“Then sings my soul, my Savior God to thee! How great thou art!”
This evening Dordt College presented a choir concert of music by Dale Grotenhuis. Grotenhuis was the first choir director at Dordt and really helped spread Dordt’s name when the college was in its infancy. He was planning on coming out and conducting one of the songs, but he is getting up there in age and, unfortunately, was not able to make it.
When you sing a whole bunch of songs from one composer/arranger, you get to learn about them and their style. It was an absolute pleasure to sing his arrangements of hymns and songs he wrote for specific occasions.
Although was music was not hard or really that impressive for the most part, I enjoyed this concert more than any other. Dale Grotenhuis’ faith was so evident in his music and it was a pleasure to praise God for an hour and a half straight. His son, Jack was a promising musician who died in a car accident. God allowed Dale to turn that event around and out of it came a very moving song about God’s faithfulness and just character. He also wrote a song dedicated to two of his former students after their daughter died. Unknown to us until today, our concert marked the thirteenth anniversary of her passing.
We also sang Dordt’s alma mater, which he wrote, and one other song with about 30 alumni. One of the lines spoke of seeing God’s faithfulness from generation to generation, which was very meaningful in the context of all the alumni (I just wish my mom could have been there).
Thank you, God, for allowing and using your servant to serve so many people.
P.S. I don’t know what he looks like now, but in this picture his hair is fantastic.
