Staff Recognition
SPU staff members of the month are nominated by their peers and selected by Staff Council. If you would like to nominate a person for this recognition, proceed to the nomination page.
Meet the SPU Staff Member of the Month
Deb Nondorf
Minister of Christian Community Formation - University Ministries
Deb Nondorf recently went through 56 boxes of stuff in her living room. The first half of Deb’s life was spent moving around and purging constantly, so once she settled in Marysville 31 years ago, she let her stuff settle too.
Deb loved finding her grandmother’s sewing pin cushion, the stovetop spoon holder she made in 3rd grade, and anything that helped connect her to people who have since passed. “Those were very precious, sweet memories of rediscovery,” she says.
She also found a vintage ticket book to Disneyland, which opened up the year after Deb was born, and was only two miles from her family’s Anaheim home. If she stood on the electric meter in her backyard and leaned out, she could watch the fireworks at Disneyland each night. Her family loved going to the park, and she still considers herself a “Disney freak.”
Photos from her graduate assistant days at Ohio State also showed up in a box. While at the university, she oversaw the aquatics center — five pools, 125 lifeguards, and eight supervisors. She even got to meet Bob Costas when he was a rookie reporter during a Chinese-American diving competition. That was also when the fire alarm went off to the horror of the Chinese team, many of whom were half-naked in the locker room. But Deb came to their rescue. “Follow me,” she said in English while motioning with her hands. Finally, she got the frightened divers out of the building.
Deb also found the scrapbooks she made in elementary school and junior high school. She theorizes that her mother made her create them in order to minimize the amount of stuff needed on a move. At 13, she moved from California to Virginia with her family. Talk about culture shock! The Confederate flag flew at her high school and “Dixie” — a song paying homage to the old south — was sung before the National Anthem at football games. This is where Deb first developed a heart for “the outsider” — and felt like one herself. Subsequent moves took her to Indiana, Idaho, Michigan, Ohio, and Washington State, where she later settled.
Deb has two adult children, Adam and Sarah, four grandchildren, and has been married to her husband Gary for 30 years this February. (Fun fact: Deb and Gary were engaged for 27 days!) While all of the boxes may make it sound like Deb loves possessions, material things don’t have a lot of value to her. One of her friends says, “Deb, some people collect things, and you collect people.”
That’s exactly what she’s done at her job in University Ministries at Seattle Pacific. She advises Relinquish, Sharpen, the SMC program, and works with the Anama Chara Women’s Ministry. But her favorite part is listening to students describe their spiritual journeys and the call of God on their lives. “It’s worth getting up and riding the bus for four hours every day,” she says.
Bob Zurinsky, the assistant director of The Center for Worship, admires how Deb pushes students to discover the truth about their own lives and their walk with God. “She doesn’t press people to follow formulas or conform to popular concepts of what life's journey is 'supposed to' look like,” he says. “She encourages honesty, and that frees people to open up and share what is going on under the surface of their lives.”
Please join the Staff Council in congratulating Deb as December’s Staff of the Month!