Serving since 2021 She served previously as the head of school and high school principal at Grandville Calvin Christian Schools, where she cofounded Ambassador High, a Big Picture Learning school. She started her career as a paramedic for American Medical Response, working in downtown Grand Rapids.
She has served on multiple boards and holds her master’s degree in educational leadership from Grand Valley State University.
Today, Thelma Ensink serves as Director of Degage Ministries.
Full Transcript:
Shelley Irwin: Welcome to Powerful Women Let's Talk, I'm Shelley Irwin. Today we're speaking with Thelma Ensink, Executive Director of Degage Ministries. Serving since 2021, she served previously as the Head of School and High School Principal at Granville Calvin Christian Schools, where she co-founded Ambassador High, a big picture learning school. She started her career as a paramedic for American Medical Response, working in downtown Grand Rapids. So she served on multiple boards, holds her master's degree in educational leadership from Grand Valley State University. Good day to you Thelma.
Thelma Ensink: Hi Shelly, thanks so much for having me.
SI: Do your Degage guest feel safe that you have a paramedic background? So, you know, your diverse service comes full circle.
TE: It is really handy to have that training and that background, you know, in shelter, we work with women who are a little older. You know, when you experience homelessness, your health can be fragile. And so having those skills can come in handy as we sometimes have some medical emergencies.
SI: We'll talk a little bit about your meandering of career, staying in present day. What moved you to seek your role at Degage?
TE: I started my career as a paramedic in downtown Grand Rapids, and I still distinctly remember picking somebody up in my ambulance who shared with me his story of how he became unhoused. And as a young woman I was just really struck by his story and what he explained to me. I did not know much about homelessness at that time. And it struck me, hey, this man's life wasn't that different from my own. But for a few events in his life, he finds himself in this place. And that story stuck with me throughout my career as I was a teacher, as I taught social studies, as I became a principal and a head of school. And a few years ago, I just really felt I think what I would say a calling back to the inner city, back to a really vulnerable population. And it's about halfway through my career. And I said, do I want to retire from education? And do I want to try something else? And just really felt, felt called to this work at Degagé.
SI: How would you describe your work at Degagé?
So I get to serve as the executive director, you know, and sometimes kids when I would speak at schools will ask me like, what does an executive director do? And it's a little bit of everything. It's really providing vision and leadership to the organization and to the staff. But Ialso still get to at a smaller nonprofit, I get to spend time directly with our clients and with our guests. And I think that's what keeps my bucket full, you know, because we can get tired sometimes working on financial strategies and fundraising, envisioning for the future. But when we go and we sit with a client and we hear how important the work that we do is when we see the direct impact on somebody's life, that's what keeps me going. So my day is a little bit of everything.
SI: Who are your guests?
TE: So our guests are women primarily, but also men who are experiencing homelessness. They are people who lived a life not very different from my own. Many of them have advanced education. Many of them have incredible gifts and talents, but things happen in their life. They may have been an abusive relationship They may have had a health crisis. They may have lost their financial Means or relationships and they find themselves with no place to go. And so they walk through our doors seeking emergency shelter or seeking a meal or seeking ID services Whatever it is that they need to get rehoused.
SI: What's it take for you to do this job?
TE: You have to be somebody, uh, I think first and foremost who can listen. You need to listen to what somebody's story is, what brought them here to be able to problem solve and brainstorm with them. Like how do we move forward? How do we overcome these obstacles so we don't find ourselves in this position? Again, you need to be somebody who can think critically, who can be adaptive, um, to whatever might come your way. You need to be somebody…with a strong stomach sometimes because there's some just things that we see and experience that are hard. You need to be somebody who can separate yourself from the work at the end of the day emotionally because it can be a lot.
SI: Was life in service developed in you or did you grow up in this atmosphere?
TE: So both my parents were healthcare professionals and we grew up in, I grew up in South Africa, you know, in a time that was pretty tumultuous and so I saw my parents serving. I remember a time when a bomb went off in our city and my dad was gone for several days. And so I do think from the youngest age that I saw my parents serve, I saw my parents respond to emergencies, and I think it was always something I thought, I would like to be able to do that too.
SI: Paramedic, high school principal, executive director, talk a film about. I mean, you took a risk to explore what could be a significant change in your direction. Were these purposeful directions? Did you say yes to opportunities?
TE: I really did know that I wanted to come back to the inner city. I wanted to come back to downtown Grand Rapids where I started my career. I really did know that I wanted to work with the unhoused population. It was more a question of which organization's going to have an opportunity. And so my predecessor who served at Degage for 23 years happened to retire the year that I was making my change. It was of course the pandemic year. And so being superintendent that year, we had to walk through that with teachers and with students. And so I think I ended my contract in July. I slept most of August and then began my job search and this opportunity presented itself. And right from the first interview, it just felt like this is the right fit, this is my home. And I get to serve in the incredible team and I think that's what keeps me going.
SI: Your educational hat was important to you. What drove you to co-found Ambassador High? What, this is a big picture learning school?
TE: Yeah, you know, as I listened to students and to parents at the schools where I served, you know, there are so many students that are successful and they do really well, but there are some students that their learning lights a little dim. They're not as excited about learning or about education. And so I started to ask myself and my colleagues started asking ourselves the question of, what can we do for these students? How can we help that learning light turn on and shine bright again? And we really landed on this idea of kids love to learn through experience. They love to learn through projects. They love to see how learning impacts the real world. And that's what big picture learning is all about. It's about doing things in the work environment. It's about producing products or projects for real purposes in our community. And that gets a lot of kids excited, and that got me excited as an educator. And I saw some of these schools around the country, and so I said, we need one of these in Granville.
SI: And is that continuing even though you've moved on?
TE: No, so a few years after I left, they decided not to continue with that, but we have another one now in Grand Rapids at North Point Christian that continues on. So it's living on in our community.
SI: What are the leadership skills that you need specifically for your Degage community? And I know you said listening.
TE: Yeah, I think that I need to lead by example. So living out our core values in what I do day to day. But it's also a lot about being able to problem solve and adapt. We think about homelessness not just as a Degage problem, but as a community problem. So more and more I'm being pulled into community conversations. How can we work across not only organizations, but with our city government, with other organizations, with our county government, our state government to solve for this problem? So you really have to be somebody who...can see a pattern, can see where there might be opportunity for collaboration or innovation. I think innovation is probably a really important skill in the world we're in today.
SI: What do you expect of your guests?
TE: Well, we wanna be a safe place that invites everybody to come in as they are. But once they arrive there, we really want to show them that we can resolve conflict in a peaceful way. Many of them come from traumatic situations and maybe haven't had that modeled for them. So that's something that we sometimes have to reteach. We help them to feel safe so that they can heal from the traumatic events that they've experienced before. We do have some rules that are important for everybody to follow so everybody's safe. But really we expect them to start their own healing journey and that looks different for every single person.
SI: Does your soul ever experience frustration?
TE: Yeah, for sure. Just like everyone else, you know? And the work we do is really hard. So there are days you go home and you think, did we really make a difference today? Did we really move forward? You know, and I encourage myself and my colleagues on those days to say, maybe it doesn't feel like homelessness is solved in Grand Rapids today, or maybe it doesn't even feel like we made a big impact today, but that's when we remember the individuals that we've impacted. That's when we look back and we see how many people are rehoused, that's when we look back and we see how many individuals are thriving. Then we know we've made an impact. So whenever I get frustrated or upset, I always tell myself to turn around and look back.
SI: Because good things have happened looking back. And most likely looking forward under your leadership. How should we be educating the community about the unhoused? And is that the correct word?
TE: Yeah, I think we like to say unhoused or people experiencing homelessness. We don't want homelessness to define somebody as somebody, it's something that they're experiencing right now. I think the most important thing is to realize that there's a lot of misunderstandings around individuals experiencing homelessness. Some people think it is a choice. Some people think it is just mistakes they've made in their life or it's almost always the result of substance use. And those things are big, broad strokes that don't capture the individual journey of each person. You know, most often 55% of women that come into shelter at Degage, it is because they were in an abusive or unhealthy relationship. So there's just so many layers of the onion to peel back. When it comes to this, it is so much understanding why an individual experiences that, but also understanding as a community why we're experiencing that. There is discrimination in our community. There is inequality in our community. There are generational cycles of poverty that make people more vulnerable to these kinds of experiences. So it's really starting to understand it at an individual level, but also understanding it at a community and a systems level.
SI: Where did volunteer work in your personal life come? Because I know you're asking for volunteers as we speak.
TE: Yeah, I've always enjoyed it. Even as a young person, I remember volunteering at church or volunteering in our community. And I actually got to volunteer at Degage a couple of times and Guiding Light a couple of times when I was a young adult. My husband and I used to be youth leaders. And so we take our youth to serve. So I think...I've seen my parents serve my whole life and it was something that was important to me too.
SI: How does the ministry of the title fit in your personal life?
TE: Yeah, I grew up as somebody who have never known a world without it being centered around God, right? I understood from the youngest age that God created the world, God created me. Any gifts I have are not my own. They're to be used to serve others. I grew up in a very conservative Dutch Reformed Church in Africa and over the years have been on a spiritual journey that have taken me to different places and helped me to see how just wide and expansive and inclusive God's love is. But it's always been at the center of my life since birth.
SI: What is your call to the community when one is at the street corner asking for a hand up? What do we do?
TE: Well, I think first of all, we introduce ourselves. We get to know the person by name, because it is about a relationship. The person standing there has a story. I think secondly, it's about empowering them to be able to move forward. So at Degage we love when people buy the community vouchers and hand somebody a community voucher, because that community voucher allows them to come into Degage and get services. They get a meal, they can get a haircut, they can get an ID, but they're also connecting with somebody to learn about: here's how I apply for benefits. Here's how I can get employment or income. So I think that's the thing is relationship number one and empowerment number two.
SI: You hit the ground running in the morning?
TE: I do, I'm a morning person. Yeah, my eyes pop open about 4:30 and try to get a little exercise in. Definitely need a good cup of coffee and get my kids ready to go to school. I have three kids and... and then when I get to work, it's spending a few minutes in the dining room, just talking with guests, spending a few minutes talking with staff and catching up on what's happening in our lives beyond those walls. And then it's a day ahead of us of many different things. I can be one minute responding to a medical emergency and the next minute in a board meeting or in a community meeting. And I love that. There's never a dull moment.
SI: Do your kids recognize the work that you do?
TE: They do. So my oldest has already been bit by the bug. He works at Degage and he's 17 years old. He works in our kitchen and he has decided that he wants to explore social work and go into that field. So excited about that. But my daughter who's almost 15 and my youngest who's 12, they will come in sometimes and volunteer and they've learned a lot. And I think they've, you know, been able to see a little bit beyond their own privileged upbringing and understand that not everyone's life is exactly the same as theirs.
SI: And what is your get away from it all secret?
TE: It's pretty, it's pretty simple and practical. I have two dogs, um, and three kids. And so for me, it's about laughing and spending family time and being silly. Uh, you know, once in a while, don't mind a vacation and maybe going somewhere warm, but for the most part, it's just about those little things, a Saturday morning, having coffee, heading out to the trails. We have so many beautiful trails in Michigan and enjoying those, but it's just about remembering that we have great relationships in our lives because every day I see examples of people who've lost that, and so I wanna treasure the ones in my life.
SI: You realize you put your dogs before your kids. I did, yeah. That's okay.
TE: Yeah, they're wonderful.
SI: Thank you, Thelma, for your story.
TE: Thank you, Shelly.
