Alumni Class Notes for October 2018

Daniel Leiva (PPE ’09) and his wife Brittany welcomed their daughter Chloe Isabella on August 24, 2018. Andrea Noren (’86) works with the homeless and very low-income individuals in an Emergency Housing and Advocacy Program.

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Andrea Noren (’86) writes, “Despite disability that prevents me from working full time, I have found a ministry in working with homeless and very low-income individuals in the Western Monmouth County Area. The agency I work with (Emergency Housing and Advocacy Program) is very small, and we have the blessing of minimal regulation, since we receive no public funding. We are able to help our community with obtaining medical insurance and care for medical and mental health issues, help to find jobs and housing, and assist with applying for government benefits when appropriate. Our world has become very complex, and the homeless and very low-income do not have the resources to meet the many demands of modern life. We work with people for years, after placement to ensure a stable life is maintained by regular medical and mental health care. Sometimes, just having someone who cares and knowing that they can come talk to us is all a person needs to keep going. Our agency (EHAP) is there to be that someone and provide that help.”

Daniel Leiva (PPE ’09) writes, “On August 24, 2018, my wife Brittany and I welcomed our daughter Chloe Isabella. And in early October I will move on from my current employer to assume the role of senior enablement consultant for Sprinklr, a tech company focused on social media management software.”

Allison O’Donnell (MCA ’16) released a new song as a single on Bandcamp. Earlier this year, she won a songwriting competition hosted by Mason Jar Music.

Charissa Joy Grover (’82) submitted a reflection on her memories of the The King’s College Briarcliff Manor campus. It is reprinted in full below.

A luxuriant tree tunnel and winding narrow road that led up the hill to the Briarcliff Manor campus with its grandly pillared front porch was my favorite part of returning to King’s each semester, especially as a returning sophomore when we were allowed to have our own cars and I could drive up that road for myself. Any excuse would do. It was always gorgeous: a marvelous mass of deep green leaves surrounded the car’s smooth journey upwards.

The large elegant front lobby, with more grand pillars, was the center of the college for me. I walked through it many times a day to reach classes and offices, or go downstairs to the dining hall, or upstairs on a very wide black wooden staircase—to what? I just remember stopping halfway up the stairs one regular ordinary day and suddenly being gloriously flooded with a huge sense of Jesus’ awesome presence around me and inside me. That sensation remained strong for many weeks and the memory of it has stayed vivid these 30 years.

Concert choir members would line up on those wide lobby stairs to lead us in worship for special evening meetings and the sound of our combined voices would fill the air up to the high ceiling and then roll down the hallways.

Another wide staircase of cream and gray marble led a long way down from the lobby to the dining hall, an incredibly vast room with mirrored pillars and high white lights. A fantastic place, as I look back on it now, but in my freshman year at King’s it felt cold and miserable and alien to me as a returning “missionary kid” from Kenya and England who had not lived in America for 10 years.

But one evening a group of us MKs gathered at tables in the dining hall in response to an invitation by the speaker who had been at the chapel service that morning. He turned on the emotional lights for me. I wasn’t crazy or hopeless. I was suffering from Culture Shock, coming from England, which felt like home, back to America, which no longer felt like home. My misery had a name! And a cause! What a relief!

After that I settled down, embracing being American again. The dining hall didn’t feel cold anymore. From my sophomore year onward, I connected with friends and had people to meet with for meals. For one year, my younger brother Andy came as a student and it was such fun to see and talk with him, often in the dining hall over our food trays.

Much of the time, college was about the long flights of steps on campus, both indoors and outdoors. One flight of rustic wood and dirt steps led down from the main guliding to Miller Hall, the dormitory where I met Debbie Weaver in my sophomore year. We were intense fans of a one year Wonder Show (to us) on television called Battlestar Galactica, with Richard Hatch as Apollo and Jane Seymour as Serina.

We never missed it on Sunday nights in the third floor lobby. We shared our deep loss when Serina was killed and later when the show was cancelled in May. I didn’t grow up with the ups and downs of television series, so the loss of Battlestar Galactica was devastating for me and it helped so much to be able to share feelings with Deb.

Deb and I also shared dorm life, meals, and chapels and became fast friends. Later, I was able to go to her marvelous wedding with rainbow colors and arches. Later still, she found my new address on the internet and called me with great excitement and affection. We have long conversations and prayer about twice a year. We still love the old Battlestar Galactica show (and despised the new re-make series) and feel mutual awe that we now have our own copies of all the BG episodes. That luxury wasn’t available in 1979! Deb got married to Courtland Phillips and had four children while I stayed single and had wonderful cats over the years (currently three). Deb and I hope to come together for TKC Homecoming some year.

Another flight of stairs led halfway down the hill to a science building. Dr. David Diehl enthused passionately about biology and the wonders of the world and God’s awesome creative power. As a result, I still love reading about nature and animals and the world’s fascinating habitats and cultures. I wasn’t good at the technicalities of science classes but Dr. Diehl’s jubilant awe for his subject opened mental doors for me onto an amazing arena of life which I hadn’t seen before.
A third very long stairway led the opposite direction down to the big gymnasium and chapel building. Deb and I were basketball fans there, another new American experience for me which hasn’t waned in 30 years. I love college March Madness on television, first the men’s tournament and later on the women’s tournament as well. I’m very proud of how the women’s skill levels have increased so much over the years.

Deb and I also sat together for many of the chapel meetings. I loved the variety of speakers and topics and the defense of our Christian faith. One of my classes was about studying other beliefs and I visited a Mormon church to write about the experience for the class. I was strongly challenged by a married couple at that church and it was books from TKC classes and the library that helped me deal with my scary and difficult “Mormon trial,” as I described it to myself. It was very reassuring to find so many reasons to still lean on the orthodox Bible translations and doctrines I knew from childhood and the increasing knowledge I was acquiring at college. I remember kneeling by my dorm room bed and feeling God’s comfort and reassurance over my open Bible. That experience has been utterly foundational in dealing with other faith challenges that have come during my life back here in Minnesota.

The gym was also the site for graduation ceremonies and a big surprise came for me that day through the influence of my English professor Dr. June Hagen. Her knowledge of English literature was completely impressive: erudite and very deep and she loved talking about every single author we covered. I couldn’t tell if she had any favorites among them.

For one of Dr. Hagen’s assignments in my senior year, I made up a short story and put the required answers into the conversation of the literary people in my paper who were talking around the table in an English pub. It was so much fun for me doing that paper. Later, when Dr. Hagen returned our papers, she astounded me by reading my piece aloud to the class and commending me for a great job of writing. She wrote a grade of A++ on the top of my paper and added a double exclamation point!

It was been a long 30 years with so very many disappointments along the way, far more than I ever expected on graduation day with Dr. Hagen arranged for me to receive a prize in English. But I still think of myself as a writer because of Dr. Hagen. I still pray and pursue writing opportunities as I think God is leading me to do. I still hope there will be outward successes some day but it has been very disappointing thus far.

However, private successes have become very valuable to me in a way that wasn’t present on graduation day: staying real with God in my tears and angers and piercing hurts; amazing joys and comforts and answers to prayer; boxes and boxes of diaries, letters, stories, and scrapbooking plans over the years which I fiercely hope and pray will still be completed and meaningful down the road.


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