2003
The Voice: Winter 2003
Making choices for the future
I never seem to have any trouble finding the parts I want at
a fried chicken buffet. That’s because my favorites are, frankly, the backs, the
necks, and the wings.
Now I’m well aware that most people would scoff at my choice. After
all, those are the pieces that most folks buy for making chicken stock—or
at best for football-watching appetizers. Surely, no one in their right mind would
actually eat them as an entrée unless you had to, right?
Well, I guess that’s the point. When I was a kid we did
have to. On those occasions when the seven of us were fortunate enough
to have meat with our evening meal, often it would be a package
of the backs and necks that my mother had coated with flour and
given a thorough baking in the oven because, quite honestly, all she could afford was a pan of castoff parts that the
grocer had packaged for use as leftover filler in a pot of soup.
I learned to like them then—and I love them still.
Now, it wasn’t that our family was so poor. My dad had a
good steady job. The paychecks came regularly every month. But as a city
family, we didn’t have much opportunity to raise our own food to improve
our menus. Instead, our daily bread had to compete with all sorts of
other priorities on our extremely limited family budget.
So, in our home at least, once our basic nutritional needs were met
there certainly were other places that our money would be spent before adding
luxuries like chicken breasts and thighs to our table. And in our home,
the most important of those other needs was providing Christian schooling for all
five of us kids.
As best I can figure, about a quarter to a third of my
father’s income went to pay our tuition and other educational fees. Within the
modest income of post-war America, after a tithe to the church, a monthly
payment on the mortgage, and a few other necessities of life, not much
was left. We never went on vacation. And clearly, we would have to
limit what and how much we ate.
Yet as far as I can recall, this never really bothered us that
much. After all, we too were learning what was important and what was
most essential for our well-being in the future. To my father and mother,
if it came to choosing between having their children well fed or well
educated, it really wasn’t much of a choice. We could all survive and
grow up on limited rations. But our future life and service in God’s
kingdom depended on Christ-centered education at every step.
Not long before he passed away this summer at the age of 95,
my dad asked me how much tuition costs today at Dordt College. He
couldn’t believe the number I quoted. “How can anybody pay that?” he asked.
I think I mentioned loans. The average Dordt College student graduates with just
over $16,000 in loans. And while that sounded like a huge sum to
someone who had retired thirty years ago, I tried to point out to
my father that graduates from state schools such as Iowa State University carry
an average of $23,000 in loans when they leave school. And even 22-year-olds
who didn’t go to college often carry similar debt loads for things like
cars, boats, and snowmobiles.
But most of all, I told him that people do it the same
way they did fifty years ago when he was raising us. People still
make choices as to what is most important for themselves and their children
as they grow. And for those who believe that an education in the
light of God’s Word is the foundation for their future service in God’s
kingdom, they invest their resources in obtaining an educational experience that will accomplish
that. For those who are convinced that a Christian learning environment is the
best context in which to be educated and trained for a lifetime of
continued growth and service, they make the economic decisions necessary to gain that
experience. In short, people still make decisions about where to spend their money
today (and with loans, where they will spend it in the future) that
reflect the value Christ-centered education holds in their lives.
For myself, it’s a privilege to see how people still reflect the same
values in their decisions today that my parents reflected half a century ago.
To see the donors who provided almost $5 million last year to build
the facilities and support the programs that will benefit those who study at
Dordt College. To see the faculty and staff who spend their days on
campus, not because of how much they are paid but because of how
much they can serve. And to see students and parents who make really
tough economic choices to ensure that the education of the next generation in
their family takes place in the context of biblical insight and godly community.
That those values continue to live at Dordt College is a great tribute
to people who, like my father and mother, have passed on to glory
but who gave their substance in that service while they lived. And although
still today I gladly pick the wings, necks, and backs off the chicken
platter when it’s passed, I’m also glad that most of our students don’t
have to do so anymore.
