MEET JEN

Just a California girl, loving in an Iowa world!

​​

My Background and Testimony:​

I grew up in the 80's, honestly a bit of a feral, wild-child in a small town in beautiful Northern California. I did not have a church upbringing other than a couple of church experiences with my grandparents on occasional holidays. Having been hurt by the church, my parents did not want to force beliefs on me so they set me loose on the world to find my own faith. Even as a child, I always assumed God existed but, not having a church community to guide me, I wandered for decades searching for life's purpose and meaning. I filled the voids of my heart in a myriad of unhealthy ways that left me and others broken and feeling unworthy of love. "If God does exist," I thought, "He probably doesn't want anything to do with me." Furthermore, since He never intervened in my life to save me from certain painful situations, I thought He must be a cold and uncaring God anyway and why would I want that. 

 

It wasn't until I was in my early 30's, when a persistent friend invited me to her church that I began to understand. My friend wouldn't let up about God's love for me no matter what I've done, full of grace and mercy like I've never heard before and the concept of it ruptured my brain. I realized that not only was He real, but He was intimately in love with me, that He loved even MY messed up heart; it didn't matter how far I "felt" from Him or how little I "knew" of Him; He knew me entirely, not just the good stuff but my whole story from beginning to end AND YET... He still loved me, chased after me, just to be near me. I found out there was nothing I could do to make Him love me less, but also that there wasn't nothing I could do to make Him love me more! He already loved me, fully! I could connect dots and see how He had pursued me my whole life but I'd never realized it. This love was beyond irrational in my mind, a love that changed me to my core, and of course I wanted MORE. So, I gave my everything to Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and have surrendered the rest of my life to the endeavor to share His deep, profound, irrational love with others so that they would know their great worth, their identity, their purpose on this earth so that they may flourish in His love.

​​

My Blessings:

I am blessed to be a wife of almost 20 years to an amazing husband who is my best friend and most fervent champion. I am blessed to be a mother of two incredible young adult children who have brought me more joy and forced me to my knees to pray more than I can express. Parenting is the hardest/best work God has ever given me and I'm thankful!! Being their mom has revealed more layers to me about how God loves His children, fights fiercely for them, mourns for them, guides and shepherds them and stands proud of them. My children are miraculous gifts from a God that is gracious and good.

​​

My Ministry Experience:

My husband and I served for decades in youth ministry mentoring High School students in California, serving at our local church. *Side note: Youth Ministry is not for the faint of heart!!* I was warned before I started that it will break your heart, and I can attest that to be true. ​Aside from parenting, ministering to young people (if you're called to it) is the best way, in my opinion, to reveal the most painful and wonderful parts of you and in the process, experience how deeply faithful and GOOD our God is! When I started serving with youth I thought I had "so much wisdom" to impart to students, but instead, as I led students God humbled me and taught ME way more than I could have ever imagined.

 

I developed a tender heart for young adults, particularly the season of life between high school and mid to late 20's. For them, as they are just getting launched out into the world to make a life of their own, there is something both wonderful and terrifying about the struggles they must face. They are generally heading out of the nest for the first time, heading to college or careers, becoming financially independent in an impossible economy, and determining who they want to be. It's hard to hold onto faith when the future feels uncertain like it often does for them. The season is formative but presents challenges and obstacles like no other time of our lives. Often they are navigating how to make their faith their own and not their parents' and the world they meet offers every possible way to diminish God's love for them, their value and their purpose. Mentoring young adults has been some of my most cherished times in ministry. I feel privileged that many of the students we met as high schoolers have continued to stay in contact with my husband and me many years later, even as they are raising families of their own. 

​​​

How We Got Here:

​I worked in administrative roles in healthcare for 25 years, 17 being at Stanford Health Care in Palo Alto, CA in executive level capacities. I concurrently supported five high demand areas: Trauma, Stroke, Acute Care Surgery, Office of Emergency Management and Injury Prevention. I loved my work and my team and feeling like I contributed to the healing process for patients in some small way. But life in the Bay Area was intensely stressful, increasingly expensive and the constant threat of wildfires stole our peace and joy most days; I often daydreamed of ways God might, somehow make a way for us to own a home with some land (an impossibility in the Bay Area - the second most expensive place in the world). I imagined having the ability to bake bread out of my home, plant a garden, slow down and enjoy a better quality of life as a family. My husband served as a Youth Pastor and while he loved his students and the families he ministered to, he also longed for the things I did. Sometimes while stuck in wall-to-wall traffic we would joke in desperation that we wanted God to pluck us out of our current lives and plop us down somewhere in the Midwest, perhaps Wisconsin, any place you didn't hear much about on the news for being stressful, crime-filled, or over-populated. God heard the cries of our hearts and we soon found out He already had BIG plans for us.

​

We started a journey of praying about where God would take us and waiting for Him to answer, wondering what He might do; we both felt in our spirits a sort of "wrapping up" of our current way of life, so in faith we saved and prepared for Him to move. That journey took us two years before He revealed He was taking us to Iowa, a place we hadn't even considered! We asked God where in Iowa we were going, we put out resumes and did research on towns and regions but He did not reveal an exact location. We gave our resignations to our long-held jobs, confident we were moving to Iowa, though not knowing where or what we would do when we got there or how we would live. Everyone thought we were crazy; WE thought we were crazy too! Without much, if any answers, what we had was faith that God was good, that He said move in the direction of Iowa and that He would reveal what we needed to know when we needed to know it. If it meant that we would literally pack up our stuff and drive to Iowa until He tells us to stop, we were willing to do it.

 

Just two months before we were supposed to be packed up and moved out of our home in California, God finally gave us the answer. We asked Him to "make it obvious" so that we would know it was indisputably His will and not our own. My husband applied for a job as a Senior Pastor at First Baptist Church of Centerville, a town we knew nothing about. We flew out as a family to interview and see the town and we instantly fell in love. Everything about the area, the town, the people and the church checked every box of the things we were hoping for. And when the church voted him in, it was unanimous, the first time in the church's 100 year history that a unanimous vote for a Pastor was cast. Our son said, "that's pretty obvious".  So, my husband accepted the job.

​

In July, 2023, we packed up our belongings, left dear family and a lifetime of friends behind, trusting God with our funds, our future and our everything, and we relocated to Iowa. I had no idea what I was going to do for work. My husband had a promised career but for the first time in my life, I was unemployed and unsure of my purpose. I intentionally spent the first year in Centerville enjoying our new home, gardening and baking! God gave us the desires of our hearts and fulfilled dreams I thought were impossible. Blessed to have the time off while my husband worked, I allowed the Lord to teach me how to relax, to be patient and to do only what He wants me to do. Eventually, He showed me what that would be.

​​

In His Service:

In June, 2024, I got the call to be the Director at the Hope Chest Thrift Store. I took time to pray and make sure that it was God's will and He confirmed it in many ways. I am grateful to be here and to get to serve with the AMAZING staff and volunteers. I feel blessed to be part of the New Hope Ministry and the incredible work God is doing in the community. I pray daily for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, that I can bring Him glory, that I stay sensitive to the needs of others and that in everything I do, I would remember and share God's intimate, powerful, transformative, unrelenting, irrational, beautiful love.​​​​​​