Some of The people I remember working with at Pine Rest Hospital include: Johnny King (he played basketball at Calvin as well), Belinda Clark, Frank Sisung ( the drummer who was married to the Boorsma Girl; what a character), Bonnie somebody, Denny somebody, Brent Gates, Matt Wynn (RIP), Kim Kooiker (& Kim's male cousin, former military guy, can't remember his name. He was apparently assigned to approve or not approve if I was good enough for Kim*), Nurse Bass ( i played football with her 2 younger brothers) , Morrie Dielman (attended 1st CRC), Teri Bierling, Jeff Genzink, Randy Herrema the psychologist . Among others.
*I met Kim at a required CPR class at the hospital. She also attended Calvin and was still attending Calvin at the time I think. I was already graduated ( The first time.) And we started dating, very slowly. And then her cousin showed up one day and wanted to talk with me and meet me at Denny's for breakfast. It was just sort of a social conversation but he apparently was assigned to make sure I was an okay person for Kim. And apparently he approved of me because we kept dating for a while.
However as much as I respected and liked Kim very much, I decided I was I wanted to be a missionary, or not wanted to be, but was called to be a missionary.
It was the hardest thing in my life to leave Kim, & not only Kim actually -there were other girls in my sphere of influence and potential marriage coming out of Calvin and Grand Rapids. Including Rachel. And others.
But I finally decided if I'm going to be a missionary. Or If I am going to follow God's call, I should say, I needed to leave Michigan, and none of the girls that I dated I don't believe they were willing to be missionary wives. Even if they were serious about being Christians, or churchgoers.
Most of them were Michigan girls, meaning they were born there and grew up there and pretty much as far as I could tell part of their identity was being a Michigander, and so the possibility of them leaving Michigan to be a missionary wife not only somewhere else in the country but in the world was close to zero.
