"Sabbath"
Rev. Marchiene Rienstra

Marchiene Rienstra was born November of 1941 to a doctor and a nurse (John and Theresa Vroon) who were on their way to the mission field in India for their first term of service for the United Presbyterian Church. She lived in India and what became Pakistan until she was fifteen years old, except for a year for furlough in Grand Rapids, Michigan when she was seven. She was privately tutored and then went to Woodstock School, an ecumenical, international boarding school in the Himalayas. When her parents returned to the United States for further study, she attended Grand Rapids Christian High School, graduating in 1958; and went on to get a B.A. from Calvin College in secondary education with a double major in English Literature and Speech.

During her college years, she spent a year in Nigeria in volunteer work for the Christian Reformed Church. During that year, 1960, she met the man who was to become her husband --Dr. John Rienstra. They were married in 1962, and Marchiene taught English and Speech at Calvin College. When the first of their four children was born, she turned to writing, public speaking and volunteer activities which allowed her the time she need to spend with the family. She helped found Fish for My People, an ecumenical Christian organization dedicated to helping poor people on a personal basis, and an intentional inner-city community. Her articles and stories were published frequently in church-related magazines, and she also wrote educational material.

When the youngest was ready for preschool, she entered Calvin Seminary as the first woman in their Masters of Divinity program. She graduated in 1978 and was the first woman to apply to the Christian Reformed Church's Synod for permission to be a candidate for the ordained ministry. When this was denied, she accepted a call issued by the Presbyterian Church (USA) and was ordained in 1979 as a new church developer. With a dedicated group of Christians, she helped start Port Sheldon Presbyterian Church. In 1984 she accepted a call to be the senior pastor of Hope Reformed Church in Holland, Michigan and became the first woman senior pastor in the Reformed Church in America. During all these years, she and her husband and children spent time abroad in Nigeria, Ethiopia and Mexico in short-term mission work, and traveled extensively in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, China and Russia.

1989, after a struggle with cancer, Marchiene responded to a call to a more contemplative life of prayer, study, spiritual direction, leading retreats and writing. She has served as the co-editor and on the board of editors of the magazine Perspectives (formerly The Reformed Journal). She has also authored three books: Knowing the Lord (published by the Reformed Church in America), Swallows Nest, and Come to the Feast (published by Eerdmans). She is currently working on a novel for children from nine to ninety and is rewriting Bible stories from the perspective of characters whose viewpoint has seldom been examined, using the Jewish tradition of Midrash to interpret their meaning for a contemporary generation of children and adults.

In 1999, Marchiene began work as an interfaith minister at Mother's Trust/ Mother's Place and began an interfaith program of education, ritual and meditation. In 2000, she graduated with a Master's Degree from All Faiths Seminary in New York. In 2001 she founded the Interfaith Institute at Mother's Trust/ Mother's Place in Ganges, Michigan.

Recently Marchiene has written a book entitled The Future For Women which is intended to launch a Network to Empower Women (NEW). New consists of circles of women meeting to empower themselves and each other and a resource website available at www.networktoempowerwomen.org.
Circles are already meeting and more are starting! The goal for this new intitative is to help women and men function as full and equal partners in every area of society as soon as possible, because at present the human race is like a bird trying to fly with only one wing. When both wings (male and female) are strong and working together, the world is much more likely to have a flourishing future!

On Sabbath:
It is not so much that the Jews have kept the Sabbath as that the Sabbath has kept the Jews.
"These words reflect the profound truth that it is essential to have regular Sabbath time to renew and strengthen our connection with God and grow spiritually. Otherwise, as Wordsworth put it, 'The world is too much with us. Getting and spending we lay waster our powers. Little we see in nature is ours. We have given our souls away, a sorbid boon..."
Sabbath time, as preserved by the Jewish tradition, is a weekly day of joy, of rest and of entering more deeply into loving relationship with our Creator, our family and friends and this wonderful creation we are a part of. Sabbath time can be a daily time of solitude and prayer, a weekly day, and special retreat times on a seasonal basis --a day, several days, a week, or longer, as we are guided. It is a way of putting God and our relationship with God and our souls first in our lives. Out of that everything else flows, and life becomes a Way of Blessing."

The painting of Marchine was based on a photograph of her at Mother Lodge at Morningstar Retreat Center.