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that you do part-time. What else occupies your time?
Bjorck: Many things! You may recall that as a small child, I told my parents - with some frustration - that my hobby was collecting hobbies. Currently, I participate twice weekly in a step aerobics class where my wife, Sharon, volunteers as the instructor. It's great fun, and we have actually done it together for seventeen years. I also continue do regular weightlifting and walking/jogging, because fitness is very important to me. One of my greatest loves continues to be hang gliding, which I do whenever my busy schedule and the weather cooperate. I also continue to enjoy photography on a sporadic basis, and while I love digital cameras, I also enjoy pulling out my uncle’s 1952 35mm Zeiss. I used it to shoot the images on my most recent CD. I also love graphic design, and my CDs and my website keep me busy in that department. Landscaping and gardening continue to be great loves, and I enjoy working in our yard as a weekend warrior. I could go on, but you get the picture! In addition to these hobbies, I spend a great deal of time with my work for Lifewater International and as an elder at my church.
KP: How many classes do you usually teach at Fuller Seminary’s Graduate School of Psychology? How long have you been teaching there?
Bjorck: It’s hard to believe that this is my eighteenth year teaching at Fuller. I continue to love my work there. I typically teach two classes in the fall, one in the winter, and one in the spring quarters. Teaching credit is also given for activities other than class time. I also regularly work with students on their clinical skills, discussing their cases. In addition, I receive teaching credit for my supervision of master’s and dissertations, which are based on empirical research that I conduct with my students.
KP: Do you still have your private clinical psychology practice as well? When did you earn your Ph.D.?
Bjorck: Yes, my practice is very small but has continued to be active all these years. I see a wide variety of persons with a wide variety of problems. It's very fulfilling work. As for my Ph.D., the ink was still drying on my diploma when I started working at Fuller in the fall of 1990. In fact, I completed my own dissertation on November 7, was married on November 10, and walked through the front doors of Fuller on November 29 that year.
KP: You have been doing a lot of work the past several years with Lifewater International. Let’s talk about that.
Bjorck: How much time do you have! I could talk about Lifewater all day. Sharon and I have supported Lifewater since the late 1990s. I’ve served on the board since 2001, and this work is my passion. Most people in the USA don't realize that 1.1 billion people in the world lack access to safe water. Instead, women or girls typically walk three or four miles each way to get buckets of disease-filled water. That means that girls get pulled from school as soon as they are old enough to carry a bucket. Hundreds of thousands of cases of blindness each year would be totally preventable with proper hygiene, but you need to safe water for that. Even more startling is the fact that 2.6 billion people -- that's more than one out of 3 -- lack adequate sanitation facilities. We have toilets and they don’t even have a pit latrine. More children die each day in Africa due to waterborne disease than AIDS. In response to these problems, Lifewater works to empower local partners so that they may provide their own communities with safe water, sanitation, and hygiene. Lifewater provides a hand-up, not merely a hand-out. My service to Lifewater helps me to put my faith in action. Part of my work is educating people in this country, helping them understand that billions of people would gasp and possibly weep if they knew that safe drinking water is used in the USA to flush toilets and make lawns grow in the desert. The great news is that solution are inexpensive and very much can be accomplished with very little. I better stop or I’ll go on and on. Thanks for letting me share this, Kathy!
KP: How often do you perform your music?
Bjorck: My performances are extremely rare, and they typically consist of only one or two pieces. I just don't have the time to keep my repertoire up to snuff, and it's all in my head. I do have some great sheet music, thanks to the transcription genius of Michael Dulin and the proofreading genius of Kathy Parsons, but I can't even read my own music well. If I were performing, I would want to be playing at least an hour or two a day, and that is a luxury I cannot afford. As you can guess, this makes me all the more grateful that I am able to record music. Before doing an album, I will play an hour or two each day for about a month, but most of my compositions have at least two or three edits for the final
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