After graduating from SCPS in 2005, Grant Roszkowiak enrolled in Wheaton College in Illinois, one of the most respected Christian Colleges in America, widely regarded for its faithfulness and its academic programs. With academic scholarships to Wheaton, Grant majored in Christian Formation and Ministry. He was also a starter on Wheaton’s successful football team. Immediately following his graduation in May 2009, Grant left for Haiti two weeks later. He began his work as a missionary in Saint Louis du Nord, on the northern coast of Haiti.
In his first months in Haiti, Grant met Natasha, also a Christian missionary. The couple would be married in March 2011. For his first seven months in Haiti, Grant carried on his ministry, and Haiti was an adventure for this recent college graduate. In January 2010, everything changed—Grant’s life and faith changed forever.
Grant recalls that he was simply “walking up a hill” when the earth itself began rumbling and heaving. He couldn’t have known that he was in the middle of the horrific earthquake that devastated Haiti and killed around 150,000 people. This earthquake thrust him into a world of unimaginable suffering: “I remember caravans and caravans of wooden coffins…. I did as many funerals as weddings.” Long after the destruction of the earthquake itself, cholera resulted in the deaths of many thousands more. Looking pensive, Grant reflects that the “multiple deaths every day were like an unending car wreck.” Like a young man who has become a combat veteran, Grant also became an adult Christian during the weeks after the earthquake.
Yet these war zone-like experiences with the devastation and horrendous loss of life deepened and transformed Grant’s faith in a way he could not have imagined as an American undergraduate in a private college. Grant observed that the message of the Gospel took on a clarity and urgency that have led him into the ministry. Before the earthquake, Grant said, “I knew Jesus as Savior.” After the earthquake, “I knew Jesus as Lord.” Ministering to the thousands of survivors—just trying to locate clean water and food—shifted Grant’s faith “from head to heart.” Grant and Natasha returned to Savannah with a completely different understanding of life, transformed in their own faith. They now have two sons, James and Peter.
Back in Savannah, Grant divides his time between Savannah Christian Prep and the ministerial team at Savannah Christian Church. At SCPS, Grant teaches the “Old Testament” and “Life of Jesus” courses in the Upper School. He also serves as chaplain in the Upper School. There is no doubt his experiences in Haiti have made him a voice for Christ for students and faculty alike. Savannah Christian Prep is blessed, indeed, to have this outstanding young alumnus on its faculty.
David Pitre