Teen Mentor
Over a game of cards, Bernie Van Roekel ’70 glances at the student across from him and lightly steers the conversation to topics of school and life. The activity varies— from shooting pool to cooking dinner—but each Wednesday evening finds Van Roekel building relationships with kids at a Des Moines-area youth services center.
“These are good kids who just haven’t had anyone who has tried to impact them positively,” he says.
As executive director of Serve Our Youth (SOY), Van Roekel works to change that by matching adults from area churches with high-risk youth.
Mentors go through training and commit to one year with their student. “Often kids are hesitant because they’ve been let down by adults frequently,” he says. “But when the mentor is consistent, barriers start to break down.”
In 2005 Van Roekel retired after 20 years as the high school principal in Waukee. He was looking for a new way to help kids when he heard about SOY. “I was just pulled in,” says Van Roekel, whose wife, Marcia (Arentson ’71), is also a mentor.
While the program currently has 60 mentor pairs, additional volunteers—representing 75 churches—also facilitate programs at youth homes and lead weekly Bible studies.
“Even though some of these facilities are government-run, they realize it takes more than rules and adjudication to change a child’s life,” he says.
by Emily Hennager ’06
A Generous Life
The way Ed Grattan ’83 sees it, if you have two dollars, you have one to give away. An hour of time—that’s a half hour to share.
And two kidneys?
“If you’ve got something, you’ve got something to share,” says Grattan, who on Nov. 13 became the first person in the history of University of Iowa Hospitals to donate a kidney without designating a recipient.
Grattan tends to downplay his generous act. But then, this is a guy who downplays competing in three triathlons (“just small ones”) in the summer months before the transplant.
In fact, the resident of North Liberty, Iowa, is currently training to run, bike and swim in three more races this year to prove that donors can maintain competitive lifestyles. Grattan was up and walking the day of the surgery, praying for a man he doesn’t know (and won’t, unless the recipient chooses to find him).
“I wondered how he was doing with my kidney,” he says. “How’s my kidney working out?” Then it hit him. “It’s not my kidney anymore, it’s his now. It’s not about me. God, this is in your hands.”
by Amy Scheer
Preaching Peace
Janelle Lopez Koolhaas ’98 remembers being sick. Really sick. She also remembers the one feeling that overrode her intestinal trouble: a sense of calling.
A Northwestern Summer of Service in Kyrgyzstan gave Koolhaas the desire to share the gospel wherever God needed her, near or far.
“We as Christians have something to offer that the world is desperate for,” she says.
In 2001, after becoming the first woman ordained by the RCA in Canada, Koolhaas lived as an RCA missionary in Chiapas, Mexico, where she taught members of the highland Tzeltal tribe at indigenous Bible colleges for three years.
Then Koolhaas came home—to Langley, British Columbia, where she became pastor of Emmaus Christian Fellowship, the church her father led for 15 years. Emmaus is where Koolhaas grew up, married and became ordained; it’s the church that supported her as a missionary. The congregation was like family.
“I knew where their hearts were; that was important to me,” she says.
This June, Koolhaas and another Northwestern alum, Marlin Vis ’70, will share preaching duties during the RCA General Synod meeting in Holland, Mich. This year’s theme, “My peace be with you,” is one Koolhaas is happy to share—whether on territory foreign or familiar.
by Amy Scheer