The Only One in the Middle of the Street

Posted by Jordyne

It's crazy how time gets away from you. I had no idea it had been over a month since I last wrote. I feel like I've spent these last few weeks doing nothing but processing and evaluating my life and sifting through emotions. Basically, the reason it took me so long to write this post, is because it takes a long time to type out 4 weeks worth of messy, over-analyzed thought. But now I can finally share it with you. Grab a cup of tea and get comfy...

Just kidding. I would not put you through that. I actually just want to tell you a couple seemingly unrelated stories.

A few days after my last post, I got the chance to go to Denver and spend four days with Rachel. It was magical. I had no idea I needed to get away so bad (Rachel did though. She’s good at picking up on things like that.) 

I also got to meet her two roommates. One night we were all hanging out in the living room, and there was this conversation going on where we were all laughing and animated and talking over one another. All at once it just hit me how long it has been since I had been with a group of women who were all in the same place in life as I am: All single Christian women, never married, no children.

It was liberating. 

“These are my people!” I thought to myself. I had forgotten what it felt like and how much I needed it.

As mentioned before, I live in a small town. When I was making the decision to move here two and a half years ago, the thought crossed my mind that choosing to live here would almost certainly mean I would never get married. 

I mean...there’s no one here. 

My first few months here, I couldn’t get over the fact that I could drive down the street and actually be the only car on the road. 

Now I make the most of it by regularly driving down the middle of the street like I own the place. 

But anyways, back to my point: I am literally the only single, never-married woman with no children in my church. And I am sure there is at least one other woman who is in that same category in this town, but I have yet to meet her.  

I’m an endangered species around here.

The first couple days back home after being in Denver were rough. I kept thinking “I’m the only one left!” But after the second or third time I said that out loud, it reminded me of Elijah whining the same words.

Elijah had just finished hosting an epic showdown between Baal and Yahweh. 
Spoiler alert: Yahweh won. (You can read about it in 1 Kings 18) 

After Baal lost, Elijah ordered that all of the prophets of Baal be killed. This made Queen Jezebel furious, and she promised to kill him. Even after witnessing the incomparable power of Yahweh, his God, he ran for his life. 

God asked Elijah, "what are you doing?" I think that's a fair question in this moment. How could he be in such a negative, fearful state so quickly after experiencing something so awesome? I am asking myself the same question.

“I’m the only one left!” he cried, “and now they’re trying to kill me too!” (1 Kings 19:14) 

 It’s a strange comparison, I know. How many things does a single girl in a small town have in common with a prophet in ancient Israel? Not many it would seem. I’m not running for my life, and the comparison quickly breaks down if you try to look at it too closely, but I kept coming back to this story.  

What Elijah lacked was perspective, and the gentle whisper of the Lord gave him the much needed reality check. As soon as he heard from the Lord, his situation didn’t seem so dire anymore. He was able to pick himself back up and get to work.

I love that God didn’t call him a baby or tell him that he shouldn’t feel the way he did. He simply presented Elijah with the truth; showed him reality. That’s all that was necessary. 

I highly doubt that I will discover 7,000 women in this little town that God has placed in the same situation as me, but it does make me anticipate what he will reveal with his still small voice. There’s a bigger picture I can’t see yet. But I will soon enough. He’ll show me when the time is right.

Microwave Ordeal

Posted by Rachel


Today I want to tell the story about how we caught the microwave on fire last week.  "You what?"  Yes, you heard me, we actually caught the microwave on fire and my amazing roomies were as calm and collected as possible during the whole ordeal. 

Here's how it went down:

When we first moved into our apartment we had to purchase a microwave, so I did the sensible thing and went to the local thrift store and bought a really nice one for $7.00.  Anyway we have used this said microwave really well over the last 18 months.  It cooked up our food well, went through 3 roommates for Lindsay and I (on a side note and another blog post we have a running theory that people are getting married just to get away from us, but that's for a different time).  Oh microwave you performed your task so well.  

Anyway, these last couple weeks have been very cold so we have been running our fireplace a lot and Lindsay in the spirit of making Christmas gifts has also added some smoky elements to our apartment, so when I was sitting on my bed asking what was burning it was an interesting moment for several reasons:  

1. My bed is as far away from the microwave in the house it can possibly be and I was the first to smell the burning plastic and cloth.

2. There was no fire going that night and Lindsay was reading in her room.

3. My other roommate who I will affectionately call R for the sake of clarity,  was in the bathroom so what could possibly be burning in there other than a curling iron and she was getting ready for bed, so it seemed improbable.

4. The smoke alarm was blinking happily away, but did not warn us of the impending doom to our poor microwave.

What had happened was R had, like she does every morning and evening, put her rice heating pad in the microwave to warm it up, to warm up herself and relax as she crawled into bed.  And for some reason this night it decided to catch on fire.  We are still uncertain as to the how, but we know the result, by the time I had asked what's burning, and Lindsay, R and I had made it into the kitchen filled with smoke the rice warmer was literally on fire(and I don't use the word literally lightly folks).  R calmly removed it and dumped it into the sink to run water on it, while I realizing the microwave was melted and was still smoldering wiggled my hand behind it to unplug it before we had an electrical fire on our hands. Meanwhile Lindsay was opening all the windows we could in order to air out the apartment before the happily blinking smoke detector figured out what was happening and caught up.  The whole thing lasted no more than about 2 minutes from beginning to end, but the still smoldering microwave went out the open door to the 25 degree concrete porch meanwhile the airing out and clean up ensued. 

Happy end to the story is the grand total of our losses were about $10 and now we have a funny roommate bonding moment to tell the world.  On the other hand we now are microwaveless which is rather inconvenient and so the hunt for another working microwave begins.

The hardest thing in this world is to live in it

Posted by Laura

The catchy quote for the title is not mine. Credit belongs to Joss Whedon though the context is not particularly relevant to what I want to write about. (However, the English teacher in me insists upon full disclosure: the first time this line is said, it's an older sister about to sacrifice her life for her little sister. She encourages her sister to be brave and live, then she goes and dies. In my opinion, it robs the sentence of it's power just a little bit. However, the line is repeated once the sister is resurrected and little sis slams it back to big sis spiraling in bad post-resurrection decisions. There it holds a little more weight.)

Returning the focus to realistic implications of the statement, sometimes it is hard to live in this world. Getting out of bed and going through the routine of life is exhausting not to mention difficult and painful.

I had some rough moments this week as I had bills to pay, insurance claims to file, and medical issues to take care of. I felt pretty alone in it as I didn't have anyone to do it for me. As I laid alone in my bed last night, I watched a couple episodes from the Whedonverse to take my mind off the fact that no one else could solve my problems. I realized, though, that everyone has problems to solve on their own - even the people who live with someone else. I have personal responsibility for my life, and that comes with a lot of pressures and frustrations, but it also comes with a lot of liberty and rewards.

Yesterday was heavy with the weight of the world, but I lived through it. I made it through yesterday, got out of bed today, and was rewarded with a delicious cup of coffee in the morning. Man, I had this incredible dark cup of coffee - Longbottom Portland roast - that made getting out of bed worthwhile. It was a treasure. I also had a great conversation with a student at lunch. I live for the moments where I can positively impact lives, and I got to share with this kid how incredibly grateful I am to be here as her teacher, how even though the road to get here has been tough, it's so worth it.

Tonight before I go to bed, I'll watch another show from creator Joss Whedon because there's no one here to stop me. I'll get help translating my new bills or picking up my prescriptions later this week because I'm not living alone in this world, and as hard as it is, I'll find more rewarding moments like the conversation I had today. It'll be hard, but I'll be brave and live in the world tomorrow.

Don't Miss an Opportunity

Posted by Sarah

Each week I have the amazing privilege to spend at least one evening with my awesome niece and nephews. It’s been so fun to be part of their lives – to play with them, love on them, and pray with them. They mean the world to me!

Last week I had the opportunity to instill some wisdom for the future and I pray to God that it sticks. In a surprise blast from the past Ellie decided we should play with her old school Barbie Dolls. It was so fun to experience this with them. I loved playing with Barbie’s as a kid.

After a while, Ellie went off to set up “house” and Noah and I were left at the doorway to Ellie’s room. He is seven and pretty small for his age, so the two of us fit nicely in the door frame facing each other, our crisscrossed knees comfortably overlapped and each brushing our respective Barbie’s hair – you know, just a normal Tuesday! It was at this point I felt the opportunity knocking.

I hesitated…not sure how to share what I had on my mind with a seven year old, but I had to try.

It played out like this:

Me: Hey, Noah

Noah: What

Me: Can I tell you something I want you to remember when you are older?

Noah: Okay

(I know I have his full, undivided attention at this point – the Barbie and brush laid aside)

Me: Noah, when you’re older, I want you to remember that real girls are not supposed to look like this (I point to the laid aside Barbie)

Noah: What?

Me: It’s okay Buddy, you may not understand right now, but I want you to try to remember when your older that real girls don’t look like this doll and they aren't supposed to, no matter what you see around you. Will you try to remember that?

Noah: (No hesitation) I’ll remember, Aunt Sarah!

It may not seem like a significant conversation, but I truly believe that is was. I have nothing against Barbie but I think there are so many subtle images and ways of thinking that we, as a culture, buy into as truth without conscious thought. They penetrate how we view the world and I wanted to make sure to plant a seed that it doesn't have to be the only way we view the world.

As someone who has struggled with body image and buying into the lies that culture dictates I believe about myself, I was honored to have a small part of changing that for Noah and those he will influence. It may seem a very small part but eventually those small parts can add up and change the world.

So, don’t miss the “small” opportunities that present themselves each and every day to influence the world for the better. It may come when you least expect it, even brushing a Barbie Doll’s hair with your nephew.

That's So High School

Posted by Laura

I work at a small international partial boarding school in Germany. We've got a small English speaking community here, and those of us who don't speak German have a small pool of friends to choose from. There are a couple hundred English speakers in town, but how many of you are only friends with your coworkers? I see the same people at work every day, and I have limited options of who I get to hang out with after work due to the language barrier.

Rachel's last post reminded me that I need people in my daily life, and I have a pretty amazing community of people who are passionate about education and Jesus - the things that brought us all here to this school - that are just waiting to get to know me. Well, let me rephrase that, they aren't all waiting to get to know me. Like Rachel said, I have to make an effort, and as I think about that difficult friendship making process, I think about how cliquey people can be. I teach a bunch of really cliquey students, and I work really hard to break down the social barriers among students to get them to learn with each other, but it occurred to me recently that adults don't often grow out of that cliquey behavior.

One of my favorite albums in middle school was Superchick's Last One Picked - the first track was called "High School" and ranted that "high school is like the state of the nation, some people never change after graduation." In middle school I was convinced I'd rise above the cliques and not be held back by the petty social pecking order, yet I find myself ten years later looking to find whether I can fit in with the cool teachers or not. That's so high school.

I need quality relationships in my life, but I don't need to pine after the "cool teachers" - another line in the Superchick song is if someone believes "they're too cool for you, that's so high school; and if you believe it too, that's also high school." I deal with a lot of insecurities here since I'm not the most outgoing and popular person around and don't always find myself surrounded by friends, but that doesn't mean that I'm any less popular, really. I still have plenty of friends, some of them farther away than others.

However, what Rachel's post convicted me of was that I'm not excused from making new friends just because it's hard, just because I'm insecure, or just because I already have amazing friends back in America. That's so high school - making excuses not to do the difficult work of friendship making. What's also so high school is to just seek out the cool people to be friends with.

There definitely are people who are perceived as cooler teachers than others, and I may never make it into the cool crowd, but I don't really care. One woman who's taught here for several years once talked about when she first arrived and started to hang out with the "cool teachers" and discovered she became a little more cynical and a little less like herself when she hung out with them. I did that back in high school; I hung out with the cool kids and slandered the people I once called friends just to boost my popularity. It made me sick, and I don't need to go back to that high school behavior. Because making friends takes so much effort, I don't want to waste it on the people who turn me into someone I hate. I want to work hard to make friends who make me a better person, who encourage me to be more like Jesus. I've got a couple developing friendships like that here, and I'm grateful for them. I'll keep working hard to make them grow while simultaneously holding tight to those friendships overseas which also refresh my soul.

Church: A four letter word

Posted by Rachel

One of the favorite buzzwords of our college was community (well that and context!).  It's only been after college that I have understood the power of true community and what it means for my heart and my growth.  The reason I want to spend a second and chat about it is because true community is such a rare thing especially as adults, but its something that is continuing to transform my life; not to mention all of us have alluded to it thus far, so lets take a closer look.  So what is community?  If you break it down community according to scripture is supposed to be church, but unfortunately our generation feels that that is becoming some sort of four letter word, so we have changed it to community.  Community is a growing relationship with people each of whom is focused loving God more than anything and loving people more than anything else.  I've heard it put this way, Community is a group of God's people who are on mission together. Pretty simple huh?  

When I left Portland for Denver, my community scattered and even though we remained consistently in touch I often felt lonely because I didn't have any friends who were physically present I could hang out with. This was my first experience in truly understanding the power of community in my life.  Over the next 4 years I have found many people to hang out with, relate to and enjoy life with.  Quality people did not just appear in my life, I worked hard at it, I went on many coffee dates. Some people were awesome but we were too busy or didn't gel well, so we moved on, no hard feelings and now I had one more friend in eternity to look forward to.  Other people was a mutual enjoyment and we pursued friendship. And there were still other people that hit in between these two categories.  Ultimately, it was a slow process that took time and cultivation to start blooming.  

I think often as singles one of two things happen.  Either we think relationships as adults come as naturally as they did when we were in elementary school, high school and college and so when its not a fast, easy process we give up.  Or we start out with a bunch of friends and then they all get married and we figure, "hey their in a different phase of life, why would I want to continue to be friends with them."  

Let me just say, that neither response is a great one.  Giving up just because we don't make friends quickly is a horrible response.  Are we going to give up just because we don't learn a new job in one day? Probably not, especially because we need the pay check.  So what makes us think we don't need people in our lives?  The second response is also a poor one due to the fact that people in different phases of life are going to speak truth to you as a single person in ways only they can and let me say this:

you can speak truth as a single person to people in different phases of life in ways that only you as a single person can. 

Did you hear what I said?  Please don't underestimate the power of being single and speaking into someone's life.   

Over the last 4 years, I have had many, many people come and go in my life on this road to building a community here in Denver.  Most of the time it was simple life changes that moved us away from each other.  I had a choice to either stay stagnant or move forward to meet new people.  I chose the second and now I am to a place where I am meeting and enjoying all kinds of people.  While I don't have time to hang out consistently with all of them, sometime just introducing two people seeking community who are lonely is the reason I'm here.  It's a beautiful and powerful thing.  Also just as a side note, my very best and deepest friends are still hundreds of miles away from me.  The power of written word and the internet is what keeps us bound together, but that also takes work.  

So here is my challenge, go out there and change your life through community. Maybe change someone else's life in the process.  All you have to do is say "Hi, my name is..." and maybe toward the end of the conversation "You want to go get some coffee?"  Keep it simple people and have some fun!  

Gaggle of Geese

Posted by Sarah

I was supposed to have this post written a few weeks ago but life had other ideas. Well, that’s not entirely true, the show New Girl and my lack of self-control have a little to do with it too. But, here it is! Even though my intro post is a little late, that doesn't mean I am not super excited about this blog; and by ‘super excited’ I mean super nervous about having the big scary internet know things about my life – like how I binge watch TV shows, but I guess that’s the point.

So, here is a little about me and my journey with singleness. I, like my sweet friends, love being single and also long for the day to be married. It’s a weird place to live, especially in the Christian community where singleness is typically considered a worse fate than the Bubonic Plague. Some days I agree with them but most days I wake up in the morning without thought to the fact that I am single but with a mind filled with possibilities of what the day might hold. It’s a paradox – wanting to be married but loving being single. I suppose that if I had to describe myself in one word it would be paradox. Another example: I am a loud, crazy, outgoing introvert. I love people and parties and speaking up front, but I get overwhelmed by too many people, I can only handle parties for a little while and I get super nauseous before getting up in front of people – paradox!

At this point you may be asking, “how do you survive everyday living a paradox?” Good question! Rachel, Jordyne and Laura have already alluded to it…but I will explain with three words: Gaggle of Geese. Ok, maybe I should use more than three words. Did you know that Geese are amazing animals? Not only do they mate for life but they live in flocks or gaggles. They are highly community based. They travel together and settle together. It’s a beautiful picture of doing life with friends and community. I have been so blessed to have a few extremely close friends that I share life with and I call them My Gaggle. My mom calls her group her Pack (think elephants), my roommate calls her group The Peeps (think sugary Easter marshmallow or, I guess, people!). These are people who you can call in the middle of the night, no questions asked. They know about your issues and they still love you. They may live thousands of miles away or they may be your next door neighbor but they do life with you each and every day.

That’s how I survive, not only survive, that’s how I thrive. God has given me a gaggle to do life with and it’s awesome. It’s messy, hard, painful and complicated for sure, but it’s also beautiful, fun, crazy and exciting as well. I am so excited to be able to share a small bit my life with you and I am even more excited to be able to do it with My Gaggle!

So, buckle your seat belts…here we go!

Who Wants to Die Alone?

Posted by Laura

The song "Some Nights" by Fun was my jam a few years back. I'd crank it up and belt it out in the car whenever it came on the radio or my iPod in the car - I may or may not have the song currently on repeat. I find it a beautiful challenge to find what you want to live for and live passionately in the moment without waiting for what the world tells you that you need. I read a lot into the song, probably. Regardless, it became a particularly apropos anthem when I decided to move overseas - there's a line that says, "I'm sorry to leave, Mom, but I had to go - who the      wants to die alone?"

When I signed up to be a missionary overseas, I heard a lot about how single women are over represented in the mission field, and if I was staying a missionary for long I was condemning myself to a life single and alone. I have several problems with this. First of all, they were saying I was never going to get married just because I was following God rather than finding a husband to follow. Rachel alluded to the book we've discussed writing, and our working title for a long while was "Chase God Not Guys" because we were fed up with the idea that Christian women should find themselves a nice Christian boy to support in ministry rather than serve God first and maybe find a guy along the way. I happen to be really passionate about education, and I absolutely love teaching high school students, so training and finding a fulfilling position doing that was a way better use of my time than searching for a husband the past few years.

The other, perhaps more significant, issue I had with the idea that people though I was going to die alone as a single missionary was that a guy was the only one who could fulfill the loneliness in my life. This one baffled me more than upset me because I didn't realize how unique the relationship I have with Rachel, Sarah, and Jordyne is. None of us are in any way against the idea of getting married, but we recognize that single doesn't mean alone. We are a crazy unique intimate family, and I'm able to stay on the mission field here because I have these three intelligent, witty, and loving women to keep me sane even though we are oceans apart. The four of us are spread across time zones, and yet we remain closely connected as we regularly message and Skype each other. Sure, sometimes I find myself feeling a little lonely late at night when no one will sing Rent songs with me or have super passionate discussions about the ways lessons from worlds created by Joss Whedon or J. K. Rowling impact our own world. I've got about eight people I can call up and have these important conversations with along with conversations about how I'm struggling to get my students engaged in the lessons on soteriology or how I'm frustrated with my frequent muscle spasms (a story for another paragraph). Thanks to a six to nine hour time difference, those conversations don't always happen in the moment, but I find great comfort in knowing they will happen. I do have people who are always there for me, and I'm never alone. I don't have them physically next to me constantly, but I have no fear of dying alone.

In fact, because I have these close friendships, I'm able to stay overseas away from them physically but constantly encouraged by them to thrive in my life in Germany - to thrive in my teaching, to thrive in my new friendship building, to thrive in my personal growth with Jesus, to thrive in my physical recovery from my recent paralyzing accident. Yeah, I suppose that's an unavoidable fact you should know about me - I was paralyzed in a rock climbing accident in January 2014. I was told I'd likely never walk again - more specifically that I had a 1% chance of ever walking again. I manage to walk with four footed canes about five hundred meters now, though I'm still mostly wheelchair bound. A large number of people expected me to bail on my awesome teaching job here in Germany as soon as possible and book it back to my family in the States to recover from this. I chose to stay. Sarah came to visit me in rehab in Switzerland (she'd actually booked tickets just a couple weeks before my accident), and I frequently checked in with my friends back in the States. I never felt the need to leave here because teaching here is what I'm supposed to be doing. I love my job, and my friends offered me the emotional support I needed to push through the struggle of learning life in a wheelchair and adjusting to the lack of communication between my brain and my bottom half. The people who expected me to leave Europe didn't know that I had this support system in place before I even left America. I have a wonderful community here in Germany that I'm getting to know who help me tremendously, but these friends scattered across the States continue to give me soul care that I will always desperately need - whether I'm single or not.

The chorus of "Some Nights" says, "I'm still not sure what I stand for," and that's the line I can confidently disagree with. I know what I stand for, and I know that I don't stand alone. After all, who the      wants to die alone?