Newsletter

Winter 2003

Au Sable Alumni: David Foster

Alumni Au Sable has now reached maturity in seeing alumni return as faculty. So far Au Sable has had four alumni return: Dorothy Boorse, David Foster, Austin Mast and Pamela Veltkamp. We asked Dave Foster for a little background about his time at Au Sable and what he has done since then.

Dave attended Au Sable for the first time in during January of 1988 after considerable prompting from Dr. Joe Sheldon, professor of Eastern College at the time. Dave then attended Summer Session I and II in 1989 and summer session I in 1990, all at Au Sable-Great Lakes. He completed the Naturalist and Land Resource Analyst certificates. Dave and his wife Meg enjoyed sharing the 1990 sessions with their daughter Danika, her first Au Sable experience at six months old. The Fosters returned as a family to teach in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001, first starting with Plant Ecology in Michigan and then adding Field Botany at the Pacific Rim.

Dave finished his MS in Conservation Biology (1993) and PhD in Botany (1998) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and began teaching at Messiah College in Grantham Pennsylvania in 1997. This year marks their sixth year at Messiah College, where Dave has become Director of The Oakes Museum of Natural History, delivering natural history education to several thousand school children a year as well as providing programs for Messiah Students and area residents.

Dave and Meg have also supervised students coaching Envirothon teams in the local elementary schools with (both Danika and their son, Jon, are team members). They have enjoyed this very much and found their time together at Au Sable invaluable in pursuing a life vocation of stewardship. As Dave says, “Here is to many more years of all of us serving the Lord together!”

We asked Meg Foster to write a few words about her time with Dave at Au Sable.

“We have been truly blessed to be a part of the Au Sable family. We spent our first summer of married life together at Au Sable-Great Lakes. I was truly touched then and now by the caring community that we have found at Au Sable. It was at Au Sable that our daughter, Danika, took her first steps into the arms of many loving students. It was with our Au Sable family that we first shared that Jonathan was on his way.

Au Sable means on the sand. For us it has been a foundation on ROCK. It has been the foundation for our views regarding the world around us. We recycle and compost and try to protect our land the best we know how... we have made it a focus of our lives to pass on the knowledge we have received from Au Sable to others whether they are school children or college students.

Au Sable has been the highlight of our family’s summers. We have enjoyed hosting study sessions and taking students out for ice cream. It has been a blessing to be an example of a Christian family for the students. We have enjoyed being a part of the Au Sable community and joining in on integrative sessions, vesper services and field trips where students have adopted Danika and Jon and have helped us show them how exciting life in Christ is. Our children have grown up with happy memories and great influences of some wonderful Au Sable students. The blessings keep on flowing.”