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The Trinity community mourns the loss of Rev. Dr. Arthur DeKruyter, one of the founders of Trinity Christian College as well as the founding pastor and senior pastor emeritus of Christ Church of Oak Brook. Dr. DeKruyter passed away Friday, January 14, 2011.

DeKruyter was one of the 10 men who served on the Christian Junior College Committee formed in 1953 to study the feasibility of establishing a Christian junior college in the Chicagoland area. Those early meetings paved the way for the formation of Trinity, first as a two-year institution and eventually a four-year, baccalaureate-degree granting college.

DeKruyter served as the committee’s chairman and later as chairman of the Board of Trustees. On many occasions he addressed meetings of classes and other organizations to gain support for the college movement.

“That was our assignment,” DeKruyter reminisced during a 2009 interview for Trinity’s 50^th anniversary. “I felt very responsible for getting the Chicagoland people involved in something like this.”

In 2009, DeKruyter began the 50^th Jubilee anniversary celebration with a campus chapel message for students, faculty, and staff on October 2. He then offered the invocation at the Jubilee formal dinner and program at Navy Pier.

In another recent demonstration of his ongoing devotion to the College, DeKruyter donated his personal pastoral library, which will be housed in the Dutch Heritage Center of the Jennie Huizenga Memorial Library and will provide access to works of relevance for pastors as well as Trinity faculty and students.

DeKruyter is survived by his daughter Lucette and son-in-law Thomas Bamford; his grandsons Tab (Kristin) and Arthur; and his great-grandchildren Thomas and Robert. He was preceded in death by his wife Gladys.

Arrangements as published on the website of Christ Church of Oak Brook are as follows:

Visitation with the family will be held at Christ Church of Oak Brook on Tuesday, January 18, from 3 to 5 p.m. and from 7 to 9 p.m.

A private burial will be conducted on Wednesday morning, attended by family and invited guests only.

A memorial service will be held in the sanctuary on Wednesday, January 19, at 7 p.m. This service will also be broadcast live on the church’s website at www.cc-ob.tv. A reception will follow the memorial service in the fellowship hall. All are invited.

For more information, visit:  http://www.cc-ob.org/dekruyter/

The Watoto Children’s Choir will once again be performing at Trinity. The free concert will be held Tuesday, March 1, at 7:30 p.m. in the Ozinga Chapel.

The choir is made up of 22 Ugandan orphans who are among the 2 million children who have lost parents to war and disease.

At its first appearance at Trinity in 2007, the choir attracted nearly 700 visitors to the Ozinga Chapel. Audience members enjoyed the musical and dance gifts of these children and also heard testimonies of how God had rescued them from hopelessness.

A free will offering will be taken to benefit the Watoto organization. For information, contact Troy Schemper at 708.293.4963 or troy.schemper@trnty.edu.

What is “Watoto”?

• In Swahili it means “children.”
• It is also an organization that has been rescuing Ugandan children orphaned by AIDS and civil war and meeting their physical, emotional, educational, and spiritual needs.
• It is an event that helps these children while simultaneously sharing God’s message of restoration and renewal with students, faculty, staff, and the community.

For more information about Watoto, visit: http://www.watoto.com/home.

Click here to see a video of the Watoto choir performing in Los Angeles with Chris Tomlin.

Click here to listen to the choir sing “Cast Your Burdens Unto Jesus”

Trinity Christian College has been reaccredited for 10 years by the North Central Association’s Higher Learning Commission.

The HLC accreditation team, composed of reviewers from various institutions of higher learning, visited the campus September 27-29 as part of the College’s periodic evaluation.

“It is affirming to have our professional accrediting body provide confirmation of our institutional strength and faithfulness to our mission,” said Dr. Steve Timmermans, president of Trinity.

Efforts in the report preparation and during the accreditation team’s visit were led by Dr. Sharon Robbert, dean for academic planning and effectiveness.

Below are some excerpts from the HLC report:

• In nearly every meeting with students, faculty, and administrators the spiritual focus of the college was evident. A strong sense of spirituality permeates the learning environment, both among the traditional students and the adult program students.

• It is evident the college takes seriously its mission to be a Christian community of learners who are dedicated to be servant leaders in the finest of Christian traditions. Students repeatedly expressed support for faculty who were not even their own advisors or in their own major, for going out of their way to provide support and help in finding jobs, obtaining internships, and helping with assignments.

• The past ten years has not only evidenced the substantial growth of the institution’s land and physical assets, it also witnessed a strong increase in enrollment, a diversification of that enrollment, strong alumni support, and very successful fund raising. This also helps the institution secure its future, with the necessary resources to support the learning environment.

• Trinity is an engaged partner with their local community and greater Chicago area. Last year, more than a thousand hours of volunteer time was donated to local churches, charities and non-profits. Trinity College engages its local community by opening its campus facilities to them. In discussions with local community leaders, Trinity was praised for its efforts in community development and campus outreach.

To obtain a copy of the full report, please contact Deborah Vincent in the president’s office at deborah.vincent@trnty.edu.

Trinity has announced the appointment of alumnus James Belstra ’91 to the position of vice president for business and finance.

Belstra, a certified public accountant with nearly 20 years of experience in the finance industry, will serve as the chief financial officer of the College. As a member of the president’s administrative council, he represents the division of the College which includes financial and business operations, human resources, and auxiliary operations.

When Belstra was a Trinity student, the College was breaking ground on the library where his office is now located. He majored in accounting and served as treasurer for the Student Association. Since his graduation, Belstra, who grew up in DeMotte, Indiana, has lived and worked in the area and kept close ties with his alma mater.

“It is nice to be back ‘home,’” said Belstra of his official return to campus. “‘Home is just a lot bigger now.”

He also said he is looking forward to working with colleagues with whom he has some long-standing professional relationships and building on what has been established in the financial operations division of the College.

Belstra resides in Tinley Park, Illinois, with his wife Renee and their three children Melanie, Katelyn, and Matthew, all of whom attend Southwest Chicago Christian School.

“We are just two people of about nine million in this city, and we’ve been called to do a specific job working with certain students, teaching, discipling, and preparing them to do the work that they are called to do in God’s kingdom,” said Rebecca (VanderWilt) McKeever ’10.

Rebecca and her husband Ryan are currently teaching at El Camino Academy in Bogotá, Colombia, where Rebecca did her student teaching while enrolled as a Spanish education major at Trinity. She also minored in English-as-a-Second Language (ESL), and since approximately 85 percent of the students are learning English as a second—or even third or fourth—language, the experience proved to provide excellent experiential learning for the future teacher.

This initial student teaching experience also planted the seed for Rebecca to return to Bogotá with husband Ryan a month after they were married in June 2010.

“We knew we needed to go where we could serve but at the same time receive a lot of support, as this is our first year of marriage, and we are both first-year teachers,” said Rebecca. “Because I had student taught at El Camino, I knew that this would be a school where we could grow together and gain experience in a supportive Christian environment.”

Ryan teaches Bible class for grades 5-8, and he serves as the middle school chaplain. Rebecca teaches language arts and social studies for 6th grade, and she provides ESL support in the middle school.

El Camino Academy

El Camino Academy started as a school solely for missionary children, but has grown so that now mostly Colombian students attend. None of Rebecca’s students speak English as their first language.

“I’m always teaching them new vocabulary and answering questions like, ‘How do you say…?’ I’m so glad that I learned Spanish, not only because I can translate for students when necessary, but also because I know what it’s like to learn a second language, and I can identify with their struggles.”

One of the school’s main focuses is ministry. The goal is for students to take what they’ve learned at the school and use it to serve God and to serve people wherever they go.

“We’ve gone with our classes to after-school programs, orphanages, and other ministries,” said Rebecca. “It’s great to see God working through our students.”

Being Prepared

Many opportunities at Trinity prepared Rebecca well for her work abroad.

“My experience at Trinity was very rich and full,” she said.

Rebecca spent a semester in Spain and a semester student teaching off campus. Her involvement in Trinity’s Semester in Spain program reinforced her language skills so that she arrived in Bogotá able to communicate in Spanish. In addition to the two months student teaching at El Camino, Rebecca’s second student teaching experience was in a dual-immersion 3rd grade classroom in Blue Island, Illinois, where she taught in both Spanish and English.

During her capstone project for the College’s Honors Program, Rebecca conducted a study on the experience of students with English as a second language on Trinity’s campus. She discovered how language and cultural differences affect the learning and social lives of multilingual students.

Continuing the work

“We love our friends in Bogotá, most of who are teachers at the school. We like the fresh fruits and vegetables. We like looking out our apartment windows and seeing the mountains. We like walking and taking public transportation everywhere and being amongst Bogotanos. We love our students and their families– they’ve really helped us feel at home,” said Rebecca.

The McKeevers plan to work in Bogotá for the next two years. They work as volunteers in order to subsidize the cost of education for the missionary and ministry families who attend El Camino. Although the school provides a stipend, which covers rent, the couple depends on funds from supporters in the United States.

“We have to trust God to take what he’s begun in our students and what he’s begun in us and carry it on to completion.”

For more information, visit the McKeevers’ blog at http://rrmckvr.weebly.com.

The Trinity Christian College community is deeply saddened by the loss of 22-year old student Giselle Charissah McComb of Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. Giselle passed away on Tuesday, December 28, 2010, from injuries sustained in a car accident in Wadsworth, Illinois.

She was the daughter of Michael and Janice (Newsted) McComb, of Pleasant Prairie.  Giselle grew up in Kenosha, Wisconsin, attending Christian Life High School and was currently a senior at Trinity. She is survived by her parents; her two brothers, Jonathan McComb and Kendrick McComb, both of Pleasant Prairie; and her sister, Kaci McComb of Pleasant Prairie. She is further survived by one grandmother, one grandfather, and other relatives and friends.

Giselle was pursuing a double major in psychology and criminal justice at Trinity. She served as the president of the College’s Criminal Justice Club. She was currently working hand-in-hand with the Cook County Sheriff’s office to develop a program in which young offenders were given information about turning their lives around through education, with an emphasis on helping these young offenders earn a high school diploma and continue in their education at the college level.  Giselle had just been accepted into graduate school to study forensic psychology.

Visitation and the funeral service were held on Sunday, January 2, 2011, at the Proko Funeral Home in Kenosha, Wisconsin. In lieu of flowers, memorials to the family would be greatly appreciated. Visit Giselle’s Online Memorial Book at www.prokofuneralhome.com.

The Trinity community will remember Giselle during chapel at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, January 26.

Please uphold the family in your prayers.

Sandy Aggen ’10 graduated from the Adult Studies program at Trinity, receiving her diploma during the Commencement ceremony on December 18, 2010. Aggen is also an employee of the Adult Studies department at the College but never planned to pursue her education when she first came to Trinity in August 2005.

With an associate’s degree from Fox College, she had no expectation of furthering her education. Aggen was inspired and began to rethink her educational future as she observed Lori Scrementi ’00, director of the Adult Studies program, balance her career, her family, and her pursuit of her doctoral degree.

“When I saw that Lori could do it, I thought maybe I could as well,” said Aggen. “Once I mentioned it to her, she was very encouraging. I also had lots of support at home,” said Aggen.  So in September 2008, Aggen entered the Adult Studies business program.

While going through the program, Aggen, who serves as the student relations coordinator in the department, was able to share her first-hand knowledge of the program with prospective students.

“I can really empathize with their obligations of family and work, because I have the same demands on my time. But when they hear that I am able to work through the program, it encourages them,” she said.

With aspirations of teaching college, Aggen took a week off when the program ended in August 2010 and then began a master’s degree program at Gonzaga University. “I feel very prepared for the program. The high expectations at Trinity in reading and writing have served me well in the next level of my education.”

Aggen walked in the graduation ceremony in December 2010 with the rest of her Adult Studies cohort. Her family and co-workers were present to help her celebrate this milestone.

Adjunct Professor Tricia Paarlberg has learned from her experiences—from living in Asia for several years to traveling to India on a group Fulbright as a student at Columbia College. She knows the importance of learning through experience and gives her Trinity students the same opportunity.

Paarlberg may engage geography students by taking them to Chicago to enjoy Indian cuisine or by involving them in a service project at the Chicago Food Depository. Recently her education students benefited from an entirely different project. Twenty-five Trinity education students were partnered with 25 students in grades 6-8 from Southwest Christian School in Oak Lawn, Illinois, for an experiential learning opportunity.

With the goal of developing Individualized Self Instruction Modules, or SIMS, the Trinity students met on different occasions with their junior high counterparts before creating lesson plans designed to meet the specific interests and learning needs of their assigned students.

“This was a practice experience for the education students that they were able to see played out,” said Paarlberg.

The lesson plans, which included topics such as Egyptology and physical education, were recorded on CDs and administered by Southwest. Trinity’s future teachers then visited with their students to follow up and gather feedback on each child’s individual experience.

Junior Vanessa Noonan of Oak Lawn, Illinois, worked with a sixth grader interested in history, so Noonan decided to base her SIM on Native American history. In it she included activities about fossils and the first Thanksgiving, and explained the differences between Disney’s Pocahontas and the actual historical figure.

“When I met with my student and saw how well she did on the SIM, I was floored,” said Noonan. “She put so much work into the project. What I learned most about students through this assignment is that as teachers, we cannot underestimate the great potential that each student has.”

Senior Kathy Hossink of Byron Center, Michigan, said, “This project was beneficial for me because it equipped me with another tool to use as a teacher, and then gave me practice implementing it. I can see myself using a SIM for some of my general education students and especially for my special education students.”

Paarlberg received her master’s degree in multicultural education from Columbia College in Chicago and her bachelor’s degree in history and business from Hope College in Holland, Michigan. Paarlberg completed her student teaching through Trinity at Timothy Christian School.

Clifton Hurt ’09 followed the voice deeply rooted in his heart as he left home to help others overseas. Now a Peace Corps volunteer, Hurt is using his time to serve others in Mongolia.

“One day it hit me,” he said. “I am a young Christian with time and strength to serve. Why not serve people abroad?” His objective was to be a Christian not by saying it, but by living it. Following months of prayer and conversations with friends from the Trinity community and his family, he signed up.

Hurt arrived in Mongolia in early June 2010 for training and in August was officially sworn in as a volunteer serving the next two years. He currently resides in Muren, Mongolia, where he is a primary teacher at Ereedwee, also known as Future 21 School. Because of his educational background, Hurt is able to teach in a classroom setting as well as train fellow teachers. He is one of nine foreign language teachers serving in the area and works with grades 4-11.

Hurt’s work extends far beyond his teaching as he engages with the community around him. Along with his fellow volunteers, he hosts the “English Corner” for local adults and interested students and offers private music lessons to a few of the local community members.

As Hurt reaches out to his surrounding community, he feels God’s call to Mongolia is confirmed. This incredible journey has led Hurt to a family that has been serving in Mongolia for 16 years. He has been blessed with the opportunity to offer guidance and understanding in worship leadership with two of the eldest children.

“God knows what he is doing all the time,” Hurt said.

While at Trinity, Hurt earned his bachelor’s degree in music education, K-12 choral emphasis, and was involved in numerous extracurricular activities, including the Campus Ministry Leadership Team, Outcry, Gospel Choir, Organization of African American Unity, and Brother 2 Brother.

Despite several opportunities presented to Hurt after graduation, God’s call held firm in his heart. “His plans always supersede our expectations and dreams,” said Hurt.

The December Commencement ceremony celebrated the graduation of 37 baccalaureate students and 81 Adult Studies students on Saturday,
December 18, 2010.

Families and friends of the graduates gathered in the Ozinga Chapel Auditorium to witness the presentation of the diplomas by Provost Liz Rudenga and to hear the commencement address of Dr. Sharon Robbert, dean for academic planning and effectiveness and professor of mathematics.

In her address “You Must Remember This,” Robbert pointed out that although most people don’t always recall the messages delivered by commencement speakers, Trinity students would always remember their particular Trinity experience.

“Trinity Christian College is a community of Christian scholarship committed to shaping lives and transforming culture.”

Unpacking Trinity’s statement of identity and purpose, Robbert spoke about how each aspect—community, Christian scholarship, and the commitment to shape lives and transform culture—pertained to the student experience.

As she spoke about the shaping of students’ lives during their educational journey, Robbert said, “God’s hand has been actively shaping each of you through experiences at Trinity so that you might be prepared for kingdom work next week, next year, and in the next decades to come.”

The invocation was delivered by Dr. John Hoekstra, director of Adult Studies Education; the song of response and the song of prayer were sung by the Trinity Gospel Choir; and the commencement litany was led by Adult Studies graduate, Sandra Aggen, administrative assistant in the Adult Studies department.

You Must Remember This—

2010 December Commencement Address, Dr. Sharon Robbert

President Timmermans, Provost Rudenga, faculty, staff, graduates, family and friends:

It is an honor to be able to speak to you today, but an honor that I take with a grain of salt.  This is because the premise of my words to you today is that no one ever remembers the content of a commencement address.  I’ve personally attended at least 30 graduation ceremonies, and I have at best only vague memories of these commencement speeches.  An informal poll of a few colleagues who have attended more of these ceremonies than I shows that I am not alone.  At best, attendees of graduation ceremonies remember the person who spoke when something out of the ordinary happens—usually these are bad things, like when the speaker trips on the way to the podium or mispronounces the name of the president.  So why is it that no one remembers what the address is about?  There are several reasons that might be contributing factors, all of which make this address a particularly challenging experience for me.  Here are some that might be distracting you from paying attention right now:

• You might be worried about standing, sitting, walking, wearing your mortarboard, or accepting your diploma case at the right time.
• You might be more interested in the concept of a graduation ceremony than the particulars of this one.
• You have never seen me before and don’t anticipate seeing me again, so why listen, much less remember something that is said now 10 minutes after the ceremony is complete?
• You might need a break from brain exercise because you just finished exams or grading the last set of papers from your student teaching internship.
• But maybe the problem is that you have a poor view.  Did you know that the typical location for Trinity faculty members is in the front few rows of the auditorium?  I usually sit pretty close to the photographer—front and center of the first row.  In this location, I get a splendid view of the feet and footwear of the platform party and graduates.  At last May’s ceremony, strappy sandals replaced flip-flops for graduate attire, in case you were curious.

Even though there are reasons why you might not remember, you probably have direct experience with tools to aid memory.  Remembering facts and issues is particularly important during college years.  You may have used a mnemonics device.  To spell geography, I learned “George Eliot’s Oldest Grandfather Rode a Pig Home Yesterday” back in elementary school.  Maybe you used creative visualization, where you mentally placed important facts in a location in the testing room for recall during testing.  Some people rely on muscle memory for learning terminology or shooting a basketball or striking a soccer ball or playing a complicated run on the piano, but this requires long hours of practice. Other memory tricks include using color for note-taking or singing concepts as the lyrics to a familiar tune.  “Is-am-are-was-were-be-been are the linking verbs.”  I learned that song from my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Fairbanks, but I’m still not certain why it was important to know which verbs were linking verbs.

The need for memory tools is not new to the 21^st century—memory tools are even identified in the Old Testament!  Back in the days of the infant Israelite nation, God knew that his people would have trouble with their memory in spite of the dramatic events in their history.  God told his people to tie the Shema “Hear O Israel:  The Lord our God, the Lord is one” to their hands and foreheads and write this same phrase on their doorposts to help them remember.

So, if you aren’t going to remember this address, what must you remember? Not the specifics of this address and certainly not the speaker.  I believe that you must remember what is important about your particular Trinity experience.  Here are some things to consider, centered around Trinity’s one-line statement of identity and purpose.  “Trinity Christian College is a community of Christian scholarship committed to shaping lives and transforming culture.”

First, Trinity is a community.  Who made up the community for your Trinity experience?  I imagine that you would include fellow students in your class or cohort, friends in major classes, teammates, roommates, professors, and academic advisors.  You may even include the chaplain, RAs, RDs, and other staff members who have made a difference for you—those who serve coffee or prepare meals or clean the buildings or fix computers or take tuition payments—these people all have contributed to your Trinity experience.  So this is something I would put on the list of items that you must remember.   What memory tools can help you remember these people and the Trinity community as a whole?  Unfortunately there is no Trinity school song to bind us together, a song like “As Time Goes By” that we can ask Sam from the film Casablanca to play for us.  But Trinity does have one distinctive item that can represent our community well:  our school mascot, the Troll.  I’ve brought one today as a visual aid to your memory.  So try to think of your particular community as a collection of Trolls—friendly blue trolls like this one.

Next, Trinity is a community of Christian scholarship.  Two words here need unpacking:  Christian and scholarship.  At Trinity, these two words are linked together through the particular slant on higher education that is present on this campus.  On this campus we are committed to infusing a Christian view into what we learn and the way in which we learn.

One familiar component of the Christian view at Trinity is the creation-fall-redemption-new creation motif.  The very building in which this ceremony is occurring is designed to help remember these components.  Of the four stained glass windows planned for this building, three are installed:  the Creation window is in the recital hall on the north end of the building, the Redemption window is in the Grand Lobby on the south side, and the recently installed Restoration window is located above the doors on the east side of the building.  The window to represent the Fall has yet to be installed.  The designs of these windows provide a reminder of who is in charge and to help us identify our place and purpose in God’s creation.  Did you know that this building is designed in the shape of a cross?  In the physical construction of this building, the cross of our redeemer Jesus Christ links these four themes of Christian worldview.   After the graduation ceremony is complete, I encourage you to take the time to look at each of these beautiful stained glass windows.

Now for the second part.  In each discipline at Trinity, the subject that you have studied has intentional connection to these themes and to other themes important to a Christian worldview.  For example, all persons have value because they are created in the image of God, so future teachers are taught that they have a responsibility to teach all students whether they learn concepts easily or need an IEP (an individual educational plan) to facilitate their learning.  Or, if you prefer, we know that we are co-creators with Christ as we make and redeem culture, and with this comes the responsibility of the creation mandate to care for the world. So we study the impact the construction of athletic fields has on the population of snakes in the adjoining woods.  We also know that God created the world with inherent order and structure, so in mathematics we study the patterns that we see in creation and marvel that following a logical structure in our models accurately predicts patterns in weather and cell development.  I could add more, but you get the idea.  So what if we put glasses on our Troll and make him look a bit more academic and better represent the Christian scholarship portion of Trinity’s purpose statement?

Third, Trinity is a community of Christian scholarship committed to shaping lives. Experiences at Trinity have molded you into the person God needs you to be for your vocation.  What experiences do you remember having the most impact?  Did you have a time where you worked on a project for a course and you were particularly proud of the results?  What about experiences in a culminating internship like student teaching—was there a particular lesson that you enjoyed teaching and your students enjoyed learning?  For some of you, living on your own for the first time has played a huge role in who you are today and who you will be in the future.  But even if you didn’t live in campus housing, you have very likely been changed through your experiences with others—both in academic and in co-curricular settings at Trinity.  Maybe that was through a course field trip to a city art exhibit or maybe it was at a project team meeting with other students at the BBC or maybe it was at a chapel service or maybe it was through a service-learning project for a course or through volunteer hours at an organization that provides services to the needy.  All of these things, both the academic and co-curricular, have prepared you in ways that you might not yet even identify.  As God told the Israelites in Jeremiah 29:11 while they were being punished through their captivity and exile in Babylon:  “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” God’s hand has been actively shaping each of you through experiences at Trinity so that you might be prepared for kingdom work next week, next year, and in the next decades to come.  Let’s give our Troll a carabiner and a tiny book so that we can remember that he has and must continue to shape his muscles—biceps and brain—for vocation work.

Finally, Trinity is a community of Christian scholarship committed to shaping lives and transforming culture.  Transforming culture is a huge task, one that is not complete in four short years or 22 months of academic experiences.  Have you heard the phrase “pay it forward?” The concept of “pay it forward” is parallel but opposite to that of “pay back,” as in slugging your brother when he teases you. To “pay it forward” means that once energy or good will or learning is invested in a person that this person in turn has the responsibility to pass that same thing on to other people.  God blesses those he loves with the understanding that through us, all of creation will be blessed.  As heirs of Abraham, we are “blessed to be a blessing” (Genesis 12:2).  With the help of the Holy Spirit, Trinity has invested knowledge, love, community, and culture in you.  And, by the help of the Holy Spirit, you now have the responsibility to pay this investment forward through your engagement with the world outside of Trinity.  This part is what you have been preparing to do.  Through your career; with your family, friends, and coworkers; and in your community you are called to redeem the world for Christ.  My hope is that your experiences at Trinity have opened your eyes to the ways in which you might be an agent to transform culture—whether it is through political action or church service or developing a new business or graduate school study or creating art or teaching children—all of these things can build to the transformation of culture with and for Christ.  Our poor little Troll already has too much to carry, but maybe he can stand on a Bible to help us remember that the community of Trolls needs the foundation of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—to pay forward the blessings that God has given us.

So, will you remember this commencement address?  Probably not.  But hopefully, you will remember this little Troll and the things with him—the glasses he wears to represent Christian scholarship, the carabiner and book to represent the ways you’ve been shaped, and a Bible to represent the task God has already laid out for you in the future.

May God bless you and your loved ones as you leave Trinity and go into service in the Kingdom of God!