When he was 13, Ernest Phillip Benally (’58) almost died. No one, even the nurses, expected him to live. A rattlesnake bite was almost always fatal. Traditional Navajos once had strong feelings about rattlesnakes, worshipped them after a fashion, even though (and maybe because) they so deeply feared their bites. Folk wisdom claimed that once the venom entered the blood …
Getting Your Hands Dirty
It’s not a burden to be heartfully blessed by the beauty of a waterfall or a gaggle of snow geese over your head just after dusk. The truth? Every dawn is a revelation. Mountains stop your breathing. A fresh lake’s gaudy reflections somehow mirror the soul’s peace. Think about it: where would we be without rivers? For 35 years, outdoorsy …
Jane Wolterstorff’s Lifetime of Learning
Jane Wolterstorff (’82) has worked and learned in the social work profession since she graduated from Dordt. That summer, just as she had previous years, she headed to Michigan to work at a youth camp. She’s been working in her major field ever since she marched down the center aisle of the B.J. Haan Auditorium in 1982. Jane doesn’t remember …
Hockey Sticks and a Few Jelly Beans
If you follow hockey at Dordt and wonder how it began, you might start with the consistory of an Edmonton, Alberta, church. The preacher, Reverend John Piersma, was a big-time hockey fan who found a way to speed skate through consistory meetings so he and those elders similarly inclined could sprint over to the arena and catch the third period …
Looking the World Back to Grace: The Art of Sara de Waal
A year before she finished her Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Sara de Waal (’14) looked at a task that seemed both gigantic and impossible: to finish her degree, she needed to write a book. Eventually, she did just that, and successfully. One story from that book, “Cecilia and Richard,” recently won a …
The Reluctant Politician
The mayor’s office, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is not at all palatial. It’s in the southwest corner of an ordinary yellow-brick building, downtown. True, you don’t just walk in; there’s an official-looking character at the door to admit you after you state your purpose; but once inside, if you were expecting “swanky” or “splurgy,” don’t. However, the place has the …
Farmer Joe the Illustrator
If he didn’t know the unique hazards of that particular day on the farm calendar, he should have. It was the day of sorting cattle, and any farm kid should know that the worst days of the year to screw up are those days. But screw up he did. Big time. He drove the pickup smack into the side of …
Bringing “What’s Out There” Home
Whenever Dr. Lee De Haan (’95) and The Land Institute (TLI) score major publicity for Kernza, the perennial grain they’ve been developing, De Haan’s phone rings. People want to know what he’s up to because they find Kernza as biologically fascinating as it is environmentally blessed. When he graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2001, De Haan came on …
A Downtown Ministry in Sioux Falls
Once upon a time, the place was a school for hairstylists, strangely enough. Dozens—well, hundreds—of students, most of them young women, came in to learn to cut and trim and set, then graduated and went back out to make the world a prettier place. When Stewart School of Hairstyling moved away from its downtown Sioux Falls, South Dakota, location, they …
The Vision of Mary Medema Wilmeth
It was 1965, a time in her life, she says, for a major decision. For a girl born and reared in Grand Rapids, even thinking about coming to Dordt College—and where was that again? in Iowa?—was more than passing strange. But there were reasons that maybe, rather than Calvin College (she grew up in Calvin’s backyard), she’d hike out to …