As a 16-year-old student from the Philippines, my enrollment at Macalester College in 1954 was facilitated by my godfather, Bishop Dr. Enrique Sobrepena. He was the presiding bishop of the United Church of the Philippines, newly formed in 1948 as an indigenous Philippine protestant denomination. One of the organizing denominations included the Presbyterian Church. Bishop Sobrepena was an alumnus of Macalester College (1923) and personal friend of Dr. Charles Turck and Dean Margaret Doty.

In 1960, after our wedding in Austin, Minn., at First Congregational Church where I worked as director of religious education after graduating from seminary in 1959, and after our Philippines wedding, my husband Bill and I settled in the Detroit metro area. From 1969-1988, we lived there and raised our three children. We have been blessed that despite the challenges of inner city living. Jennifer, Mark, and Mara learned and benefited from their public school education and experiences:

Dr. Mark Bela Moldwin and his wife, Patty Hogan, live in Culver City, Calif. They have two children, Lauren and Kyle. Mark is a Professor of Space Physics at UCLA.

Mara Moldwin and her husband, the Rev. Don Larsen, have two children, Thomas and Susan. They are enrolled at SUNY and Purchase and West Hartford High School respectively. Mara is an attorney.

Jennifer Moldwin Gustafson and her husband, John, live in Michigan. They have a son. She recently left her position as head of the Research Library and Archives at Detroit Institute of Arts to be a full-time Mom.

In 1975, I was one of the second graduating classes of Physician Assistants (PAs) in the state of Michigan, graduating from University of Detroit/Mercy Physician Assistant Program and doing my internship in inner city Detroit, where husband Bill was a pastor and community organizer (1967-77). After passing my National Board exams and obtaining my license to practice medicine as a PA, I worked in family medicine in the city center of Detroit, near our church St. Philip Workers Lutheran. Because of the poverty of the people that we served, and with the economic downturn of Detroit, payless paydays got to be quite a challenge! I left family practice to be one of the first PAs who became house staff for the Department of Medicine for Harper Hospital in Detroit.

In 1977, Governor William Milliken of Michigan appointed four PAs to be the Committee on Physician Assistants, which subsequently became the Task Force of Physician Assistants, the licensing and regulatory body for PAs in the state of Michigan.  I was one of them and was subsequently reappointed by Governor James Blanchard, my Tenure lasting until 1988 when I resigned to move to Connecticut where my husband accepted a call to be pastor at the First Lutheran Church of the Reformation in New Britain. While in Connecticut, I worked as the first PA in the Department of Medicine at Sinai Hospital, Hartford; Geriatric PA at St. Raphael, New Haven; and PA in the Department of Medicine, New Britain, where I retired in 2001.

While in Connecticut, Governor Lowell Weicker appointed me as the first and only PA in the State of Connecticut to the Medical Examining Board (Board of Medicine) in 1994.  My tenure continued until 2000. I had the privilege to represent the state of Connecticut on the Federation of Medical Boards House of Delegates in 1998. I feel really blessed and honored to have had some of the pioneering positions in my third career and profession as Physician Assistant. Although I am now retired, I continue various volunteer work in Geriatric Medicine and Hospice.

Although physical challenges (I now have bilateral titanium and ceramic knees!) and the constraint of time and energies, I continue to be quite active with community and church activities.

After Macalester, I have had the opportunity to be a Trustee of Carthage College (Kenosha, Wis.), elected from 1977-’86 by the Michigan Synod of the Lutheran Church in America (LCA). It was heartwarming that the Dean of Carthage was Dean Earl Spangler, my history teacher at Mac! I was also the first chairperson of the Asian Association of the new Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in 1990.

My husband Bill and I have retired to a home that Bill (our contractor) built us on the shore of Lake Huron and in “the thumb” of Michigan. we continue to have a busy and full involved life!

Macalester, the faculty, friends, and experiences were life changing, life enriching, and where many of my experiences and challenges helped me learn and grow and live and make choices, many to which still reflect in my priorities today.