by Nicole Smith, Athletics Communications Intern<\/i><\/p>\n
W<\/span>hen most 16-year-olds get a driver\u2019s license, the first thing they might think about is all the places they can go with their friends. Sophomore biochemistry major\u00a0Jacob Janzen, however, decided to use his license to help others.<\/p>\n A graduate of Jenks, Oklahoma, Janzen came to OBU on a track scholarship where he runs in long distance events. This year Janzen made All-Great American Conference and NCCAA All-American. When he\u2019s not running track for OBU during the school year, he usually spends his summer delivering food for Meals on Wheels to families in need. He got started when he noticed a call for drivers posted on his church\u2019s bulletin board.<\/p>\n \u201cI started my junior year of high school when I got my license so it\u2019s been about three years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Janzen, who said he was looking for an opportunity to help the Tulsa community, felt he could use his new license to do some of God\u2019s work.<\/p>\n \u201cThey needed a lot more drivers because they\u2019re so short staffed,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s really bad in north Tulsa, there\u2019s a lot of poverty, so I felt called to go out there and try to do the best I can to help out.\u201d<\/p>\n Janzen\u2019s former church, the First Presbyterian church of Tulsa, provides the meals and has them ready for him to pick-up and deliver.<\/p>\n \u201cI go and pick up all the meals and work out a route and deliver all the meals to the people and visit with them,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause we also keep an eye on their well-being, if they\u2019re sick or something like that we report it.\u201d<\/p>\n Jansen said that making sure those in need have something to eat is a rewarding feeling. While some aren\u2019t necessarily happy about having to receive help, Janzen said his deliveries are usually met with gratitude. One man even invited him into his home once to share a piece of scripture.<\/p>\n \u201cWe talked a little bit about some of our favorite Bible verses,\u201d he said. \u201cWe talked several times about Paul\u2019s letters and he was a really big fan of Paul.\u201d<\/p>\n Janzen said at the time he hadn\u2019t studied much of Paul\u2019s letters and said the conversation made him feel led to read them more closely.<\/p>\n \u201cIt really helped me grow in my faith a lot so I\u2019m very grateful for that interaction,\u201d he said. \u201cIt only lasted 25 minutes or so but it made a pretty lifelong impact.\u201d<\/p>\n While he doesn\u2019t get much time to help during breaks due to his family\u2019s move to Edmond, he still helps with Meals on Wheels at his former church every summer.<\/p>\n Currently Janzen is working on his degree in biochemistry so he can continue to help others in the medical field.<\/p>\n \u201cI really would like to be a nuclear pharmacist, who works with com-pounding nuclear medicine for cancer treatments,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In the meantime, he will continue to spend his summers helping to make sure that those in need can enjoy a good meal \u2013 proof that sometimes all you need to do God\u2019s work is a car, a full tank of gas and a willing heart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Nicole Smith, Athletics Communications Intern When most 16-year-olds get a driver\u2019s license, the first thing they might think about is all the places they can go with their friends. Sophomore biochemistry major\u00a0Jacob Janzen, however, decided to use his license to help others. A graduate of Jenks, Oklahoma, Janzen came to OBU on a track […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2386,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":""},"categories":[141,91],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.okbu.edu\/obumagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/janzen2.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7BMz3-zl","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.okbu.edu\/obumagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2191"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.okbu.edu\/obumagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.okbu.edu\/obumagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.okbu.edu\/obumagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.okbu.edu\/obumagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2191"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.okbu.edu\/obumagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2192,"href":"https:\/\/www.okbu.edu\/obumagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2191\/revisions\/2192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.okbu.edu\/obumagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.okbu.edu\/obumagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.okbu.edu\/obumagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.okbu.edu\/obumagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}