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Alumni Profiles
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calvin.edu/spark
Calvin seeks to equip students to think deeply, act justly, and live wholeheartedly as Christ’s agents of renewal in the world. These stories demonstrate how our alumni are living out that mission.
Jared Rispens is an internal medicine doctor for pilots, air crew, air traffic controllers, and drone operators in the U.S. Coast Guard. He’s also an expert in infectious diseases and has been helping advise Calvin on policy in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Diann Takens leads a nonprofit in Buffalo, New York. Her team works to break the cycle of poverty and bring justice to the poor. She traces her accomplishments back to a chapel service at Calvin.
Ben and Kari David had no idea that God would lead them back to Ben’s home country of Uganda after graduation. They lead Hope Speaks, an organization that serves more than 800 children with disabilities and their families.
As the veterinarian at the John Ball Zoo, Ryan Colburn has a unique role in stewarding God’s creation. He’s using his talents and training to care for the zoo’s animals and inspire visitors to protect the planet.
Janet Lenger Staal ’98 Jared Rispens ’11 Katelyn Ver Woert Egnatuk ’13 Evan Talen ’06 Ben ’12 and Kari ’13 David
Jared Rispens ’09 Spanish Flight surgeon U.S. Coast Guard Mobile, Alabama
A flight surgeon’s rise
Despite having the title of flight surgeon with the U.S. Coast Guard, Dr. Jared Rispens ’09 cares for his patients while on the ground. He serves the Coast Guard in Mobile, Alabama, as an active duty member of the Commissioned Corps of the United States Public Health Service.
He is an internal medicine doctor for pilots, air crew, air traffic controllers, and drone operators. Because of the unique stresses their bodies endure, aviators are held to high physical standards. Rispens flies at least once a week to understand the rigors of flight, to establish rapport with the aviators, and to ultimately better care for his patients. He took special training to become more familiar with Coast Guard aircraft.
Rispens graduated from Calvin with a BA in Spanish and served as the student body president. He earned his medical degree from the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, did his residency at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois, and then went to work at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before taking his current role with the Coast Guard.
Rispens recalls the path that helped lead him where he is today. “During residency, there were no specialties that spoke to me except infectious diseases. It really fascinated me, all the different types of bugs and pathogens that could cause so much illness.”
After former CDC officers at Rush encouraged him, he entered the Epidemic Intelligence Service at the CDC, a competitive postdoctoral program. Those in the program act as disease detectives helping to determine what triggered a disease outbreak. During the program doctors go through a process to determine what division of the CDC they’ll work with. Rispens matched with a new position in the vessel sanitation program at the CDC. As part of his work, Rispens flew out to cruise ships to investigate norovirus and other disease outbreaks.
GROWTH AS A KNIGHT
Rispens is grateful for his Calvin education that prepared him well for where he is now. He says his time at Calvin “was probably the best four years of my life so far. So many things were jam-packed into those years.” Study-abroad terms in Honduras, China, Spain, and Ecuador defined his Calvin experience. They prepared him for his career and gave him a broad, diverse worldview, which he credits to leading to his success.
Serving as student body president was formative in helping him grow. “What I loved the most was getting to know all the senators, learning to lead a big team, learning to lead small teams,” he said. It was such a gift and a blessing to me and it really grew me as a person and prepared me for the spots I’m in now.”
His Calvin connections remain strong and have strengthened recently by working with Dr. Laura Champion, director of Health Services at Calvin. She got to know Rispens when he was at Michigan State and she served on the faculty. During his time at MSU, Rispens was chair of the Christian Medical and Dental Association, and Champion was the mentor for that group. Since the start of the pandemic, Champion and Rispens have had regular conversations about the coronavirus and how best to mitigate exposure for students, faculty, and staff on campus. His advice has helped to keep people working, studying, and living together safely on campus.
He sees his work as living out Calvin’s mission. “My Calvin education pushed me and equipped me to do my job. … I have the privilege of walking alongside people in health challenges and in their normal lives and that is my role as an agent of renewal, to show the compassion that Christ has given me for these people and to share life with people in that way.”
Visit calvin.edu/spark to view a video interview with Rispens and learn more about his work and interests.
Helping people find their voice
Ben David ’12 was not homesick. Home for Ben was Uganda—he grew up there and lived in an orphanage after his parents died. When he graduated from Calvin with a degree in media production, he had no desire to go back. He and his wife, Kari David ’13, a speech pathologist, settled in Grand Rapids. Kari had what she called her “dream job.” Uganda seemed very far away.
But something changed.
HOW THEIR HEARTS BROKE
The director of the orphanage in Uganda called Ben one day and asked if he could help find a speech therapist for two kids with disabilities. The director hinted that maybe Ben and Kari could come to help with these children.
“I told him that we would look and try to find someone else,” Ben said. They started researching and looking for services for these children half a world away. And their hearts broke.
Even now, five years later, the Davids know the statistics off the top of their heads. In Uganda, people with disabilities make up 24% of the population of 45 million people, and most of those people will never get the services they need. They learned that in Uganda, people with disabilities are considered a curse and are locked away. Their parents carry deep shame, and there is a high risk of children being abused or even killed.
They started praying together for God to send someone else to Uganda to help these children. “And then,” said Ben, “I started to feel really homesick.”
Kari was also deeply moved. “The situation seemed too daunting to address. We felt completely unqualified to make any impact whatsoever given the size of the need,” she said. “We continued to live our normal life in Michigan, but over time, I couldn’t get those two children off my heart and my mind.”
HOW THEY FOLLOW GOD
“It absolutely seemed crazy,” said Kari. “But it was so clear that God was telling us to go, and we had peace about it.”
“And we were scared out of our minds,” Ben added with a laugh. They sold everything they had in Grand Rapids and flew to Uganda. After a few years of working with the kids at the orphanage, the Davids launched Hope Speaks in 2017. The nonprofit has a mission “to inspire hope and raise voices for children with disabilities through speech therapy, education, and advocacy.”
Hope Speaks serves more than 800 children with disabilities and their families.
Kari discovered that speech therapy only scratched the surface of the kids’ needs. “The families lacked a support system and the education to advocate for their kids,” Kari said.
“At the first parent support group, parents could not believe that someone else was going through what they were going through,” Kari said.
This led Ben and Kari to develop a holistic approach to meet the needs of families. They hired social workers. They created systems to empower families economically. They established outreach locations in the kids’ home communities so they could start educating neighborhoods. They started hiring Ugandan speech pathologists and providing resources to grow the field in Uganda. And they made connections in the government to advocate for people with disabilities.
“It’s been so cool to see these families’ perspectives change and their view of their children change,” Kari said. “They go from seeing their children as a burden and a curse to seeing them as a gift and a child made in the image of God.”
“If you would have told us five years ago that this is what God would do through the ministry in this short amount of time, we probably would have freaked out and left,” said Ben. “It’s amazing to see how he provided and so many lives have been impacted.”
To learn how you can support Hope Speaks and about the 2020 Calvin interim visit to the organization, visit calvin.edu/spark.
Ben David ’12 Media production Co-founder, dountry director Hope Speaks Bugolobi, Uganda
Kari David ’13 Speech pathology Executive director and speech therapist Hope Speaks Bugolobi, Uganda
—KARI DAVID
Following God’s call to act justly
Diann Takens ’89 Psychology Founder and executive director Peace Of The City Buffalo, New York Diann Takens ’89 is one of those people who knows exactly the moment that sparked her life’s work. It was at Calvin, when she first learned that there was a theology for the poor and broken. It was when she first learned there was a theology for her.
Today, Takens is the executive director of Peace Of The City in Buffalo, New York, a nonprofit organization committed to justice for the poor. She founded it back in 1992. It’s grown to include many innovative programs to break the cycle of poverty, like a Shakespeare theater company and small businesses run by teens.
Recently Takens was awarded the Centennial Champion Award by the Community Foundation of Greater Buffalo. Her life and work are full of meaning and connection. She traces it back to a fall morning her junior year at Calvin.
AN INSIDE OUTSIDER
Takens’ story starts in a familiar place. Born and raised in the Christian Reformed Church, she graduated from Grand Rapids Christian High School.
But underneath that, things for Takens were different. She describes herself as an “inside outsider.” Growing up, Diann experienced ongoing trauma and felt different from the families around her. Her parents didn’t go to college and, like a lot of first-generation students, navigating college was a challenge.
“It felt miraculous to even be there,” she said. She settled on a psychology major but didn’t have a vision for what her future could be. Takens was paying for college on her own and felt pressure to make the most of her experience. She decided to go to every chapel service, but one day, she almost skipped.
“I sensed God’s presence, telling me to go,” she said.
A CONNECTION
The speaker that day was pastor and activist Tony Campolo, who was speaking in the fieldhouse. Campolo preached about a theology she had not experienced growing up in the church—and he connected that to the pain she knew deep within her.
“I was blown away. By speaking about the world’s suffering, especially the poor, Tony spoke right to my own,” Takens said.
She stayed after to meet Campolo, writing down her name and address on a scrap of a popcorn box that she found in the bleachers.
“I said that I would follow this guy anywhere. And that’s what I did,” Takens said.
—TONY CAMPOLO
A LIFE’S WORK
Campolo must have kept that scrap. That exchange started a friendship that continues to this day.
That summer Takens interned at Campolo’s organization in Camden, New Jersey, America’s poorest city at that time.
“Diann was incredible,” said Campolo, remembering her internship. “Diann didn’t just do what she was asked to do, she always went above and beyond.”
She returned two more summers then moved there to work year round. Living and working in Camden were transformational for Takens.
“At that time, I sensed God saying, ‘If you really want to impact these kids and families, you need to commit your life,’ so I moved there.” Since then, she’s committed her life to serving the poor, eventually relocating to Buffalo and launching many initiatives at Peace Of The City in trauma-informed care, restorative justice, literacy intervention, and more.
“I observe her work in Buffalo, and I cannot help but want to support her in every way,” Campolo said. “I wish I had more money, because I would give it to her.”
Campolo said that he can see the impact of a Calvin education on her life and work. “Calvin gave her a taste for scholarship. She’s always learning and exploring new ways of doing things,” Campolo reflected.
To learn more about the Centennial Champion Award and see a video about Diann Takens, visit calvin.edu/spark.
Stewarding the wild
Ryan Colburn ’06 Biology Veterinarian John Ball Zoo Grand Rapids, Michigan
When Ryan Colburn ’06 thinks about moments of beauty in his life, he thinks about being in a room surrounded by turtles. It was a moment that happened before his current job as the veterinarian at John Ball Zoo in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He was at an internship in Florida as part of his doctorate in veterinary medicine at Michigan State University and was assigned to take care of these patients, ranging from sea turtles to softshell turtles to tortoises.
“There were seven different species all around me, all extremely different,” Colburn recalled. “There was so much beauty in the sea turtle markings and in the diversity of the different species. I thought, ‘This is a window and the little glimpse I’m getting into creation.’”
CARING FOR CREATION
Today, Colburn gets those little glimpses often, as he cares for the animals at the John Ball Zoo. The zoo is home to many species, including penguins, porcupines, lions, sharks, armadillos, and red pandas—and Colburn sees them all.
“In addition to enjoying that diversity and variety of the animals, I add in the science and physiology,” he said. “When you start to look at how the animals function, you can see many similarities and differences. You realize how intricate creation is—we are scratching the surface of what there is to know.”
Colburn’s job involves a lot of creative problem solving. He routinely dives into online research and textbooks, searching for answers to symptoms he’s seeing in one of the zoo’s animals. “These animals are my patients, and I’ve taken an oath to care for them,” he said.
“There is always something new crossing my path every day. On one hand, that’s the thing that makes the job very fun,” Colburn said with a laugh, “but it also is very challenging.” He has to think through complications like how to get wild animals to take their medicine, how to do surgery on fish, and how to get a baby lynx to keep her splint on.
INSPIRING LASTING CHANGE
One thing the zoo’s veterinarian wants to be sure you know: Wild animals belong in wild places.
“For these animals to stick around, we need to provide a planet where they can do that,” Colburn said. “There are less and less places that are truly wild.”
He hopes zoo visitors take a few moments to marvel at God’s creation and are inspired to make some changes in their lives. “We can make real positive changes that translate into positive results in the world for animals in the wild.”
Colburn said that learning how products impact the world around us can lead to very simple but meaningful changes. For example, reducing the use of disposable, plastic straws and other single-use plastics can have major implications to the health of oceans. He also suggests supporting zoos whose mission centers around conservation.
WORKING A DREAM JOB
Doing this work has been a lifelong dream of Colburn’s. “I knew very early on that I wanted to be a veterinarian,” said Colburn, who grew up in Grand Rapids.
When considering colleges, he had his goal of vet school in mind. “I knew I needed a program that would give me a good educational foundation. I needed a place that would teach me how to study and have a well-respected program. Calvin has always had all of that,” he said.
A biology major, Colburn participated in summer research with the biology and chemistry department. “I loved my time as a student in the biology department. I was set up very well by my time at Calvin,” he said.
