History
Dr.’s Mark and Valerie Willman are grateful members of the Kaua`i Community. They relocated from Indiana where they met at Purdue University, to Washington State and ultimately Kaua`i in 2004. The last of their parents passed away in 2019 leaving them substantial estates. Mark and Valerie have worked hard and saved financially throughout their careers. They have no children, but desire to give back to the Kaua`i Community that has so richly blessed them. Their goal is to leave a legacy in honor of God and both sets of their parents.
Reviewing their life experiences on Kaua`i, they identified a clear need. Valerie is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Board Certified in Christian Counseling. When she arrived on Kaua`i, the mental health practitioners encouraged her to pursue her unique specialty practice in Integrative Christian Counseling. When Valerie looked for a place to have her practice, Kaua`i Bible Church offered her office space, making it feasible to maintain the integrated approach of faith and psychological practice outside of a secular setting where there were limits placed on this type of practice. Since opening her practice in 2005, Valerie has not advertised yet has maintained a waitlist of clients. Taking this into consideration, Mark and Valerie realized that the Lord was identifying a significant need for Christian Integrated Counseling on Kaua`i.
Mark and Valerie decided that they would use their finances to support a place where Christian Counselors would integrate their faith into their practice, supporting them in providing much needed services to the Kaua`i Community. They began plans in November 2020, recruiting a Board of Directors and on February 26, 2022, met with the Nehemiah Center Kaua`i Board for the first time. The Nehemiah Center Kaua`i incorporated in August of 2021, and received approval for tax exempt status in December of 2022.
Honoring of parents
Dr. Vallee Louis Willman and Melba Lorraine Willman
Mark’s parents were born in the 1920’s in rural southern Illinois into families with limited financial means. Even with their economic challenges, the seeds were planted for benevolence, and they were able to excel in academics. Vallee was raised on a farm near Greenville, Illinois, left college to join the effort to defend our country in World War II as a Navy pilot. When he completed his mission, he entered medical school at St. Louis University through the GI bill. Vallee specialized in cardio-vascular surgery and became Chairman of the Department of Surgery at St. Louis University, a role in which he served for 26 years. He was known for his work refining surgical techniques and pioneered the first Midwest heart transplantation procedure in 1972.
Read more
Melba grew-up in Carbondale, Illinois. She was awarded an academic scholarship and attended the University of Illinois, earning a B.A. degree in home economics with honors. After school, she moved to St. Louis to work in retail. Vallee and Melba met in St. Louis. Inspired by Vallee, Melba converted to Catholicism. They married in 1952 and had 9 children.
Family life for the Willmans was centered around home activities, school, church and frequent visits to the family farm. Vallee’s work provided pets for the kids, including a dog and several monkeys. Vallee and Melba placed a high priority on education, enrolling their children in the best schools available. To keep the children active at home, Vallee and Melba installed a pool in the backyard, attracting friends and neighbors. Melba grew in her ability to entertain family and university gatherings by learning exquisite hospitality and cooking methods. The daily family routine involved waiting for Vallee to come home to eat dinner together and his before dinner devotional prompting mealtime discussions/debates. They taught their children responsibility by assigning home chores with Melba and summertime home improvement projects with Vallee. The family witnessed Vallee’s faith through his daily praying routine and attending weekly mass together as a family. They regularly traveled one hour to the grandparents’ farm for family gatherings and farm adventures. Summer vacations included pre-dawn departures, driving to the Missouri Ozarks for camping and/or canoe float trips.
Tragically, Vallee and Melba lost a teenage son. Their Christian faith guided them at this time of deep darkness and despair. They sought their own counseling like Nehemiah Center Kaua`i will now offer. Through their grief counseling they learned to build new skills into their lives. With the loss of their son, there was a great sense of human compassion each shown through their actions at the hospital. Melba formed support groups to provide consolation to other grieving parents, established a volunteer program to comfort families of surgical patients and made significant contributions to assist out-of-town families receiving medical attention at the St. Louis University Hospital. To this day, Vallee is remembered by the physicians he instructed for his patient-centered teaching. In their retirement, Vallee and Melba volunteered in a food kitchen. They were humble and compassionate in service to others.
Saint Louis University honored the Willmans’ contributions to the medical school and hospital by naming an endowed chair to the medical school titled: “Vallee and Melba Willman Endowed Chair.” Melba and Val were married for 57 years before Vallee died in 2009, Melba in 2018.
Dr. Jimmy Donald Ludwick and Josephine Marguerite Ludwick
Val’s parents had early life experiences from which they learned persistence, frugality, and care for others. Valerie’s father, Don, was born and raised Jewish in a predominantly French community in Montreal, Canada where he and his family experienced anti-Semitism and economic hardship. Hoping to provide a better life for her son in America, his mother made the difficult decision to divorce his father and relocate to Idaho where she had family. Don graduated from the College of Idaho and eventually earned a PhD in nuclear chemistry from Purdue University. A brilliant chemist, he contributed to keeping people and the environment safe by developing a business focused on testing the condition of charcoal used by world-wide nuclear facilities to capture radioactivity. He also worked at the Hanford Nuclear Plant in Richland, Washington, researching atomic and hydroelectric power.
Read more
Val’s mother, Jo, was born in South Dakota and raised alongside five sisters. Her family endured severe poverty during the Great Depression. The family moved to Idaho and suffered the death of their father. Don no longer practiced his Jewish faith when Jo and Don met in High School. Don’s decision to marry Jo, a devout Christian, met with family resistance. They eloped and were married at 17 years old. With time and Jo’s gift of grace, both families were eventually welcoming. Jo loved Jesus, and her life was a living testimony of grace, mercy, and service. She always wanted to be a mother. Her full-time job was running the household and raising Valerie and her sister, June until they were in high school. At that time, Jo took on a job as an assistant to a supervisor for the US Department of Energy at the Hanford Nuclear Facility.
Don and Jo were unified partners as parents and stayed involved in their children’s lives. They were active in the Parent-Teacher Association throughout their children’s elementary school days. Jo was a creative, gentle leader for her daughters’ Camp Fire Girls Groups and Don yearly took them into the Blue Mountains for camping experiences. Jo often used her talents of hospitality to share her latest baked goodies with the girls’ teachers and classrooms. The Ludwicks supported their daughters’ passion for baton twirling, taking them to lessons and competitions throughout the US. They taught their competitive baton twirling daughters to share their talents with others, often arranging for them to perform at nursing homes, even when they were on vacation. After retiring from the Hanford Nuclear Facility, the Ludwicks moved to the Oregon Coast. Don and Jo’s favorite community involvement was organizing and participating in the Bandon Thanksgiving meal delivery to housebound people.
Valerie and June attended a Protestant Church with their Mother, where the love of Jesus was fostered. Valerie’s Father, Don committed his life to Jesus in his early fifties. Don and Jo Ludwick supported many Christian Ministries through the churches they joined, regularly hosting visiting missionaries in their home. Don served on several missions boards orchestrating financial support for foreign national missionaries. Their hearts were particularly drawn to missions as a response to Jesus’ Command in Matthew 28:19a “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations.” Additionally, they felt very strongly about and supported efforts to preserve life (Psalm 139:13 “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”). Don and Jo faced many trials throughout their married lives including severe medical issues, marital struggles, and family difficulties. It was their faith in Jesus that kept them together. The Ludwicks were married for almost 65 years before Jo’s passing in 2014 and Don’s in 2019. They leave a legacy of helping others in times of need, persisting together through trials of life, and providing hope through faith in Jesus Christ.
