In Memoriam Werner Vavken  | Issue 2021

I met Werner Vavken in 1993 when he began attending weekly Valley Christian prayer intercession meetings with his wife, Sheri.
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As we shared many years of fellowship, Werner started serving full-time at our school in August 2002, and he stayed for fifteen years. He became — and, in memory, remains — one of my dearest friends.

Werner masterfully integrated science and faith with full regard for our Creator. In 2010, he launched the AMSE program at Valley Christian Schools.

Photo 1: Valley Christian Schools’ founding Director of the Applied Math, Science, and Engineering Institute (AMSE)

Photo 2: This cross, built by Werner and gifted to the Valley Christian Skyway Campus, has served as a remembrance and a beautiful centerpiece for VCS students since 2000.

Photo 3: Werner and Sheri Vavken were awarded the Crystal Bowl of Light Award during the 2017 Quest Ball to honor their many years of dedication to Valley Christian Schools.

In addition to being an engineer, Werner was an ordained minister who believed that sharing his faith was the core of his life’s work. One evening, Werner announced during intercessory prayer that God had led him to build a cross between the football field and the Conservatory on the Skyway Campus. Placement of that cross was the first of many bold and often extraordinary God-inspired initiatives Werner achieved at
Valley Christian.

One of the common themes that emerged from my conversations with Werner’s former colleagues was his signature style of going BIG — if he were going to do something, he would go all out. Under Werner’s watch, and thanks in large part to the breadth of his vision, Valley Christian experienced a flourishing of many of its unique AMSE programs: an experiment launched by rocket to the International Space Station; the development of the Skyway Campus Observatory in cooperation with NASA; and the cultivation of the school’s first Robotics program, among many other accomplishments.

Werner and Sheri were a fantastic team! As culinary artists, they often welcomed students, staff, and friends to their home for Christian hospitality, meetings, and workspace. Over time, though, their retirement became a dreaded thought. Who could replace Sheri as the founding Lead for the VCS Intercessory Prayer Team and Werner as the Founding Director of AMSE and the Quest Institute? When we discussed their plans three years before retirement, Werner and Sheri reassured me, “Don’t worry about us leaving,” they said. “God will call the successive AMSE Director and the next Lead Prayer Intercessor to take the programs to the next level when it’s His time.”

I did my best to have faith, but I was not quickly convinced. Werner and Sheri were irreplaceable.

Then one day in late spring 2017, Werner came by my office to announce, “I found my successor. I found our next AMSE Director.” Similarly, Sheri told me that God revealed to her our next Prayer Leader. In Danny Kim and Patty Favet, God blessed Valley Christian with two servants after the Vavkens’ own hearts. The seeds planted by Werner and Sheri continue to bear amazing fruit under the care of Danny in AMSE and Patty on the Prayer Intercessory Team.

The Vavkens were ready to see more of their own family: their son, (Joe ’94), lives in Tennessee and their daughter, (Tammy ’96), in Southern California. Werner and Sheri relocated to Temecula in 2017.

Tragically, Werner suffered severe burns in an accident on February 1, 2020, and was called home to heaven on April 28 of that same spring.

We at Valley Christian still grieve with Sheri and the rest of the Vavken family. I miss my friend, and our school misses Werner as we are grateful for his immense legacy. Still, our hope is in Christ, and we are confident that “to be absent from the body” is “to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8).”

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