Reminiscing on Grace
Mood:  caffeinated
Now Playing: The Uncomfortable Pastor
It is sad to process the closing of one’s alma mater.  I now have a college degree from a school that doesn’t exist!  I have memories from a school that isn’t there.  Is my life fiction or reality?  Maybe it is virtual reality?

I’m thinking of the closing of Grace University (as of May, 2018) in Omaha, NE, which was known as Grace Bible Institute when I attended in the 1960’s.  It will have existed forty-nine years past my graduation--just a bit too early for my 50th reunion.  I suppose that every person attending had positive and negative experiences there.  I choose here to remember the positive, and I wish to name some individuals that have had a lasting impact on me.

I would not have sung much except that Norman Rempel, like the chief-cupbearer in Genesis 41, put in a good word for me.  That made all the difference.  Because of that I sang virtually from east to west coasts in the USA and parts of Canada.  And I’m still singing.

Mr. Ray Lutke was a positive example and counselor to me.  My discouragement was not what God intended for me, he said, and he was right.

I had not planned to go on a summer mission, even though I served on the Grace student mission board where we interviewed those who were.  But I believe it was Bob Brenneman who asked me late in the process whether I would consider going to Holland.  My answer was “yes,” and the summer of sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with primarily young people was superlative.

Mr. Don Tschetter while traveling with our music group on a tour said something I have not forgotten.  We were discussing what we needed to do in the next increment of time, and he injected, “While you are doing (whatever it was), you might also polish your shoes.”  I think of him when my shoes need sprucing.

When I was president of the band, we needed a secretary to enable the meeting to progress (probably the secretary had graduated the year before).  So I asked a pretty flute player to provide the service.  Later when she asked to take my now empty dessert dishes from the living room to the kitchen of a faculty home, I was smitten.  Ruth and I have been officially together since Jun 26 of 1971.

Mr. Robert Wenger was a careful and organized expositor of Scripture.  I think he let the text speak for itself as Nehemiah 8:8.  May I suggest that we need more of his kind.

I have many friends in many places because of the time spent at Grace.  I think we were a quite varied bunch, and yet, when we meet somewhere as we sometimes do, we have much in common, and we just continue from where we were.  I could mention others, but I must stop somewhere.

There are scenes in my memory, but they may exist only in nostalgia.  The buildings don’t exist anymore.  Neither does the institution.  But maybe most importantly the people do, and we shall meet again.