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I grew up in a northern suburb of
Toronto where I developed early
interest in electronics and ham radio. The Bible tells us that God
has chosen the “time and place” in which we live (Acts 17:26). I am
grateful that I was born in a time that brought the invention of the
first computer on a chip, the introduction of the first personal
computers, the Internet, and many other exciting technologies that have
since changed the world. I tinkered with many of the early personal
computers, beginning with a Timex Sinclair ZX-81 (which I purchased with
money earned from my paper route) and other early personal computers
like the Vic-20, C-64, Commodore PET, and early IBM PC’s. I am grateful
that my vocation eventually brought me to a place where I was encouraged
to think more deeply about how how
faith informs our work in technology. I am also grateful that my
earlier years of tinkering as a hobbyist could inspire some of my later
work with platforms like the Raspberry
Pi, including being able to share my delight in computing with folks in various
majority world countries.
Meeting Carina
My wife, Carina, grew up in the
Netherlands on a dairy farm ("boerderij") in the province of Utrecht. My
wife and I met while we were still undergraduate students; she was a
student at the new campus of Redeemer
College while I was studying engineering at the University of
Waterloo. We were mutually attracted to each other: a fine arts major
and an engineer. In those days, I traveled frequently between Waterloo
and Redeemer to visit Carina in my trusty, brown, nondescript, 1981
Dodge Omni. These were my first encounters with Redeemer, an insitution
whose history
would intersect my own in many ways. My wife, Carina, graduated from
the first education class at Redeemer College and went on to teach in
the small town of Drayton, Ontario where we lived for a time.
Carina also had a gift and calling as a teacher; in particular, she loved integrating outdoor education into all subject areas. After our children were school-aged, Carina returned part-time to teach in Ontario and later in Michigan, where she was able to pursue her passion for outdoor education. She was a nuturing and much-loved teacher and she touched the lives of many students over the years.
The Move from Industry to Teaching
After graduating, I worked in industry as an
engineer, but I sensed a call to teaching and began to ponder what my
faith had to do with my work. Carina encouraged me to read about how a
Christian world-and-life view might apply to the world of technology and
to pursue further education for teaching. I completed my PhD at McMaster
University in the area of robotics and computer vision. Eventually, I
landed in Christian Higher education, a calling she had encouraged
despite being far less lucrative than an industry position. One of our
wedding vows we exchanged was a promise to encourage each other to
develop the gifts that God had given us, and this she surely did.
I began working fulltime at Redeemer College, where I taught for many years. It was at Redeemer that I came to appreciate the importance of a solid liberal arts core, also for those studying in fields like computer science. Besides teaching, I began speaking and writing about faith and technology and Christian higher education. Carina frequently read and edited my writing, giving thoughtful advice and feedback.
But my calling in Christian higher education
was not without its upheavals. After some years teaching at Redeemer we
found ourselves facing change.
We spent
a year in Sioux Center where I worked as a visiting professor at
Dordt College and then we
moved to Grand Rapids where I began teaching at Calvin College (now
University). The summer of our move to Grand Rapids was an eventful one
- two
of our children were married within weeks before we moved. In 2023,
I completed 20 years of
teaching in higher education.
The Loss of my Wife
Sadly, my beloved wife Carina
passed away in December 2023 after an intense battle with an aggressive
lymphoma. Her memorial service was
based on the words of Psalm 27, a psalm we read at various pionts in her
illness and which was used at her profession of faith. Besides being a
nurturing mother and much-loved teacher, she was my greatest encourager
and friend. Carina became actively involved in each of the communities
in which we lived: helping establish commmunity
gardens, serving as a deacon and in prayer groups, volunteering for
the Calvin
ecopreserve and for the New2You thrift store, teaching, and
being a good friend. In particular, she loved teaching elementary
students with an emphasis on outdoor
education. She will be remembered for her creative eye expressed in
painting, quilting, gardening, and homemaking. Her life was a testimony
to a sincere faith, and she taught me that “knowing about God
is not the same thing as knowing God.”
Almost two years before she died, she gave a testimony of lament and hope in the wake of the death of her youngest brother. Her testimony quotes Question and Answer 1 from the Heidelberg Catechism: “I am not my own, but I belong body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful savior Jesus Christ” ▶️. She concludes by saying: “That doesn’t take away the tough questions and hurt around suffering, but it does put them into the wider perspective of hope and thankfulness.”
Her reflections about her brother’s loss now speak to me about about losing her. I wrote a lament for a wife describing my grief. I want to take her words to heart and grasp the “wider perspective of hope and thankfulness.” I am grateful to God for giving me a “wife of noble character” as described in Proverbs 31:
A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life…
Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: “Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.” Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.
Proverbs 31:28-30
I loved Carina deeply. The Bible tells us that “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage” (Matt. 22:30), but I would still like to hang out with Carina in the new heavens and earth.
Dutch and Reformed Roots
I am also the son and grandson of Dutch
immigrants to Canada. The picture on the right shows my family and I
standing in the “Grote Markt” in front of the Martini Toren in
Groningen, the Netherlands. This was the home-town of my paternal
grandparents and where my father was born before they immgrated to
Canada. My grandfather (“Opa”) later became the first employee at the Voortman bakery and worked there until
he retired. My maternal grandparents originally came from the island of
Rozenburg in South Holland and were among the first wave of post-war
Dutch immigrants to arrive in Canada in 1947. They eventually settled in
Hamilton, Ontario, where they started a potatoe business. My
grandparents helped establish some of the first Christian schools in
Hamilton where later our children (their great-grandchildren) would
attend.
The Dutch immigrant heritage in which both I and my wife were raised was shaped by the Reformed tradition, one that believed faith was comprehensive and ought to inform every square inch. This tradition can be traced back to John Calvin and St. Augustine, but found fertile soil in the Netherlands during the era when my grandparents were born, in the time of Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck. The tradition was transplanted to North America and elsewhere in the later half of the twentieth century, and continues to this day.
Much of my teaching, books, and writing is informed by this “Neo-Calvinist” tradition. In particular, I have found helpful resources in Kuyper, Bavinck, Dooyeweerd, as well as more recent Reformed scholars. These resources provide helpful tools for thinking about engaging issues arising in modern technology (as an example, see this article on Kuyper and Technology). My wife was the one who originally encouraged me to follow a calling into teaching and writing about faith and technology, for which I am grateful. My hope is that I can help equip another generation (or two) of students to think deeply, act justly, and live wholeheartedly as agents of renewal in the area of technology.
