Wheaton College Alumni Magazine Spring 2013 | Page 34

career, however, are the relationships he enjoyed—and still enjoys—
with students and colleagues.
“Working with Pete is one of my greatest joys,” Jim says. “Pete’s an
extrovert; he’s friends with everybody. He’s a good influence on me.
Mathematicians, you know, can be introverts.”
Jim says doing handyman work is quite different from the work he
did as a professor. “There’s immediate feedback and real gratitude
when you paint a room or fix something that’s broken.”
Jim also volunteers at Habitat for Humanity one day every
week. He notes that working in a person’s home affords him the
opportunity to come to know clients and share his faith. Several
years ago, he learned that a person for whom he had done work had
committed suicide. He resolved that from then on, he would
engage with his clients about their interest in attending church and
leave a card behind with information about his own faith community.
“You can often give more advice to people when you’re a
handyman in their home than a pastor can,” Jim says. “I see God’s
hand in what I do.”

#

“The challenge is to be faithful
to Jesus Christ, to love people, and
to help them to be faithful.”
w
–Carolyn Raffensperger ’54, M.A. ’85

Carolyn MacKinney Raffensperger ’54, M.A. ’85
#seeingGodineverymoment
Carolyn Raffensperger lives in Big Bay, Michigan, which she describes
as a “glorious place.” Her home is a log cabin near Lake Superior,
heated by a wood stove, in the company of “eagles, deer, moose, otter,
ice fishermen, and someone at the door to see that I am all right.”
She’s lived in Big Bay since 2006 when she was called to the
pastorate of Community Presbyterian Church. In an area of the
country that averages more than 150 inches of snow a year, the
81-year-old says that living there “takes a lot of time and effort.”
“The town is isolated and resistant to change,” Carolyn says. “The
challenge is to be faithful to Jesus Christ, to love people, and to
help them to be faithful.”
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Like the Normans, Carolyn had a “former” life in Chicago very
different from the one she now leads. She raised five children and is
now grandmother to nine. Her R.N. is from West Suburban Hospital,
and much later she earned her master’s degree in Christian education
from Wheaton’s Graduate School. She also studied piano at the
Conservatory of Music for nine years and has traveled the U.S. on two
national tours as a pianist with the L’Abri Ensemble.
In 1995, after serving as a layperson for many years in her
Presbyterian church, Carolyn received her M.Div. She then moved
to New Castle, Indiana, where she served as associate pastor at
First Presbyterian Church for nearly a decade. In 2006, she relocated
to Big Bay, where she serves as the only pastor and as the pianist.
“My greatest joy is when people ‘get’ the Scripture: when they hear
it and understand it, when they want to pray, and when visitors are
nourished by the love and grace of the congregation,” she says. “I see
God’s hand every moment, in the people who come my way and
in his care.”