Comments:
After four years at Luther, I graduated with a business degree and went west. I spent a couple summers working at a Lutheran Camp in the Rocky Mountains and then eventually moved to Denver to be a youth and education director at a fast growing church. After about two years, I was married to Gordy and then pursued my certification as an Associate In Ministry of the ELCA. I changed churches and moved to serve as a children's minister at Abiding Hope Lutheran Church in Littleton just before the Columbine Tragedy. In 2001 we were certified as foster parents and met the two little girls that we adopted in 2002, Monique and Symone. Later in 2003, we celebrated my Dad's life after his eight year battle with cancer. We still talk about our last Christmas together with him and wouldn't change a thing about the memories that we have of him. He was just a great guy. We stayed in Colorado about 12 years and still miss the blue skies and the amazing weather and outdoors. In 2004, we moved to St. Louis to serve at a church that revealed a lot of challenges after we arrived. While that situation was not a working experience I want to repeat, both Gordy and myself found our true callings there. Gordy is now in seminary to be ordained and I am now working as a certified spiritual director and a professional life coach. I still have some more training that I look forward to with the Institute for Life Coach Training. Nonetheless, those life altering decisions led us to rural Kansas where we both serve as pastor to two little churches, just north of Manhattan, Kansas. We work out of our home, the parsonage, which is located across the street from the church that is 135 years old. Both are outside of town about 5 miles. It is beautiful here in the Flint Hills and we couldn't be more pleased with the community that is surrounding our kids as they grow up in a place that is much li ke Alma, Wisconsin. I guess it is like the old saying goes, "You can take the girl out of the small town but you can't take the small town out of the girl."
Currently my greatest challenge: companioning another who is dying
Currently my greatest accomplishment: having enough courage to act on a dream...and move to Kansas to make it happen
