Who Is Janie Van Komen?

"My mother gave me a love of learning. My sixth grade teacher gave me the courage to try. My husband, Robert, broadened my horizons, but it was my children who gave me enough stories to fill up the rest of my writing life."

Mother of ten children, grandmother to more than twice that number, Janie's professional writing career started in editing, research, and publication. She also wrote instructions for a commercial company. But it was the extraordinary way Janie overcame a series of unexpected and sometimes extreme life changing events that forced her to make a decision in life.

“Will these events define my life or refine me into something more, something better?”

This positive outlook on life launched her into an odyssey of writing, speaking and teaching as her messages resonate with all who hear them. Janie Van Komen is now a highly sought after speaker to adult and youth groups where she discusses the pain, power, joy and learning experiences as she relates how she and her family faced major life challenges including: