Introducing Roger Bouma - Our Church Chaplain
Margaret Broersma
We could call him Commander Roger Bouma, US Navy, retired; but most military people just call him Chaplain. We at Hillside usually call him Roger. He may be retired from the military, but he has risen to the occasion of our need and filled the void for a visitation pastor. If you have been seriously ill, in the hospital, or seldom get out, you have probably had a visit from Roger. He says that his purpose in visitation is to bring the love of Jesus to those who need it. Many poignant experiences have combined to make him who is today.
Roger has a rich family history of men in ministry. His great-grandfather helped found Fuller Avenue CRC. This grandparent was an artist too, and painted a mural of Christ in the Garden on the wall of the consistory room at Fuller Avenue CRC. His father and grandfather were also in the ministry. His great-uncle also preached at Fuller Ave, and just a few weeks ago, his son David Bouma was ordained in that church. And to round out the family of ministers, his son Rev. Chris Bouma is currently the pastor of Ideal Park CRC. (They also have two grandchildren, and a daughter, Katherine, who lives and works in Chicago.)
Roger himself experienced his call to the ministry at an early age. Following a near fatal bicycle accident as a boy, he became aware that God had saved his life for service. He talked to his pastor a lot after the incident and made profession of faith at the age of twelve. Having nearly seen death, he felt that he knew God. And just in case he needed a reminder to stay the course toward Christian service, he had two other near death experiences that reminded him his life was but a vapor; he could be gone in an instant, but that if God wills for him to live, then his life is meant to be lived for Christ. The second near death experience was another bike accident, during which he flew through the windshield of a car. He says that his helmet and his gloves saved him. But he knew that God had saved him. And he reaffirmed in his own mind that he would serve the Lord with whatever life he was given. The third near death experience Roger had was when he was attacked by a patient at Pine Rest. It happened when he was working there as a psych assistant while a student at Calvin College. Because of his dramatic experience with this patient, Pine Rest changed their protocol for taking patients from their rooms.
Pine Rest is even more important in Roger’s life because it is where he met the charming Charlene Swart, RN, who became his wife. He says when they met they had an immediate connection, but she had to go off to U o f M for her Master’s Degree while he had to continue on from college into Calvin Seminary. Their courtship involved a lot of letter writing! They saw each other mostly on school breaks, and got married on the one year anniversary of their meeting. Roger says often that without the independent, supportive and loving wife that Char has been, he could never have fulfilled his callings in the military and in Christian service.
Another thing he learned while working at Pine Rest was that he wanted to do ministry within an organization. He made this desire known to his family and his uncle, a professor of mathematics at the US Naval Academy. His uncle took Roger to visit the academy. He met all the chaplains who worked there, thereby solidifying his desire to become a chaplain in the armed forces. Because he wanted to be a Christian Reformed chaplain, however, he had extra requirements to meet.
He first had to apply to the chaplaincy committee of the Christian Reformed Church. If they accepted him, he knew that before he could be a chaplain he had to be a pastor. They did accept him, and he was sent to pastor the little mission church in South Haven called Kibbie CRC. He remembers that little church with fondness and warmth as he and Char took their first steps into ministry. After many interviews, evaluations, and extra hours of training in the military, he was finally ready to become a US Military Chaplain.
We accept the fact that our men and women in military will live through some scary experiences. There were times when it was scary and just plain hard for Char as well as Roger. Early in his career there was a big hurricane in the sea off Guam. He lived through the hurricane, and some weeks to follow, on an aircraft carrier far out in the ocean, while Char and their young child stayed in Guam and lived through the same hurricane without water or power for weeks. One of the worst parts of that experience was that they could have no direct communication with each other. As the ship’s chaplain, he got his superiors to allow them to write a newsletter to their families, but there were no personal messages of love for the one person with whom he really wanted to communicate. The whole ordeal was such an event that Time magazine pictured the aircraft carrier on the cover to show how our military survived the hurricane at sea.
And then there was “Shock and Awe” at the beginning of the war in Afghanistan. This period was Roger’s most traumatic time in the military. He jumped from helicopters onto a different aircraft carrier every other day for weeks, to try to bring comfort, prayer, and a word to the terrified men heading into who knows what. Men he would only see one time. More than any other, those difficult weeks left their mark on Roger—both physically and emotionally. His knees were injured in all that jumping and he still has bouts of PTSD from the trauma.
Roger and Char have both led our church in discussions about PTSD and other injury that such experiences may cause. With his military chaplain experiences and her experience and training as a psych nurse, there isn’t much they cannot identify.
When Roger visits people he always prays and often reads the Word. There is power in prayer and there is strength and courage within the pages of scripture, and Roger Bouma, our church’s chaplain, can help you find it.
We offer this story as a salute to all the men and women at Hillside who have served and are serving in the United States Military.