Friendly Rivals Serve Together
Calvin College students work on a house at a New Jersey DRS site; Hope College students outside house at a New Jersey DRS site.
Contributed by DRS participants
Students from both Calvin College and Hope College worked side by side in New Jersey with World Renew Disaster Response Services last month.
The two Reformed Christian colleges, both in western Michigan, have a history of friendly rivalry – especially when it comes to basketball and other sports. Even so, staff and students from Calvin (started by the Christian Reformed Church denomination) and Hope (started by the Reformed Church in America) were excited to serve at the same time on a recovery project in the Highland Park, N.J., area.
World Renew is the disaster response and poverty alleviation ministry of the Christian Reformed Church in North America. Its domestic disaster response program is closely connected with the Reformed Church in America as well.
It was Art Opperwall, program manager for DRS, who first noticed that the two colleges were scheduled to serve during the same week at the Reformed Church of Highland Park, N.J.
“Staff from both Hope and Calvin, independently, contacted us in the fall about possibilities of . . . a spring break service-learning trip,” said Opperwall.
Hope had been to the site previously and wanted to go again, he said, and Calvin chose the site from a number of options. When Opperwall noticed that this would put the two colleges there at the same time, he put their leaders in touch.
He joked, “I anticipated that there might be a little ‘rivalry’ between the two groups, but I don’t think any basketball games got scheduled – just a great time serving and learning together.”
While they worked on separate projects most of the week, the groups shared meals together and stayed in classrooms next to each other at the church. Over the course of the week, students worked on houses damaged by Superstorm Sandy in 2012, organized food at a local food pantry, renovated an apartment in the church, and visited a detention center for immigrants.
Rachel Dober, a senior at Hope College, said, “I loved being able to see how the church where we stayed went out of their way to love people radically. It didn't have to be people they agreed with or who were even Christians; they just saw needs and then did something about it. It amazes me to think how different the world would be if more churches did this. I saw a new way to love people unconditionally.”
Mariah Krikke, a student leader on the Calvin team, was excited to be working alongside another Christian college at the DRS project. “I think that it provided us with the opportunity to see how similar we all are, even though we go to 'rival' schools. During that week in New Jersey, we were all working toward the same goal and sharing similar experiences.”
