Meg Jenista

Meg Jenista
Grand Rapids, MI
Friend from Seminary

I was at home with my family in Ohio when I recieved the news about Ted. I went through many of the predictable grieving stages, trying to make sense of a senseless death. I thought to myself: "I can't believe my neice (who was playing nearby at the time) is going to grow up in a world without Ted Vellenga." The world, those of us who knew him and even those who will never meet him, is impoverished by Ted's death because it was made so much richer by Ted's life. Ted's was a quiet and gentle presence, the kind of presence that, in it conviction and passion, is a true force to be reckoned with. That's what I keep thinking.

I met Ted the first quarter of seminary through a Crown Bible Study group. I'm a person who likes to talk first and think later. Ted was the exact opposite and I was sure he thought I was ridiculous and silly for my outspoken ways, so contrary to his own. But then I got to know him and realized that no one in Ted's world needed to fear judgment. He heard people well and without judgment. Anyone who's taken a Ron Nydam pastoral care class knows the wonderful difficulty and grace of that particular discipline. He listened, not only to words, but to hearts that had yet to find words. I remember that I liked to hear him pray.

We talked some about what we were going to be when we grew up. I don't suppose I ever knew what Ted thought about the theology of women in ministry but I never once doubted that I was welcome as a person and a collegue in his life. That kind of hospitality is valuable and, all the more so, for its rarity.

I remember the evening Ted showed me his gardens. I couldn't believe that a run-of-the-mill backyard in Grand Rapids could be transformed into a showcase of organic farming in the miniature. Ted's eyes betrayed such happiness over the competent work of his own hands. Ted loved to get his hands dirty in the soil of the earth and the depth of human souls. He told me about a dream, maybe he shared with others too, of wanting to combine these passions and someday create a place, a farm where people with developmental or emotional impairments could find their own pride, dignity and strength by working the land.

At Ted's funeral, we read Romans 8:20-25, which reads, in part: "For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God."

As a farming man, Ted probably understood that verse better than many of us. He worked against the curse by living close to the creation, as a gardener AND a pastor/chaplain. He worked to liberate all creation from bondage to decay and to bring it into the glorious freedom of Christ's Kingdom. Since I heard of Ted's death, I've been thinking about Christ's Kingdom, perhaps more than a 29-year-old usually does. I know Ted is with God now and I'm looking forward to the day when I can, again, tour his showcase of organic farming, only this time, in the eternal.

"For in this hope, we were saved. . .But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."