last year, a local start-up company, entegro, asked Dr. Jeff Ploegstra for help interpreting reports they had received from a lab hired to monitor the growth of the diverse strains of microbes in their mixed-culture probiotic product, flourish. Ploegstra immediately suggested that an easier and cheaper way to monitor the proportions of the specific strains they wanted included was through genetic testing. There are two main options for monitoring the diversity of organisms in flourish, according to Ploegstra. “One is to grow everything on agar plates that select for specific groups of bacteria and count the colonies. This is time consuming and imprecise,” he says. “The second is to use a genetic approach—to quantify the copy number of unique genetic thumbprints from each species in the mix.” Entegro officers Jerod Work and Carlos Bahena opted to take Ploegstra’s advice and go the genetic route. But rather than purchase the equipment

JAMIN VER VELDE (ʼ99)

Entegro representatives Carlos Bahena (left) and Jerod Work (right) have drawn on Dr. Jeff Ploegstra’s expertise in microbiology.

JAMIN VER VELDE (ʼ99)

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So what does all of this have to do with Dordt College students and faculty?

Recent graduate Shannon Vander Berg (’17) helped culture and establish lab stocks of good bacteria.

their proportions in the mix. “This arrangement has both educational and equipment stewardship benefits,” Ploegstra says. And Work notes that collaborating with Dordt people has been fun. He and his colleagues are pleased that Dordt science faculty and students have a qPCR to use for a broad range of

“This project gave me the opportunity to design a course of action, implement it, and then troubleshoot. I was able to pull from all aspects of my education to develop solutions.” — Microbiology student Shannon Vander Berg

Entegro is a health and nutritional supplement company based in Sioux Center. Its mission is “to help others obtain their best health, allowing them to better fulfill their God-given purpose for life.” Entegro brings together a biochemist, a microbiologist, an international business entrepreneur/marketer, and a doctor of pharmacy, as well as experienced business owners, investors, and business coaches. Co-founders Jerod Work and Carlos Bahena have worked closely with Dordt biology and business people.

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ENTEGRO’S STORY

Bahena describes entegro as part of a family business that wants to make a difference. “Some years ago we were looking at bringing the right biology to soil health through probiotics, and then we began asking whether we could do something similar for people. We are passionate about probiotics,” he says. Work has a doctor of pharmacy degree and describes himself as an “alternative-health thinking pharmacist” who has learned a great deal about probiotics over the past 12 years.

Dordt’s new quantitative PCR thermocycler is used by advanced microbiology students.

research projects. During this academic year, senior Shannon Vander Berg helped culture and establish long-term lab stocks of the various species of bacteria present in entegro’s product. She then ran preliminary tests of the genetic probes designed by Ploegstra to verify their match to each of the organisms. Ploegstra expects to have a working assay (a quantitative determination of the amount of a given substance in a particular sample) ready by the end of June. “Working on the entegro project helped me learn new lab skills and challenged me to pair them with previously acquired knowledge,” says Vander Berg, who has been a teaching assistant in Dordt microbiology classes for the past three years. “The lab equipment and procedures were familiar, but the materials and conditions I was using were new,” she says. “This project gave me the opportunity to design a course of action, implement it, and then troubleshoot. I was able to pull from all aspects of my education to develop solutions.” She also likes contributing to research that has the potential to improve people’s health. “What I find exciting about the entegro project is that it fosters connections

“We take antibiotics to kill harmful bacterial infections and use antibacterial soaps and lotions more than ever. The wrong bacteria in the wrong places can cause problems, but the right bacteria can have vast benefits. That’s where probiotics come in. Poor food choices, emotional stress, lack of sleep, antibiotic overuse, other drugs, and environmental influences can all shift the balance between good and bad bacteria,” Work says. Entegro says flourish is different from other probiotics because it is sold as a liquid rather than freeze-dried and put in capsules, which behave unreliably in the body. Flourish is marketed as a living liquid ecosystem with eleven strains of probiotics. The company began selling the product in 2016 through consultants across the country, through chiropractors and alternative-health practitioners and stores, and directly through their website. “We found a need and demand,” says Work, who cites statistics that point to three out of four people suffering from digestive issues and noting that Hippocrates long ago thought that all disease starts in the gut. “It’s the stories of people that have been helped that drive us,” say Work and Bahena. You can learn more about entegro by visiting their website: entregrohealth.com.

between Dordt’s academics and the community,” says Vander Berg. “Professors provide expertise, students develop lab skills and get the opportunity to use new equipment that entegro helped fund, and in the end entegro will have a more accurate method for testing their product.” “I’m very interested in health-care sustainability,” Ploegstra says. “Management of gut health is one of the

primary ways to manage overall health. Entegro is responding to this, and I’m happy to contribute to a product that may improve people’s health.”

MARKETING GETS INVOLVED TOO Dordt’s partnership with entegro hasn’t been limited to the sciences. Business faculty and students have contributed to the effort, too—although the two

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“I see this as a win-win-win. Small companies usually have something on their back burner that they’d love to work on to more effectively market their product, but have no time to pursue; students get real experience designing and finishing a project and working as a team; I stay aware of what is going on in the business world and Dordt gains the respect of the local community.” — Marketing Professor Dale Zevenbergen JAMIN VER VELDE (ʼ99)

departments didn’t know of the other’s contributions at first. Last year, entegro managers consulted with Business Professor Dale Zevenbergen about how to market flourish. Zevenbergen, a friend of Work and a customer with family health issues resolved by flourish, helped the company create a distribution system that includes two channels (a network of consultants and a series of professionals) that capitalize on the quality of their product and the impact of their customers’ success stories. Senior Brianna Kroeze got involved and helped implement some of Zevenbergen’s recommendations through an internship that turned into part-time work while she completed her education. “It was an unique opportunity to work with a small company; I was able to see more areas of the business than just marketing,” says Kroeze. “I am so thankful for the opportunities that I had by working with the people at entegro. This internship was a great way to start my career in business.” Zevenbergen’s marketing students also got involved. Each fall, Zevenbergen has students in his marketing class take on a project for local businesses or organizations—or sometimes alumni businesses. Last fall one team of students compared entegro’s flourish with similar products made by its top competitors. They learned as much as they could about the competition, looking at how the product was presented and marketed, and at the end of the semester presented their findings to the company. “I don’t micromanage, and bringing their project from start to finish can be a stressful experience for students. But

From left to right: Jerod Work (entegro), Shannon Vander Berg (’17), Carlos Bahena (entegro), Dordt Biology Professor Dr. Jeff Ploegstra. The group discusses the equipment needed for long-term maintenance of pure microbial stock cultures, including the ultra-low freezer pictured.

they come out of it having learned what they need to do and what they can do. It’s a great experience for all involved,” says Zevenbergen. “Working with entegro for our marketing project was a great experience because we created something that was useful to them,” says senior Courtney De Wolde. “That ‘real-life’ experience taught me more about marketing research and what it actually looks like in the business world than any amount of notes I have taken in class. Entegro provided educational feedback to our group that we are able to take into our future business careers.” “I see this as a win-win-win,” says Zevenbergen. “Small companies usually have something on their back burner that they’d love to work on to more effectively

market their product, but have no time to pursue; students get real experience designing and finishing a project and working as a team; I stay aware of what is going on in the business world and Dordt gains the respect of the local community.” One of Ploegstra’s favorite phrases has long been: “Healthy people come from healthy places.” That includes where they live, what they eat, and how they relate to others. “Working toward that goal connects directly to our calling to work for shalom in our world,” he says. He sees the partnership with entegro as a way to take what they and others are learning about the human microbiome and do just that. SALLY JONGSMA

KATE HENRECKSON

@ DORDT COLLEGE

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PRE-VET LIFE It’s a foggy morning in early April. After almost a year of living in Sioux Center, I am finally acclimating to the regular scent of animal life. But to my surprise, the large, open barn smells fresh and clean. ON THE FARM Mike Schouten, who runs Dordt’s Ag Stewardship Center, is a warm, quiet man. “As good with children as he is with animals,” one student tells me. An agriculture student is standing a few pens away—Ian Edwards. He is watching over one of the ewes under his care. A moment later I hear a call. “She’s pushing!” Edwards grabs a plastic glove and rushes into the pen. Seconds later, a baby lamb slips out in a pool of clear liquid. For a moment it lies still, and then it begins to cough repeatedly.

Mike Schouten, steward of the Dordt farm, shows a newborn lamb to visiting children.

“She’s just clearing the fluid from her lungs,” Edwards explains, watching closely. “This is five lambs in three days,” he adds with a laugh. “I had to pull the last one. It was so big she was having trouble.” By now, the lamb is testing out her spindly legs. Within just an hour she will

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KATE HENRECKSON

Agriculture student Ian Edwards helps a lamb give birth at the Dordt farm.

be standing confidently and nursing. Stripping off his gloves, Edwards smiles. “This is why I love Dordt. I’m just a freshman, but within my first month here I was already working on the farm.” In another part of the barn, Dordt Agriculture Professor Dr. Duane Bajema, campus advisor for the pre-vet program, is showing his students how to assist with a lambing.

I lean over the pen, focusing my camera, intent on capturing the moment. I hear Bajema say, “Let’s have Kate do the next one.” My finger freezes on the camera button. This was not part of the freelance-writer job description.

I climb over the fence, my boots sinking into the muddy straw. The ewe is lying in the corner, shuddering with contractions. Her neck stretches out, and her lips pull back, revealing her teeth. The lamb’s head is out now, but the rest of it is stuck. Inside the fluid sack, the lamb is opening and closing its jaw.

For students who spend much of their time reading indoors, the farm is quite literally a breath of fresh air. It’s a balm for the soul to be outside, caring for the animals and the earth.

This ewe is having trouble pushing—the baby is big. Two students pull on gloves and begin to help. Within moments, the first lamb is born. But another one is still coming.

But a glance at Bajema reveals he isn’t joking. He takes the camera from me, hands me two plastic gloves, and points to the pen. “Hop on in!”

“Go on,” Schouten tells me. “Try to get both hooves and the head.” Gingerly, I slide my cupped hands slightly

“Come on … push,” I whisper to the ewe. I pull harder, but I’m fearful of choking it. The little neck is so frail.

Bajema, the program advisor, helps students determine which vet school they hope to attend.

“Here,” says Schouten, stepping into the pen. He puts his hands above mine, and we pull together.

“We’ve had students enter a lot of different colleges of veterinary medicine,” Bajema says. “Ohio State, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, WSU, UC Davis, K State, Michigan State, Colorado State. One student is going to vet school in Poland,” he adds with a laugh.

With one final heave, the lamb slips out quickly and lies on the straw. At Schouten’s instruction, I pull the sack away from its face, clearing its mouth so it can take its first breath. Then I lift it up, and place it in front of the ewe. She leans down and sniffs it, and then starts to lick the lamb clean. “This is the bonding process,” Schouten says, smiling. “Now we just need to get it to nurse.” Schouten, who grew up on a farm in Hawarden, Iowa, started working for Dordt in 1984. His work varies from day to day, he tells me. This time of year, a lot of it involves caring for livestock and preparing for spring planting. He also facilitates student projects. Right now, they’ve been vaccinating lambs, calving cows, lambing ewes, or pregnancy-testing cows under the supervision of a trained vet. More often than not, those vets are Dordt graduates. Schouten says that he loves seeing students outside of a typical classroom setting. “It’s a joy to have students come to the farm,” he says. “To watch them learn, watch them grow—from incoming freshman to graduating senior—not only academically, but as a person, ready to go out into the world and serve the kingdom.” It’s rare for a small Christian college to have a farm, and the hands-on training Dordt students get there helps them figure out whether they want to pursue farm work or animal care as a vocation. For students who spend much of their time reading indoors, the farm is quite literally a breath of fresh air. It’s a balm for the soul to be outside, caring for the animals and the earth.

Each school has different course requirements, and Bajema’s job is to help students meet the requirements of the vet school they hope to attend—and to make sure they get their applications in on time. “It’s similar to trying to get into med school,” he says. “There are often 1,200 applicants for 120 slots. But Dordt has a good acceptance record.” One highlight of the program is the pre-vet club, which connects students to opportunities to learn about veterinary medicine. The club meets monthly, bringing in speakers that include vet school students, recruiters from state schools, and people doing veterinary work in the military. Through the club, students also take trips to learn more about vet work. One year, they shadowed a vet at an equine hospital. Another time, they visited the Omaha Zoo, where they fed giraffes and observed surgery rooms for exotic animals. The club also provides a space for students to share their experiences with one another, and it inspires them to persevere in their work.

DORDT’S PRE-VET PROGRAM

But the best part of the club, say students and faculty alike, is its veterinary representative: Dr. Fred Sick. Sick, a long-time Sioux Center resident, recently retired after 23 years of veterinary practice. Having spent decades as a practitioner, Sick has been able to encourage and direct students in a unique way.

The pre-vet program at Dordt is largely self-directed. Pre-vet students can major

Sick is soft-spoken and humble, often looking down when he talks, but always

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in whatever they want, even music or business. Most, however, are animal science, chemistry, or biology majors.

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inside the ewe. I move them around, feeling for legs. Then I pull. But the lamb doesn’t budge.

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Holly (Vander Heide) De Vries (’00) After graduating with a major in animal science, De Vries worked for a year as assistant herdsman at the Dordt farm. She helped manage 20 students, teaching them how to milk, feed, and do the day-to-day work of running a dairy farm. The next year, she began vet school at Iowa State. “You spend your entire day, every class, every day, with the same 100 people. You become close. It’s hard work,” she says. She returned to Sioux Center every weekend to work at the clinic. De Vries has been at Central Veterinary Clinic in Sioux Center for 12 years. She works with dairy cattle doing herd health, which involves pregnancychecks and surgeries. Working part-time now, she spends the rest of her time with her two children at home. A favorite memory from her time at Dordt was a prank that put the loader tractor and John Deere gator from the Dordt Farm on the roof of the Commons with a sign that read, “Nothing jumps like a Deere.” “I didn’t do it,” she adds quickly.

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Sara McReynolds (’04) McReynolds grew up on a cattle farm in Northwest Kansas. “I chose Dordt because they had a farm, which few liberal arts schools do.” An Ag Policy class at Dordt sparked her interest in agriculture policy. After attending vet school at Kansas State, McReynolds began to work for the North Dakota state government. She is now Assistant State Veterinarian for North Dakota, living in Bismarck. Her work varies daily but includes creating regulations for imported animals and testing animals for diseases such as TB, brucellosis, or even rat viruses. She also helps with emergency responses to events like the avian influenza outbreak in Iowa and North Dakota, helping stop the rapid spread of the disease. McReynolds says the most rewarding part of her work is helping with animal care. “I really like interacting with farmers and ranchers,” she says. “I’m an advocate for agriculture, so I like to promote and protect the health of livestock in the state.”

Dordt Agriculture Professor Dr. Duane Bajema teaches the Ag Safety class in an Agriculture Stewardship Center classroom.

with a smile. But the most remarkable thing about him is his wealth of memories of his students. “Now David Dykshorn…,” Sick recalls with a smile, leaning back in his chair. “David used to follow me around his grandfather's dairy on his tricycle. And now he’s in practice in Abbotsford, British Columbia. He’s having a baby in June.” He tells similar stories about dozens of other students, remembering where they came from, what they did when they were here, where they are now. He shows pictures on his phone of their families, and where they are currently practicing. He remembers them each by name. “Fred has had a camaraderie with the students that just continues on,” says Bajema. “He does a wonderful job of staying in contact with them.” “We do a meal for the kids in the fall,

and an ice cream social in the spring,” Sick says. “It keeps you young. And my wife, Geralyn, loves cooking for the students, helping with their applications, and encouraging them to follow their passions.”

“Fred has had a camaraderie with the students that just continues on. He does a wonderful job of staying in contact with the students.” — Dr. Duane Bajema, speaking of Dr. Fred Sick

Renee Ewald is one of Sick's students, a junior biology major with a pre-vet focus. “Dr. Sick is a jolly fellow,” she says. “It takes a while before you realize how deep his wealth of knowledge is. When you first talk to him, he seems like a nice

Besides his work with students, Sick attends conferences, speaks on panels, and interviews candidates for the Iowa State veterinary school. He has also done extensive research with Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, an animal health company in Sioux Center, where he has helped create pig vaccines

and contributed to other advances in preventative medicine.

A LATE-NIGHT CRISIS Senior ag major Brianna Evans was overseeing calves at the farm. During an Ag Safety class, she noticed that one of the calves seemed off. Further examination suggested the calf had a severe case of scours, a bacterial disease in the intestinal tract. Students had been taught to recognize the signs: runny, yellow-colored manure. It’s common in calves because their immune system is still weak.

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Students get to know him well enough to know his hobbies. “He has a massive fish tank in his basement—a salt water tank— with sea anemonies and tropical fish,” Ewald says. “It’s like his baby—he tries to keep the correct chemistry in the water so it can thrive. He loves to garden and grow plants. He has a cabin on Maple Lake, and he’s always posting about the sunrise, the return of wood ducks, the ice thickness. It’s fun to see a vet as a whole person.”

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grandfather. But then you realize—this man is incredibly intelligent and cares so deeply about students and their success.”

At Schouten’s direction, she gave the calf two sulfa pills, a shot of antibiotics, and a bottle of electrolytes. That evening, Evans received a phone call from another student at the farm—Rachel Limmex. Limmex’s voice was tense. The calf wouldn’t drink. His mouth was clenched and shaking, and his nose was cold.

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Matt Boogerd (’03) PHOTO SUBMITTED

Boogerd majored in business at Dordt, taking mostly finance and economics courses. After graduation, he began interviewing for a job. “All I saw, everywhere, was cubicles,” Matt says. “And I thought, ‘No. Not happening.’” Instead, Boogerd moved to Wyoming and worked as a guide for a season, caring for over 70 horses. The experience made him realize his true passion: working with animals. He enrolled in vet school at Iowa State. In 2011, Boogerd began doing bovine medicine for Central Veterinary Clinic in Sioux Center. One of his favorite parts of the job is taking Dordt pre-vet students on calls. “Some students have phenomenal questions. It’s encouraging that they’re thinking about things in both a kingdom way and a business way.” Boogerd loves doing OB work: calving or lambing. “It’s the miracle of life,” he says. “It’s like a puzzle you can’t see— you’re trying to figure it out.”

Dr. Fred Sick presents white coats to his students Abbie Beahm and Ben Korver as they enter Iowa State’s College of Veterinary Medicine. He says "it was a great honor” to be part of the ceremony.

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Katie (Tazelaar) Van Singel (’16)

At Dordt, Van Singel spent a semester interning at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. Another summer she took courses in Washington State, whale watching and tadpole hunting in the Orcas Islands.

Next she ran back to where Limmex was with the calf. They decided they had to get the calf warm right away. So Ryan brought a wheelbarrow, and together they wheeled it into the barn and put it under the heat lamps. The calf wasn’t moving. Limmex called Bajema, who called Dr. Holly De Vries (’00), a local veterinarian and a Dordt graduate. De Vries came right away.

It was hard. The calf’s blood pressure was so low that it took time to find the vein. But finally, the IV was in. De Vries gave the calf two bags of the IV solution, and they waited.

The students went to the pens of every single ewe who had lambed earlier that day, to try to get some colostrum. They milked four different ewes to get enough

By this time, the vet had arrived. It was 10 p.m. “Normally that late at night, there is no one there,” De Vries says. “I showed up, and there were 20 kids there. I was impressed, but also intimidated—I had 20 people watching me IV this calf, which is hard to do if it’s dehydrated.”

By the time both bags were gone, the calf was trying to get up. Half an hour later, he was walking around. Evans ran back to check on the lambs. They were stable. Both crises had been averted, thanks to the students’ hard work and quick thinking—and the help of Holly De Vries.

THE ETHICS OF ANIMAL CARE There was another dimension to the story of the calf—a question of ethics. When the students called her, De Vries spoke to Duane Bajema about the cost of an IV for the calf. Having her come out and place the IV would be more

KATE HENRECKSON

“Elephants are so, so smart,” she says. “We have a male named Kandula–he was used in cognition studies to test problem-solving abilities in animals. It’s a blessing and a curse for us. We have to give him constant puzzles and challenges to keep him engaged.”

milk for the lambs, who were now extremely weak.

Meanwhile, the students in charge of the ewe arrived. Evans talked them through the options for how to get milk into the lambs, knowing that if they didn’t drink, they wouldn’t make it through the night. Since the ewe with mastitis was not milking, they tried putting the lambs on a different ewe. It didn’t work.

When Van Singel was young, her family lived in Chicago and frequently took her to the Brookfield Zoo. Ever since she could talk, she told her parents that she wanted to be a zookeeper.

Today, Van Singel is a full-time elephant zookeeper at the Oklahoma City Zoo.

Evans returned immediately. But before she could find Limmex and the calf, another student, Sarah Ryan, approached her in concern. There was a problem with the lambs as well: they were not suckling. Evans went into the pen and felt the ewe’s udder. It was mastitis. She called and asked the student in charge of the ewe pen to bring his teammates out right away.

Van Singel’s favorite part of her job is working with endangered species. “If you’d asked me as a kid, I would’ve thought it was an unattainable dream. And now I get to do it every day. I never work a day in my life, because I love my job so much.”

A ewe watches over her new lambs at Dordt’s Agriculture Stewardship Center.

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AG ALUMNI PROFILES Dordt Theology Professor Dr. David Henreckson talks to students after a class on Christian ethics.

expensive than letting it die and buying a new calf. And even with the IV, the calf only had a 50/50 chance of survival. “At what point do you decide it’s time to let it die—to let nature take its course?” Bajema asks. “The IV ended up costing $120. What if it had been $5,000? What if it had been a beloved pet rather than a bull calf?” “In the end, we decided to save it. It was a good learning experience for the students to have a vet come out,” says De Vries. “But a producer looking at numbers might not have done it. That’s the reality of production medicine.” Ethical dilemmas like this arise frequently in veterinary work. And responding to them requires a framework for how to think about animal care. At Dordt, professors teach students to think through the implications of their theology. In particular, they consider two fundamental questions: What is an animal? And, What is an animal for? How veterinarians or farmers answer these questions will shape how they do their work. When God first created animals, he called them “very good.” And in Genesis 9:8–10, when God established his

covenant after the Flood, it was not just with Noah and his descendants. It was with all flesh—“every living creature on earth.” Not only are animals our fellow creatures, they are also our fellow covenanters with God. Dordt Theology Professor Dr. David Henreckson teaches a core theology course at Dordt. In his class, students read a Wendell Berry essay on the doctrine of creation. Berry argues that if God calls something good, it has divine or sacred value. “It’s our obligation as his stewards to recognize that value in creation,” says Henreckson. “What therefore do we owe to it? What are some of our characteristic actions or vices that cause us to destroy or harm what God said is good? “As Christians, I hope we are inclined to see human life as having intrinsic value and dignity—we don’t just put a price tag on human life when making moral decisions about how to care for fellow human beings. It may be less instinctive for us to think about animal life in that way. But historically speaking, Christian theologians resisted the instrumentalization of animal life. They had an actual theology of creation, a theology we should be working to renew.”

Myron Kamper (’05) Kamper grew up on a dairy farm in California’s Central Valley. Interactions with local veterinarians encouraged him to look into the profession. Kamper appreciates the opportunities he had as a Dordt student: preveterinary club, attending a symposium at Iowa State, field trips to businesses and farms, and his advisors, former director of Career Services Ron Rynders and Dr. Fred Sick. “Dordt gave me a solid education and the discernment for both veterinary school and my future job,” he says. Today, Kamper lives in Visalia, California, with his wife and four children. He is currently a partner with Valley Veterinarians, Inc., specializing in health management for dairy herds. His mornings begin early, often at 4:30 a.m., when he begins his farm visits to do reproductive exams, give vaccinations, analyze records, and care for sick animals. “The days can be long, but I really enjoy the interactions with clients and coworkers,” he says. “I love troubleshooting problems on the farm and figuring out how to improve efficiency and animal health.”

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“It goes back to a fundamental understanding—the animals aren’t mine, they belong to the Lord,” Bajema says. “They are not mechanical widgets. They are God’s creatures.” Matthew Scully, in his book Dominion, writes, “When you look at a rabbit and can see only a pest, or vermin, or a meal, or a commodity, or a laboratory subject, you aren’t seeing the rabbit anymore…. And yet, we are told, each one is counted and known by Him.... Whatever abstraction of science or theology we apply to animals, we know they are not like us, and yet we know they are not just objects either.” The second question is perhaps more difficult: What is an animal for? Or, What does it mean to have dominion? In Genesis 2:15, two different words are used to describe man’s dominion. He is told to “work” and “care for” the garden of Eden—in Hebrew, to shamar and abad. The meaning of these words is to “serve” and “protect.” “In this passage, God is calling us to care for and serve the creatures entrusted to us,” says Biology Professor Dr. Jeff Ploegstra. “Not necessarily make them serve us.”

Animal science major Brianna Evans checks in on Bentley, the calf Dordt ag students saved from scours, a common bacterial disease in cattle.

Bison, for instance, disturb the ground and open up opportunities for new plants to grow. They are landscape shapers, disseminators of plant seeds, nutrient cyclers. They have relationships with the birds that swarm around them, eating the insects they stir up as they walk through the fields.

“I think it’s important to think about dominion by way of contrast,” “Is an animal free to exhibit its native Henreckson says. “A good sort of impulses?” Ploegstra asks. “Is it allowed dominion versus a bad sort. This latter to shape a place? Is it allowed to sort might be called domination. The transform the landscape and carry out as fact that we have dominion does not mean that we have boundless authority, or that there — Senior pre-vet student Renee Ewald are no restraints— many of those functions as it can? no moral obligations that exist between us and animal life. We have the “We think about the creation praising opportunity to oversee it for a particular God. What does that look like? Does purpose: to take good care of the thing seeing a young pig running across the that God just called very good.” field bring God joy? Does seeing a herd of animals protecting the young of other So, how do we care for animals in a way animals bring God joy? We like to simplify that is not dominating—a way that is things, to make them amenable to our consistent with how they are created to use. But at the same time I think that’s be? One way, Ploegstra suggests, is to try often counterproductive to our joy in to understand how they interact in their experiencing the world.” natural ecosystems.

“Is this cow, in its ‘cowness,’ able to be everything a cow was created to be?”

“Is this animal—in the way it is being raised, the way it is being treated—able to glorify God?” asks Ewald. “Is this cow, in its ‘cowness,’ able to be everything a cow was created to be? Is it able to proclaim the glory of God in its ability to be itself?” As Ewald reflects on her time in Dordt’s pre-vet program, she considered her plans for the future. She hopes someday to bring the knowledge gained in her time at Dordt to her hometown of Terrace, British Columbia. There are horse trainers there, scattered hobby farms, and small dairies—all of them have expressed a need for a large animal vet. “Dordt encourages you to think about how to respond to new topics as Christians,” Ewald says, “how to apply your faith to every area of life. One of the blessings of vet medicine is that you create deep relationships with your clients. You see them on a weekly basis. As a vet, you have the responsibility to speak into people’s lives and understand your role in animal ethics. In doing so, you do your part in showing others how the creation glorifies its God.” KATE HENRECKSON

ay 1, 1998, is one of those milestone dates that stands out in my memory. I remember trekking across the East Beltline in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to Sunshine Church where friends and families were gathering to witness their student cross the threshold to become a college graduate. But what is most memorable about that day was signing my first letter of employment at Wedgwood Christian Services, marking the start of 10 years of service with at-risk youth and families in the city of Grand Rapids. My emotions were swinging from one extreme to another. Relief that I had secured a full-time job. Fear about whether I could be successful at it. A

sense of accomplishment that I had completed my degree. Concern about whether I had actually learned enough to be successful. Excitement to receive my diploma. Sadness to leave my friends. I was beginning to understand something I would grow to understand more fully over time. New beginnings can only come about when something else ends. The birth of a child comes as pregnancy concludes. Spring begins as winter comes to a close. My first job at Wedgwood ended as doors opened for a new position at a church across the city. Both sides of the coin of change are necessary and wonderful. Pregnancy is beautiful; a newborn baby is a precious miracle. College years were so formative; my first job was an incredible experience of learning to pour out God’s grace on broken and hurting people. I wouldn’t want to trade either one.

25-YEAR REUNION

When I participated in the DeVos Urban Leadership Initiative in Grand Rapids, I came across this quote by author Marilyn Ferguson: “It’s not so much that we are afraid of change or so in love with the old ways, but it’s that place in between that we fear … it’s like being between trapezes. There’s nothing to hold on to.”

ALUMNI

ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS: TWO SIDES OF THE COIN

As our 352 graduates said goodbye to Dordt College and begin their careers and lives, many of them are experiencing this same truth. Endings are difficult, but necessary. New beginnings are exciting, yet scary. But there is something to hold on to—God’s abiding presence, guiding us through.

AMY WESTRA

FOOTBALL GAME

PARENTS, ALUMNI, AND FRIENDS

SAVE THE DATE

SOCCER

DEFENDER DAYS

VOLLEYBALL GAMES

ON CAMPUS

TOURS

THEATRE: A WRINKLE IN TIME

HOCKEY

ROOM REUNION In March, five former Dordt College roommates met in Phoenix, Arizona, and went to church together 27 years later. Bottom: Rob Louters (Minnesota), Jonathan Gross (Arizona), Troy Broers (Iowa), Tom VanderWall (Michigan), and Richard Brouwer (California).

PRAISE AND WORSHIP

OCTOBER 13-14, 2017

LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEFENDERS

MUSIC FESTIVAL

DORDT COLLEGE

FRIDAY AND SATURDAY BUSINESS CONNECTIONS BREAKFAST

BASKETBALL TEAMS PREVIEWS

ICE CREAM SOCIAL

THURSDAY, TOO, IF YOU WANT

ALUMNI

SEX TRAFFICKING: DORDT ALUMNI CONFRONT THE EPIDEMIC

JOSH LOUWERSE

Alaskan winters are dark and cold. Many who live in the state are itinerant, serving on military bases or working in fishing and tourism industries. PHOTO SUBMITTED

The state is also home to a number of vulnerable people, including a large native population, many of whom face circumstances of displacement and deep economic distress. Under these conditions, the sex trade flourishes.

“I’d spend time in transit stations, in parks—all the places homeless young people meet,” he says. Louwerse’s organization, Covenant

“I was right where they are, experiencing what they experience—seeing the violence, seeing the fear, the drugs, the chaos firsthand,” he says. “The work begins by building relationships of trust,” says Louwerse. “Many of these kids go a long time without having an adult look them directly in the eyes. We look them in the eyes, we call them by name.”

“Alaska is the top in the country in all the bad stats,” says Josh Louwerse ('08). “In every category—physical abuse, substance abuse, suicide—we come in at the top of the list.” These social problems lead many young people to a life on the streets, where they are especially vulnerable to being trafficked. A youth ministry major at Dordt, Louwerse saw his career take surprising shape in Anchorage, where he began reaching out to at-risk youth. He spent a year and a half out on the street.

networks of social support.

House Alaska, is a 60-bed unit near the city center. Covenant House addresses immediate needs like food and shelter, but it also connects homeless young people to resources like housing, education and employment, mental health services, pastoral care, and other

Louwerse eventually got his master’s in global urban ministry and leadership from Bakke Graduate University, and he now helps shape the programming at Covenant House. He also leads trainings across the state, teaching law enforcement officers, medical professionals, and “basically anyone who will show up” how to identify and serve victims of sex trafficking. “Most of the places I go, people hardly recognize that sex trafficking is even a real thing, and that it’s happening in their

“Alaska is the top in the country in all the bad stats. In every category— physical abuse, substance abuse, suicide—we come in at the top of the list.” — Josh Louwerse (’08), youth engagement program coordinator for Covenant House Alaska

ALUMNI NOTES Please send news of your alumni gatherings, professional accomplishments, civic participation, and volunteer activities. We'd love to include them on our pages!

PHOTO SUBMITTED

Assink is known as a committed, passionate, and accomplished man of music. A recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle said, “Talk to anyone who has worked with, for, or alongside Assink during his tenure as executive director of the San Francisco Symphony, and you’ll hear the same accolades repeated with minor variations. You’ll hear people cite his rock-ribbed personal integrity, his passionate devotion to music, and his ability to maneuver calmly and clearsightedly through even the most daunting organizational challenges.”

A recent international study, the first and largest of its kind, revealed that one in four surveyed females at Covenant House Alaska were found to be survivors of sex trafficking and one in five males. About 50 percent of the youth served by the organization are Alaska Native.

town, or their city,” he says. Yet Alaska— and especially Anchorage—is a global crossroads for trafficking, and Louwerse uses these training events to help communities consider how to build the infrastructure necessary to respond. Last fall, Louwerse visited Dordt’s campus as a guest speaker in chapel, contributing to the semester-long series on the Book of Acts and the early Church. He began by demonstrating the power of language to shape how we respond to those we’re called to care for and who live on the margins.

is learning to follow Jesus’s example, and is finding out that the arms of the kingdom are extended so much farther and deeper and wider than we ever imagined.”

Andrew Wierenga (’89) recently completed his doctorate in business administration with an emphasis in homeland security leadership and policy from Northcentral University in San Diego. Wierenga is a nine-year veteran of the Phoenix Police Department; he is also the board president of the Arizona Christian Retirement Home Society, a Reformed-based organization that owns and operates two low-income retirement homes in Scottsdale, Ariz.

ALEISA DORNBIERER-SCHAT PHOTO SUBMITTED

Dean of Chapel Aaron Baart sees in Louwerse’s story a powerful demonstration of what, as Christians, we’re called to: “In the book of Acts, we encounter passage after passage where the early New Testament church

Assink has been named the new executive director of the Fuller Foundation.

Baart says Louwerse’s work with Covenant House is an example of “what it looks like when ambassadors of the kingdom of God don’t run away from the darkness, but instead run into the heart of it.”

According to Louwerse, our names for things matter. Whether we use the label “teen prostitute” or “sexually exploited child” has deep implications for how victims of sex trafficking “are cared for or not cared for, how they are served or excluded, and whether they are invited into our communities of love and hope.”

After more than two decades of work at the San Francisco Symphony, Brent Assink (’77) stepped down as executive director. Mayor Ed Lee of San Francisco declared May 31, 2017, to be Brent Assink Day in San Francisco in honor of Assink’s legacy at Davies Symphony Hall, and a gala dinner was thrown in his honor.

ALUMNI

Our names for things matter. Whether we use the label “teen prostitute” or “sexually exploited child” has deep implications for how victims of sex trafficking “are cared for or not cared for.”

Dr. Bethany Schuttinga (’97) was recently named president of Calvin Christian School in Blaine and Edina, Minn. Schuttinga, who earned a Ph.D. in educational leadership and policy studies from Iowa State University, previously worked for Dordt College as well as for the Sekolah Pelita Harapan school system in Indonesia.

Covenant House identifies and serves youth who are being commercially exploited for sex and coordinates a multidisciplinary response to the problem of sex trafficking in Anchorage.

ALUMNI

SEX TRAFFICKING: DORDT ALUMNI CONFRONT THE EPIDEMIC

DANIELLE ROOS

At first, Danielle Roos (’10) thought theatre might be a fun side-gig—a hobby. “Honestly, I was kind of afraid to commit my life to it,” she says. SAUL YOUNG

When she was a student at Dordt, she learned to see theatre through new eyes. “From the very beginning, my professors were challenging us to think about what stories are important for us to tell,” she says. Since then, Roos has committed her life to telling those stories. After graduating from Dordt, Roos started her own theatre company, Yellow Rose Productions, in Knoxville, Tennessee. In 2015, a play she co-wrote and directed was accepted into the prestigious New York City Fringe festival, the largest multi-arts festival in North America. Princess Cut tells the true story of a Knoxville woman who, as a young girl, was a victim of sex trafficking. “I was introduced to this young woman, and as we became closer, she told me her story,” Roos says. As a five-year-old, the woman was exploited by an older male cousin, her babysitter, who was involved in a sex ring in one of the city’s suburban

neighborhoods. “People often think of sex trafficking as something that happens in far-off places, like Asia, but her story shows it could be happening in the house next door,” she says. The woman wanted to tell her

story, so Yellow Rose Productions began working with her to write a play. “We thought, ‘Knoxville needs to hear this story. We can’t hear this story and not tell it,’” says Roos. She and two co-writers sat down with the woman, often talking late into the night, to piece together a story. Eventually, they were surrounded by Post-it notes with plot points and scene descriptions. “When we first performed the play, we’d scheduled a one-night show in a little venue downtown,” she says. “We’d set up chairs for about 50, but we had 199 people cram into the space.” Members of the press showed up, and shortly after that, a Knoxville paper ran a large feature about sex trafficking in the area. Interest was so great, they eventually performed the show in cities across the Southeast. Roos and her team soon began to realize they didn’t really know what trafficking looked like at the local level—and most people in Knoxville probably didn’t ALLISON WESSELIUS (ʼ10)

Princess Cut features a spare, conceptual set—a series of slatted doors through which the eight-person cast enters and exits. The character of Sara narrates her story of sexual exploitation while the other actors play multiple roles, including members of a Greek-style chorus. Princess Cut was recently retired after a severalyear run in cities throughout the southeastern United States and a short run Off Off Broadway as part of the New York City Fringe Festival. Roos and her co-writers are working out the details of licensing the script so it can be performed by others. 36

“We thought, ‘Knoxville needs to hear this story. We can’t hear this story and not tell it.’”

ALUMNI NOTES

— Danielle Roos ('10), playwright, producer, and founder of Yellow Rose Productions

either. “We didn’t want people to leave and think, ‘Oh, that’s just a story. It’s fiction.’ We wanted to honor her story by giving people resources to better understand and respond to the issue,” she says. So after each performance, they asked a panel of experts to debrief the audience, including law enforcement officers, an FBI victim specialist, and providers of mental health care and other forms of aftercare for victims. Roos learned this practice of post-show discussion while a theatre student at Dordt. “It’s a great way to open up a space for dialog about really difficult and challenging subjects. People often leave with more questions than answers, but it starts a conversation,” she says. “We didn’t intend this to be a Christian play, but the woman we’ve called ‘Sara’ grew up in the church and wanted to address the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of the church in responding to her situation as a victim of sex trafficking,” Roos says. Discussions about sexual purity in her church left her feeling alienated and kept her from seeking help due to feelings of shame. “We wanted to highlight where she was helped by the church and where the church could do better,” Roos says.

As a student, Roos didn’t shy away from difficult subjects. Among other projects, she produced a documentary about domestic violence, and she directed a staged reading of The Laramie Project, about a young gay man, Matthew Shephard, who was murdered in 1998. She has continued to tackle challenging subjects as a playwright and producer, and she says that writing and performing a play like Princess Cut can build empathy among audience members and, ultimately, be a way to seek justice for vulnerable and oppressed people. “There’s an energy that happens in the theatre—an electricity in the air,” she says. “As an audience member, you’re so close. You’re watching the actors’ faces— you can see every facial tick, the beads of sweat. You become part of the story.” It’s that opportunity—to make the audience part of the story—that makes the theatre such a powerful place, she says. “Theatre brings things that are distant near—it helps audience members imagine themselves in another’s shoes. It can move them to care,” she says.

ALUMNI

DORDT COLLEGE ARCHIVES

Roos in Enchanted April, performed at Dordt College in 2009. Roos and her co-producers are currently writing a play about the criminal justice system that addresses how difficult it can be for people convicted of a felony to start a new life.

Pam (Haveman) Ellis (’97) earned a Master of Science degree in applied behavior analysis from St. Cloud State University. Ellis is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA). She and her husband, Grant, started their own company, ABA Solutions by Pam Ellis, LLC, in 2012, which provides in-home and community-based ABA therapy to children with autism in the greater Ft. Hood, Texas, area. Pam’s husband served in the United States Army and is currently stationed at Ft. Hood. They recently built a home in Morgan’s Point Resort and call Texas home. Willem (’98), Phillip (’07), and Rit (’02) VanNieuwenhuyzen, owners of Vanco Farms in Mount Albion, Prince Edward Island, were recognized by the Pisquid River Enhancement Project for their efforts to prevent soil erosion. The Pisquid River Enhancement Project honors those who actively try to preserve the soil on their farms year-round. In response to receiving the honor, Willem said, “We always try to do the best we can, but it’s nice to be recognized.” Kendra (Potgeter) Broekhuis (’11) recently published her first book, Here Goes Nothing, An Introvert’s Reckless Attempt to Love Her Neighbor. In the book, Broekhuis describes how she stepped outside her comfort zone to connect with the people who lived in her apartment building. The book was published by Harper Collins Christian Publishing and is available for purchase at www.kendrabroekhuis.com/book. Charles Milton (’11) is a senior personal trainer and manager at Jody’s Gym as well as a middle and high school football coach at Lake Country Christian School in Fort Worth, Texas. Now married with a daughter, Milton looks back fondly on his time at Dordt. “It helped shape me into the man I am today,” says Milton.

ALEISA DORNBEIERER-SCHAT

ALUMNI

SEX TRAFFICKING: DORDT ALUMNI CONFRONT THE EPIDEMIC

DALE VANDE GRIEND Dale Vande Griend (’10) travels the globe with a camera, filming in places like India, Kenya, and the Philippines. DORDT COLLEGE ARCHIVES

Upon his return to the states, he goes through hours of footage, carefully piecing together a story about a place— and its people—that might otherwise seem impossibly distant to his North American audience. Recently, he created a video featuring a volunteer at Tesoros de Dios, a school for students with disabilities in Nicaragua. On another assignment, he documented the story of a temple prostitute in India. “I think of myself as a bridge between people back home and distant places and stories,” he says. “I bring these stories to people who need to hear them, and who may never be able to travel overseas.” Vande Griend works for Christian Reformed World Missions (CRWM) in Grand Rapids, but he cut his teeth on international filmmaking at Dordt. As a student in Professor Mark Volkers’s digital media courses, Vande Griend traveled to the Philippines and Kenya. There he shot footage for Volkers’s feature-length documentary, The Fourth World, about slums in the developing world. Vande Griend has been travelling internationally, producing short videos, ever since. Recently, he’s been exploring the power of visual storytelling. Evenings find him hard at work on his graphic novel, Doll, which tells the story of Roopa, a girl living in India and sold into sex slavery by her father “for two chickens and 1,000 rupees.” He hopes the story will raise awareness about human trafficking and the global sex trade. As he traveled the world, shooting videos, victims of sex trafficking “kept popping up. Everywhere I went, I was meeting people who’d been involved in, or affected by, trafficking,” he says.

Vande Griende films a scene in a Mathare Valley slum in Nairobi, Kenya, where he worked on the production crew for Dordt Digital Media Professor Mark Volkers's documentary about slums in the developing world, The Fourth World.

While filming in India, Vande Griend joined a local pastor scouting locations for a new literacy course. They wound up in a North Bihar red light district, where streets were lined with brothels and sex shops. He ended up in a living room with a group of Indian women, listening to their stories of sexual exploitation and abuse.

The global commercial sex trade exploits vulnerable, often-impoverished people by luring or forcing them into sex work. It is, put simply, “sexual violence as a business,” to borrow a phrase from the International Justice Mission. And

“I’ve learned this in my video work— that telling something without saying it, or implying something without showing it can actually be more powerful.”

“Being — Dale Vande Griende ('10) there, hearing it from them, made me want to do something about it,” he says. But like any complex problem of global proportions, he wasn’t sure where to start. He started reading books and researching organizations who seek justice for victims of trafficking.

business is booming: human trafficking generates about $150 billion a year, and two-thirds of those profits are due to the sex trade. An estimated two million children worldwide are currently victims of sex trafficking. Sex slavery takes different forms in

ALUMNI NOTES

different parts of the world, says Vande Griend. But it’s everywhere, from the slums of India to the suburbs of Michigan, the state Vande Griend and his wife, Emily (’10), call home. While Vande Griend was researching the issue, he picked up a couple of graphic novels. The popular genre marries the tone and visual appeal of the comic book with the length and thematic complexity of a novel. The two he read tackled dark and weighty subjects—one about the Holocaust—and he thought the hybrid form might lend itself to telling a story about the global sex trade. That’s when he began sketching plans for his story about Roopa. “The novel is based on actual stories I’ve heard or read about,” he says. He’s been working on it for two-and-a-half years, posting glimpses into its pages on social media. It’s painstaking work, and much of the novel still exists in thumbnails. A single page takes days to complete. Sitting in front of an 11”-by-17” piece of paper, he begins sketching in pencil, then moves to brush pen. “I’ll ink a page in an evening, then I’ll scan those in and color it on the computer, which takes another couple of nights,” he says. Friends and followers read and respond to his serial installments online. The novel’s pages feature vibrant colors and lush landscapes, but Vande Griend is unflinching in his portrayal of the harsh truths of the sex industry. It’s the same commitment to truth-telling that drives his video work.

“I’ve read novels about girls getting trafficked, and those books always ended the same way: someone would come in and save them. They’d be rescued in some way,” he says. But the girls and women he’s met in his travels who have been able to escape lives of forced prostitution haven’t enjoyed simple happy endings. Instead, victims of sex trafficking, and often their children, live with the stigma of sex work and the pain of deep psychological trauma for the rest of their lives. Vande Griend wants the story to leave the reader unsettled. There’s no getting around some of the fundamental realities of the sex trade: young girls kept in dark rooms, visited by oftenmuch-older men, and raped, often repeatedly. Still, he’s found ways to treat the graphic, often violent subject matter with sensitivity. “You can portray something without showing it. In an illustration, things can take place behind closed doors. I’ve learned this in my video work—that telling something without saying it, or implying something without showing it can actually be more powerful,” he says. Ultimately, Vande Griend hopes to publish the completed novel, but for now, the images he posts online are raising awareness about the issue. “Hopefully this story, and these images, can get people to realize that, yes, this is a real thing, it’s happening all over the world, and maybe there’s something I could be doing about it,” he says.

ALUMNI

Drawn to the vibrancy of its cultural traditions, Vande Griend chose India as the setting for his graphic novel-in-progress, Doll. The novel begins in a tea field, and the illustrations incorporate elements from Indian culture. The cover, for instance, features a nod to henna, the intricate but subtle patterns in red ink that Indian women traditionally paint onto their hands and arms.

Ally Karsyn (’11) was one of six journalists selected out of 113 applicants worldwide to receive the 2017 Images & Voices of Hope (ivoh) Restorative Narrative Fellowship, which features work on stories that show how people and communities are making meaningful progres6s from a place of despair to a place of resilience. She received the ivoh fellowship as the founder, producer, and host of Ode, a live storytelling series where community members tell true stories on stage to encourage empathy. Ode is produced by Siouxland Public Media, the NPR member station in Sioux City, Iowa, where she is the arts producer and afternoon host. Karsyn will speak about her work at ivoh’s annual media summit in the Catskill Mountains of New York in June. Karsyn is a former features reporter and columnist for the Sioux City Journal. She received the 2016 Genevieve Mauck Stoufer Outstanding Young Iowa Journalists Award and the 2016 Jay P. Wagner Prize for Young Journalists from the Iowa Newspaper Association. Caleb Vugteveen graduated from Dordt with a digital media production major in 2014. “The majority of my studies focused on video production, graphic design, art, and the core classes,” says Vugteveen. “When I was a student, I remember doubting whether or not I would need all these classes.” Now, Vugteveen sees these additional core courses in a whole new light. Working as media coordinator for One Life Chance Ministries, he uses all types of video, photo, web, graphic design, and other digital communications daily within his job. Speaking of his daily work, he says, “It is, almost to a tee, a perfect combination of my classes at Dordt.” “I see how in control of my life God really was and is,” says Vugteveen. “He brought me to Dordt and trained me in exactly the way that I was going to need for this position. While I was doubting my classes, he was planting seeds.”

ALEISA DORNBIERER-SCHAT

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DORDT COLLEGE

“MAKING A GIFT TO DORDT COLLEGE REFLECTS MORE THAN A BELIEF IN A SCHOOL OR AN INSTITUTION. IT’S A BELIEF IN CHRISTIAN EDUCATION–IN LIVING YOUR LIFE IN A WAY THAT REFLECTS CHRIST.” Albert Visscher’s (’89) decision to attend Dordt College, leaving the family dairy and following in his sister’s footsteps, led to an experience more challenging, and more fun, than he ever thought possible. “The connections I made, and the community I was a part of, shaped not only my four years on campus, but the rest of my life,” he says. Visscher wanted the same for his two children, both Dordt College graduates. “It’s easy to allow the ﬁnancial commitment of a Christian education to overshadow the importance of its lifelong impact–but you make it work.” The Visscher’s support of the Annual Fund and the Southern Ontario Scholarship helps current students with tuition costs and encourages others to consider a Christ-centered Dordt College education.