Lawrence Joseph Ondrejack, loved God, loved his family, and loved people.

Larry was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, on April 3, 1940 and was the first child of Joseph William Ondrejack and Mary

Magdalene (Bokros) Ondrejack. During his childhood he liked learning, and enjoyed his time in elementary and high school. Because of his excellent grades, he received a

full-tuition college scholarship to Loyola

College (MD). The summer before his senior year in college, he married his high school sweetheart, Lois Jane Fronheiser, and together they had four children: Joel, Jeffrey, Adam, and Rachel.

Larry was an educator.

The newly married couple made their first home in Baltimore, Maryland. After graduating from Loyola College, Larry’s first job was teaching English in a local private preparatory high school. A few years later, the family moved to Frederick County, Maryland, where he became a high school English

Department Chairman. After earning his master’s degree from the University of

Maryland, Larry was hired as an Associate Professor at Frederick County Community College.

The family moved to New Jersey in 1973 when Larry left teaching and became a public school administrator for the Montgomery Township School District – first as a K-12 Supervisor of English and Social Studies, next as a K-12 Director of Instruction and

lastly as a K-12 Director of Humanities and Technology. During that time, Larry was president of the Global Education Consortium (NJ) and was editor of both The New Jersey Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development Journal and the

Montgomery Township District Newsletter. Larry was also an adjunct professor at Georgian Court College and Princeton University.

In his spare time, he began writing Christian articles for Grace & Truth Magazine and for a daily devotional calendar called The Lord is Near. He taught at Bible camps in Pennsylvania and North Carolina and served on the boards of Mountain View Bible

Camp (PA), Believers Bookshelf (PA), Emmanuel Home (NJ), and Good Tidings Publishers (FL). For several summers Larry volunteered weekly to help transport migrant workers to the hospital for medical assistance.

Larry was a family man.

With four young children coming and going, the Ondrejack home was often noisy. The

one-car garage was a workshop and storage room filled with an assortment of bikes, skateboards, old cars, a moped, a motorcycle, and sports equipment. Larry taught his three sons how to fix their own cars.

In addition to attending his children’s sporting events, he played with them, fished with them, hiked with them, and encouraged them to get part-time jobs if they wanted

“spending money”. A family of tent campers, they never traveled far when the children were young; but Larry always found a suitable campsite near a stream, a lake, a river, or right on the beach of the Atlantic Ocean!

Years later, when Rachel was a teen, the family tent camped in Nova Scotia and also New England, where Larry and Rachel hiked to the top of Mt. Washington together.

When their nest was empty, Larry and Lois participated in several Road Scholar Tours around the country.

After all the children were married, Larry and Lois rented a 6-bedroom cabin for a week in the summers as a place where all the families could vacation together. Those vacations allowed “PapPap” to spend lots of time with both his children and his grandchildren. Always the first one up in the morning, as one by one his family

members appeared in the dining room, he greeted each with a big smile and a bowl of fresh fruit – which they had to eat before they watched TV!

Larry practiced hospitality.

The Ondrejack home was open to anyone who wanted to talk, needed a meal, or a bed to sleep in. Often, they were complete strangers! Larry enjoyed lively conversations about current events and the Bible. A crossword puzzle on a clipboard was always nearby, along with a pile of books and magazines he wanted to read and learn from. In addition to writing Christian articles for publication, collecting birds, sea shells and

rocks, Larry liked sculpting, running, and watching college sports on television. He even liked cutting the grass and shoveling the snow. Most of all, he enjoyed watching and feeding the backyard birds! When his children ran out of ideas of what to give Dad for his birthday, they helped him start his bird collection.

Larry served the Lord.

The Ondrejack home was always bustling with activity. When Joel, Jeff and Adam

were young teens, Larry invited their friends to come over on Friday nights for a Bible Study – and they did! For five years, Larry taught 15-20 young people every week about Jesus Christ. A few of them had never read any part of the Bible, and most of them started to attend church. Even today, many of them consider themselves friends with Larry, Lois, and their children.

In 1990, when Larry turned 50, he declared that his favorite verse was 2 Corinthians 5:7

- “We [I] walk by faith, not by sight.” In that same year, God called him to leave his public education career to work at Grace & Truth Publishing Company. His new career

required a move from the East Coast to the Midwest – specifically Danville, Illinois.