He
is a gentleman and a scholar. He
is a Christian and a friend. His
face radiates with an eternal 
smile
that without a doubt originates from his heart.
Bahamian, Derek Bowe, 49, shares about his life, family, and his
relationship with God. He
is the Chairperson of the English and Foreign Languages Department at Oakwood
College, Huntsville, Alabama. He earned his Ph. D. in English from the
University of Kentucky at Lexington, Kentucky in 1998.
He and his wife Norma, a native of Jamaica, will be married for fifteen
years on August 9, 2002. They have two lovely children.
His Life Today will inspire you.
Here’s
his story in his own words.
- EARLY
YEARS
- “My
navel string is buried deep in the Bahamas.
It was on March 13th, 1953, that I first felt the warmth
of its sunshine as I entered the world via Strachan Corner, off East
Street, on the island of
New Providence.
My Baptist home was filled with love.
I basked in the affection of my mother and sisters, particularly
after my father’s death during my seventh year.
I was a typical Bahamian child, engaging in the street sports,
household chores, antics and, yes, mischief of youngsters in the Fort Fincastle
area. - Beyond work and play, I read voraciously, spending untold hours in the Nassau Public Library and what was once called the Ranfurly Out Island Library. My mother was the main force behind this, for, in trying to shield me from certain unpleasant aspects of our neighborhood, she often carried me with her to her job as a Bay Street straw vendor. Whenever business slowed, she sent me to the library. This focus on mental development was to serve me in good stead when I later attended Eastern Junior and Donald W. Davis High Schools, R. M. Bailey High School, and Government High School. At these institutions, I was privileged to encounter teachers who tremendously shaped my life.
-
- TRAGEDY
- However,
it was seven days after my fifteenth birthday that the pivotal event of my
life occurred. A speeding car
struck me off my bicycle, almost ending my life.
Mercifully, God saw fit to answer my
prayers and those of my mother and others interceding on my behalf.
While my life was spared, I did not escape the accident unscathed:
my left leg was amputated above the knee.
Some thought this spelled failure for the rest of my life—but not
God and my mother! - Amazingly,
what the devil sent to destroy my life, God used to enrich it.
In losing my leg, I was spared many of the temptations,
dissipations, and regrets that plagued many young Bahamians of my
generation. In the
process, Christ found me. At
sixteen, I renewed an acquaintance with Seventh-day Adventists that had
started five years before with Mary Toote, mother of Pastor Michael Toote. It was she and the Grants Town Seventh-day Adventist Church
who hired jitneys to bus me and other neighborhood kids to Pastor Silas N.
Mckinney’s crusade at Bahamas Academ
-
- BLESSING
- The seed sown in my heart then was to germinate in 1969 when I was baptized at an evangelistic campaign held by my cousin, Pastor Hugh A. Roach. While I am most grateful the crusade team for the part that they played in my acceptance of Christ, I feel that God especially used Wendell Albury and Genovia Florvil, my Bible Workers. When Pastor Roach made an altar call near the crusade’s end, I balked with all the nervousness and shyness that a teenager could muster. However, I will forever remember Genovia Florvil with gratitude for her coming to my aid and encouraging me to be baptized. Brother Albury served as a stabilizing force after baptism, transporting me to church and helping me find my niche there. May God to continue to bless these fine workers in His Cause for their service of love!
- Through
the ensuing years, my Christian walk deepened as I assumed membership in
Grants Town
(while visiting the Centreville Seventh-day Adventist Church a lot!).
At both churches, God used many individuals to heighten my joy in
serving Him and to help me in times of struggle and challenge.
Each congregation stimulated my thirst for God and education, while
giving me opportunity to develop my oratorical interests.
Functioning almost collaboratively with the churches was the Milo
B. Butler family, for whom I worked seven years after my graduation from
Government High School. It
was at Butler’s Bargain Mart that I was exposed to organization, hard
work, creativity, and thriftiness of a high caliber, features that I still
cherish. -
- EDUCATION
- Blessed
by God’s use of such wonderful institutions and people in my life, I was
ready to develop myself further. Thus,
in January 1982, I entered Oakwood College.
Four years later, I graduated with a major in English Education and
minors in History and Secondary Education.
Oakwood was not all study, however, for it was during my upper
class years there that I wooed Norma Joy Williams, the woman who would
become my wife on August 9, 1987, shortly after I graduated from Andrews
University with a masters in English.
Following my Andrews career, I taught at Oakwood until August 1994,
when I enrolled in the University of Kentucky.
Four years later, I was overjoyed to graduate with my doctorate in
English and return to Oakwood. Currently,
I chair the Department of English and Foreign Languages.
As
much as I love teaching and interacting with young people, I have another
interest that I love just as much, for it is really intertwined with my
teaching. I am a freelance
writer, having published articles mainly in denominational magazines and
quarterlies, such as Insight, Guide,
Women of Spirit, Message, Listen, and
Collegiate Quarterly. Struck by the fragility and innocence of my then very young
children, I initially wrote to leave them a legacy of what I considered of
most importance. My thinking was
that if I should die, my words and influence on their lives could still be
accessed through my writings. Since
that time, however, my motivation has broadened to write in such a manner for children, youth, and adults both within and
without the church.
- FAMILY
- At
this stage of my essay, allow me to write more about my family.
First, there is my dear wife,
Norma,
who hails from Jericho in Hanover, Jamaica. She attended Harrison Memorial
High School, a Seventh-day Adventist institution in Montego Bay, where Dr.
Audley Dwyer was one of her principals. Upon graduation, she attended Sam
Sharpe Teachers College in Montego Bay.
Later she emigrated to New York, where she taught at Flatbush
Seventh-day Adventist Church Elementary School.
In September 1981, she enrolled in Oakwood College, graduating in
1984 with a Bachelors in Elementary Education... Shortly after graduation,
she entered Alabama A and M University, from which she graduated with a
masters in Educational Administration. - Norma
now teaches reading at A and M, a function that she enjoys immensely.
She loves her students, and their return of affection is evident in the
mother-offspring bond that they enjoy. Apart from being an adventuresome cook,
she is an expert seamstress, evidence of which is seen in the lovely bridal
gown that she sewed for our marriage. An
avid gardener, she is responsible for the flower gardens that beautify our
home and the vegetable garden that supplies our table.
She is a lover of children and is active in Adventurers and Pathfinders
in our home church, the Oakwood
College Church, where she also serves as a clerk.
Norma
is the principal agent in home-schooling Derek,
twelve and a half, and Deryka Joy,
eleven. Even though she teaches
at A and M, Norma has taken to home-schooling the kids like a duck to water.
If my name were Rockfeller, she would stay home in a flash to teach
them full-time! I jokingly refer
to myself as the principal of our home-school, doing what principals do when
students misbehave or need motivation….
As
I look at our children, I see traits that reflect Norma’s and mine.
Some of these qualities make us smile, while others keep us on our
knees in prayer. Deryka,
who is as personable as her mother, loves children and wants to be a
pediatrician. With interests that
are much like mine, our son is not yet sure, however, of what he wants to be,
but he says it is a tossup between being a pastor, a college history teacher,
or an N. B. A. player.
My
family figures in my life’s goals. With
all my heart, I want to be like God; it is my consuming aim in life.
As I move toward it, I fervently ask Him to use me to enrich and save
the lives of my biological and spiritual families and as many other persons as
possible. I look forward to the
day when this world of sin, suffering, and deceit will be properly supplanted
by the righteousness, wonders, and eternity of the New Earth.
There
I will leap as a deer and experience the love and beauty of forever
interacting with the God who saved my unworthy life, the angels who
perseveringly watched over me, the saints of all the ages who overcame with
me, and the beings of the unfallen worlds.
May this Blessed Hope be realized soon!
Even so, come, Lord Jesus! This
is My Life Today. ” Contact
Dr. Bowe at educator7000@hotmail.com
or Oakwood College at 256-726 7356
- Derek C. Bowe