George Vander Weit

I was born and raised on the south side of Chicago and have been a member of the CRC since my baptism as an infant.  In third grade I expressed a desire to be a minister.  I delivered newspapers as young boy, and from 8^th grade through seminary worked at a store that sold quality fruits and vegetables (and at other stores during the school year in Grand Rapids) so I could pay my high school, college and seminary tuition.

I was a member of the second class of Trinity Christian College in Chicago and completed my college education at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI.  When I was in seminary, I worked with a Navajo pastor for ten weeks on my summer field assignment and did a fifteen-month internship in inner city New York (Harlem).  I graduated from Calvin Seminary in 1968.

My wife Bonnie and I served four Christian Reformed congregations in our almost-forty years of ministry.  Two of them were in racially changing/changed communities.  We retired in June 2008 and moved to Rochester, MI, to be close to one of our children.  We are members of the Han Bit Korean Christian Reformed Church, where I serve as an elder.  Twice a month I preach in our English service for junior high, high school and college age youth.  I also serve as the alternate synodical deputy of our classis, Classis Lake Erie.  (Synodical rules require the presence of three synodical deputies from three neighboring classes when candidates are examined, pastors are released, etc.)

We have four children and six grandchildren and anticipate the birth of two more grandchildren in May and October.