Summer 2007 - Northwestern College

Northwestern Classic
Coverstory
Noord woke up when the
tarp over her mat broke,
soaking her.
She got her shower.
“It was the best night of
the summer,” she says.
Van Noord went on to
work at Pioneers International’s
U.S. headquarters
before heading to the Middle
East, where she has lived for
the past four years. Her
Summer of Service, she says,
confirmed God’s call on her
life.
“Before Nepal, I’d never
been in a place where the
people had not heard the
name of Jesus Christ. Since
then, I have an aching desire
to share hope. I can’t get it
out of my system.”
Summer of
Service
Since 1981, almost 500
Northwestern students have
spent six to 10 weeks serving
as short-term missionaries
through what is now called
Summer of Service, or SOS.
They have served on nearly
every continent in almost
100 countries.
They raise the money to
cover their expenses themselves,
mostly from family,
friends and their home
churches. This year’s team of
21 raised more than
$80,000.
Year after year, SOS students
have worked alongside
The Luke Society’s Dr. John
Boateng in Ghana and at The
Shelter youth hostels in
Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Others have been the only
Northwestern student to
travel to places like
Argentina, Ethiopia,
Dan Johnston ’05 is one of at least 16 pre-med students who served in The Luke Society clinic and hospital in Ghana.
Johnston’s wife, Kali (Carroll ’06), was a member of the 2004 SOS team, serving in Bosnia. SOS alumni include at least 18
other married couples.
Montenegro, Pakistan and
Zambia.
The students’ challenges
have ranged from lost luggage
and language barriers to
diarrhea and malaria.
Cockroaches have invaded
their beds, and bandicoots
have scampered over them as
they slept on the floor. They
have milked yak, delivered
babies and held people dying
of AIDS.
SOS has taken students
from middle-class families
and supportive faith communities
to overfull orphanages,
understaffed hospitals, and
places where spiritual
oppression and darkness is
palpable.
The students return with
unanswered questions about
God’s mercy and compassion.
Yet they still proclaim
joyfully that God is, indeed,
at work in the world.
Heartbreak
and joy
“The biggest challenge
was dealing with my broken
heart,” wrote Laurie Lipp ’00
after her experience in Haiti
in 1999. She knew before
▼
“I wasn’t prepared to have
women on the street offer
me their children because
they thought, as a white
person, I could take better
care of them.”
▲
going that Haiti is the poorest
country in the Western
Hemisphere, but, she says, “I
wasn’t prepared to have
women on the street offer me
their children because they
thought, as a white person, I
could take better care of
them.”
Stacey Wilcox ’06 recalls
her most difficult day at an
orphanage for children with
special needs in Guatemala
in 2005. In a room of cribs,
three-year-old Gloria was
screaming in pain.
“I stroked her hand and
tried to soothe her with ‘mi
amor’ and ‘te amo,’” Wilcox
remembers. “My eyes were
swollen with crying. I clung
to what one of my encouragers
had written to me: ‘You
must go forward on your
knees.’”
Dr. Corey Harthoorn ’93
explored his call to medical
Summer of Service
21 ▲ Summer 2007