For Ken Venhuizen

 

Old friend Ken Venhuizen died on Christmas, December 25, 2024. A commemoration of his life was held at Westkirk Presbyterian Church, Des Moines yesterday, Saturday, April 26, 2025.

I'm told that Ken wanted me to speak at his commemoration, and I did. What follows, both this morning and tomorrow morning, is what I said about him, about he and Betty, his wife, and about friendship.

 

For Ken Venhuizen

Ken made tennis friends wherever he lived. As the decades passed, he kept winning tournaments in South Dakota, just moving up in flights until he had to be the only one capable of a decent volley. Had you asked him what moved him more, theology or tennis, he would have said theology—but I’m glad I never asked.

I’m happy and proud to say the Schaaps and the Venhuizens were fast friends from the summer of the American Bicentennial, 1976, when Ken and Betty and kids came back to North America from Korea, both of them still raving about the heat of something called kimchi. Ken was about to embark on a new teaching position in a department the Dordt’s administration wanted him to develop, not just sociology but social work, where he spent all his working life. I don’t know if Ken’s picture is up on the wall in the department, but it should be.

The Schaaps caught a break with the Venhuizens because of a blood connection between Betty and Barb. To my wife, the blond nurse who married a Grand Rapids-ite was “Betty of Uncle Oscar.” I won’t try to twist out how it works exactly, but the truth is, a friendship between the Venhuizens and the Schaaps in our mutual first weeks in Sioux Center, Iowa, got off to a roaring start by familial Dutch bingo.

Never once brought it up, but Ken and I were relatives of sorts too. A little surface scratching reveals that our esteemed grandfathers (Profs Gerrit Hemkes and Samuel Volbeda ) spent one year together at Calvin Preparatory School—1915 was my great-grandpa’s last; his grandpa’s first. All of which accounts for my being up here and not any of literally hundreds of other friends of Ken and Betty. It seems that one of their most wonderful characteristics is the ability to open their homes as easily as their hearts. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people have become friends of Ken and Betty.

And the Venhuizens did not stand still—ever. Look around you. Take a minute to reach out a hand to each other and introduce yourself by place of residence—where you came to know Ken Venhuizen—this church sanctuary is an Atlas all its own.

Grand Rapids, Sioux Center, Sioux Falls, Corpus Christi, Malawi, the Gulf Coast, Des Moines—always, always friends. There are hundreds, even thousands, who might well say that, if the greatest gift of life is friendship, we’ve received it.