Mrs. Erin Hamstra
Personal Profile
I was born and raised in the Chicago area (Tinley Park) by two loving and God-fearing parents. My four brothers and I had the privilege of attending a Christian school (Timothy’s rival: Chicago Christian!). This past summer I married my best friend, Harold (Hal) Hamstra. We both enjoy playing and watching sports, outdoor activities, politics and lively conversation.
Professional Profile
I have always found joy in teaching! I loved playing teacher with my younger brothers growing up. I used to make my bedroom look like a classroom, chalkboard and all. Because of this love, I decided to go to Calvin College to achieve a teaching degree. I graduated spring of 2006 with a major in history and a minor in political science. I played on Calvin’s softball team for one year, and the remaining years I coached for a local Christian middle school. This will be my fifth year teaching at Timothy and I am excited and feel very blessed to be part of the Timothy Christian community. I pray that God will continue to richly bless our time together here.
Philosophical Profile
As a Christian history teacher, I have the fascinating job of showing students how our sovereign God has a plan and a purpose for His creation. My goal here at Timothy is to have my students understand that God has guided the past and continues to be very committed to His creation and His image bearers.
To reach this goal, I emphasize two main points in my classroom. First, by studying history, we see that our world is fallen. However, the story for Christians does not stop there. Instead of being disheartened by the injustices of the world, we can learn from the mistakes of the past and work towards restoring God’s creation to its original purpose: to bring glory to Him.
As we see from history, God uses unlikely people to do extraordinary things. My second point in the classroom is to stress that we are the “unlikely people!” My hope is to better equip my students to be servants in God’s world, making a difference in the history enfolding in their lifetime.
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