Sometimes where one ends up in life can be unexpected. Jennifer Dvorak, Iola High School English teacher, has taken paths that many would attempt singly and woven them together through her passion to educate.
Dvorak grew up in the Topeka area, attending Shawnee Heights High School. Originally, becoming a teacher wasn’t on her agenda.
“I wanted to be a pastor,” Dvorak said. “I knew that in order to be one, you had to have a degree before you could go to seminary.”
Toward the end of her high school years, a teacher recommended she pursue education.
“She had me proctor a few classes and I guess saw some natural talent in me,” Dvorak said.
Dvorak attended Emporia State University and after a false start with psychology, switched to education.
And while that career path seemed better-suited, she still felt her faith wasn’t adequately challenged. That is, until she attended a conference for Christian campus organizations and she heard about an opportunity to do mission work in Africa.
“I had originally planned on going to New Guinea,” Dvorak said. “But I guess God wanted me to go to Africa because He presented a great opportunity to me.”
For each of the last two years Dvorak has spent a month in Uganda doing mission work teaching children how to read and write.
Since graduating last December, also Dvorak spent time teaching at Emporia High School. Settling in southeast Kansas was a family choice.
“My husband, Chris, teaches English at Crest High School in Colony,” Dvorak said. “He loves the school so far and I do as well.”
Coming from much larger communities to living in the Allen County area has had its rewards and challenges. Dvorak said she is struck by how open and friendly everyone has been.
“One of the math teachers who has her classroom on the third floor came down to me the other day,” Dvorak said. “She just walked up to me and said, ‘If there is anything I can do to help you out, you let me know.’ We don’t teach in the same subject or on the same floor so she really went out of her way to make me feel welcome. That kind of generosity has been wonderful. I can’t say enough about the people I work with.”
Dvorak said it’s going to take a while to adjust living in as small a town as Colony.
“It’s a wonderful community,” Dvorak said. “But it doesn’t even have a gas station, so living farther away from somewhere like Walmart is different. If you run out of something you can’t just ask your husband to run down the street to the store.”
