BTGMI’s Lucille, a
character on Kids Corner.
Here and There
Questions Kids Ask Lucille
W
hen 10-year-old Alisha’s friend was spreading
rumors about her, Alisha wrote to ask
advice from Lucille, her radio friend from
Kids Corner, a media ministry of Back to
God Ministries International (BTGMI).
With financial support from the Christian
Reformed Church’s Ministry Shares program,
ReFrame Media, the English outreach of BTGMI,
produces the weekly Kids Corner audio program. It
also makes web space available so kids like Alisha can
get answers to their questions.
Lucille—with help from Kids Corner
producer Barb Brouwer—suggested to
Alisha that she first pray and talk to her mother
about the problem and then tell her friend how spreading
rumors made her feel.
A few weeks later Alisha reported: “You got me and my friend
to be friends again. Thank you.”
Besides being a character on Kids Corner, Lucille also hosts
a web program called “What’s Bothering You?”
Young people listen to Kids Corner on the website
KidsCorner.net and then ask questions, explains Brouwer. “We
regularly get questions for Lucille and other
characters on the program to answer.”
Responses are given in one-minute audio
spots. “Kids go to a special page on our website (lizradio.net)
to hear the answers to their questions,” says Brouwer.
Friendship is a frequent topic.
“Sometimes my friends do stuff without inviting me,
and I feel left out,” wrote one young listener. Another
wrote, “How can I make a new friend?” Still another, “How
can I tell my friend not to talk on her cell phone the whole
time we are together?”
Family relationships are also an issue: “My little brother
is bugging me; what can I do?” and “My cousin is
a tattletale about things that aren’t even true.
How can I get her to stop?”
Answering these questions is important, Brouwer
says. At the same time, “We love the opportunity to address
their questions on spiritual topics: What’s heaven like; is
there stuff to do?” “Can you tell me how to pray?” “My
sister says she doesn’t know if she believes in Jesus. What
do I say to her?” “What’s so special about the Bible?” “How
can I tell my friends about Jesus?” n
—Nancy Vander Meer, Back to God Ministries International
Prof Wins Award
for Exemplary
Teaching
C
alvin College professor
of chemistry Larry
Louters is the recipient
of the school’s 2012
Presidential Award for Exemplary Teaching—the highest
honor Calvin bestows on a
faculty member.
“Larry has been the lead
facult y member in our
department to build the biochemistry program,” said
chemistry professor Roger De
Kock. “He just gets things
done.”
Louters grew up in the
small town of Hollandale in
southern Minnesota near the
Iowa border. He attended and
played basketball at Dordt
Larry Louters performs a fiery experiment.
College (his coach was Calvin
kinesiology professor emeritus Jim Timmer), where he
still holds the single-season
record with 12.9 rebounds
per game during the 1970-71
season.
He graduated with a bachelor of science degree in
chemistry and went on to
earn a master’s degree in
organic chemistry from the
University of Minnesota in
1974 and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of
Iowa in 1984.
He started teaching at
Calvin in 1984 on a two-year
contract. Midway through
Louters’s first semester, one
of his colleagues was diagnosed with cancer and was
unable to continue teaching.
Louters filled in and, following the death of his colleague,
was selected from a field of
candidates for the position.
“I think what I really like
about teaching is the puzzle of
figuring out where the students
[are] and helping them to
understand,” he said.
“When students come into
my office and we sit down
with a pen and paper to figure something out—that’s a
fun thing to me.”
Louters is also a researcher.
His current work, focusing
on a protein involved in the
transport of glucose into
cells, could have implications
for cancer and diabetes
research. n
—Myrna Anderson,
Calvin Communications
www.thebanner.org | April 2012 | THE BANNER 27