a love of cross-culture travel

Interview with Jessica

How did you first hear about YLCF? How did you “meet” the other YLCF team members and become one yourself?  I honestly can’t remember how I first heard about YLCF…I just know it was a long time ago!  I think I started reading YLCF shortly after they came online and I’ve followed them ever since.  Natalie and I “met” online when she was living in Japan and communicated off-and-on after that.  I briefly met Gretchen through a mutual friend, but I don’t think we exchanged more than a couple words all evening!  I met Lanier in England when my husband’s and my honeymoon overlapped with one of her and Philip’s trips to that lovely country.  I had occasional pieces published at YLCF over the years, and in the fall of 2010, I was asked to become a team member.  After admiring the YLCF members from afar for so long, I was honoured to be asked to join them and I’ve so enjoyed it ever since.

When and how did you come to know Jesus?  I was raised in a Christian home, and while that didn’t make me a believer, it meant that I never remember a time when I didn’t know about Jesus and His amazing sacrifice.  When I was young (maybe five or six), I remember sticking my head out the back door (you know, since God can hear you better outside! ) and asking “Jesus into my heart”.  Since then, it has been quite the journey and I’m so very thankful that my Father is so infinitely patient with me.

What is your family (faith) background? If they are believers, how do you encourage each other? If not, how do you handle the faith issue? My immediate family, on both my side and my husband’s side, are strong believers and we both are incredibly thankful for that.  With both families, we often encourage and exhort each other, being real about our struggles and victories.  Among my extended family, there are both believers and nonbelievers.  In “handling the  faith issue”, we usually don’t bring it up often.  They are obviously aware of what we believe and we don’t feel like we should push it in their faces.  If the Holy Spirit works on their heart and provokes them to seek out more, then we gladly answer questions and pursue the conversation in that manner.

What is your approach to sharing your faith with nonbelievers?  I am definitely not a fan of the confrontational door-to-door type of evangelism.  In most instances that I’ve seen, those kind of tactics usually end up doing more harm than good.  I prefer to just live my life as my Father instructs me too and share when people ask about it within the context of a relationship.

What are your favorite recipes? Do you have a signature dish that you love to make? Recipes…what are those?!  I’m a very impulsive and experimental cook and rarely follow a recipe (though I do more often in baking).  I love reading cookbooks and have a growing collection, but I hardly ever cook from a recipe in a cookbook: I like to use those as inspiration, instead.  Oftentimes, supper will be something that I “made up” and usually those dishes turn out pretty yummy.  However, I’m discovering that I need to record “what I did” more often because my husband wants me to make certain dishes again.  So I’ve started posting some of my favourite “inventions” on my blog.  My most well-known “signature” is the use of a lot of garlic…as in at least a head per dish.  I love food!

Do you have any cross-cultural experience? If so, how has it changed your life? When I was eighteen, I went to India for two months as the outreach phase of my Discipleship Training School with Youth With A Mission.  About eight months later, I moved to Thailand to assist an older missionary couple by helping teach English at a Buddist Thai kindergarten, teach ballet to Thais and missionary children, and help out at an AIDS orphanage.  I was intending to stay until my visa ran out, but ended up coming home after about two months at my parents’ request because of the avian flu threat.  Then, when I was twenty-two, I moved to New Zealand to live with some friends and help them with their four children five and under (and another one on the way).  I was intending to stay in NZ for at least a year and then possibly even establish residency, but about two months after arriving there, my husband and I met online.  Three months later, I was on a plane back across the Pacific to marry him.  Oh, and we also spent about three weeks in the UK for our honeymoon.  So, I guess that’s a good amount of cross-cultural experience…and I hope it gets expanded even more.  I love traveling!

My cross-cultural experience has definitely changed my outlook on life.  Going to India as my first time outside of the States was rather drastic, but it was good.  That trip opened my eyes to how ridiculously ethnocentric many Americans are, and every successive overseas trip just made it even more apparent how often we think of our culture as better than others.  I know it had been something I had been guilty of as well, but experiencing other cultures can completely change how you view your own.  That, and the trips to India and Thailand especially, majorly convicted me about materialism and the quest for “stuff”.

What’s your favorite book you’re reading right now (or read this year)? What books remain your favorite over the years? What is your most-remembered, favorite childhood story/book? While I’m definitely in a season of not reading as much as I used to, I’ve still read some really good ones this past year.  I think tops on the list would be One Thousand Gifts and Loving the Little Years. One Thousand Gifts was so raw and real and I find books like that very encouraging.  Loving the Little Years was also very real and written from a mama of five little ages five and under, I could definitely relate (even though I only have two littles ages almost-two and under).  A lot of parenting books I’ve seen seem to be written more for parents of older children, but this one was written to right where I’m at and I so appreciated that.

The Anne of Green Gables series (all eight of them!) are books that I have read again and again and again.  And it’s been interesting to see how the things I relate to in them have changed as I’ve grown from a teen to a young mom.  Even though I’ve read them so many times, they’re always refreshing to read.  As with pretty much all of L.M. Montgomery’s books, a happy sigh usually accompanies the finishing of them.  Stepping Heavenward is another book that has come with me through all the changing seasons of the past years and is always such an encouragement.  And…I should stop there!  There are just so many good books…

Having littles who are learning to love books is so fun since I love children’s books!  It would be hard to choose a favourite, but my most-remembered childhood books are The Borrowers series.  Reading those books (which, yes, I still reread them sometimes!) sparked so many hours of play with my sisters that we still talk about now.

How many siblings do you have, and where do you fall in the birth order? I am the oldest of three girls.

What’s your preferred form of exercise?  Ballet.  In my high school years, I used to dance a lot. I actually ran my own ballet school for the last two years of high school, but I haven’t really danced much at all since I was about 20 or so.  I actually dislike exercising for the sake of exercising.  However, since taking ballet right now isn’t  really an option and I’d like to not look three months pregnant when I’m NOT, in the last couple months I’ve started trying to workout following a DVD.  With two littles and a house to manage, too, I’m not super consistent, but at least it’s something.  I do really enjoy walking/hiking too if I have someone to go with.

If someone met you in person, what’s one thing they’d learn about you that your online friends might not know?  Well, someone online might know this if they asked, but I’m really tall for a woman (5’11″).  And I also tend to be somewhat shy until I get to know someone, but then…look out!  I’m very opinionated and can talk much too much.

If you could vacation anywhere, where would it be? Pretty much anywhere in Europe…I’d especially like to go back to the UK again.  And someday I want to go to New England in the fall.

What is your favorite pair of shoes? My Teva Olowahu flip flops.  I seriously wear these everywhere — hiking, weddings, you name it — if I can’t go barefoot, I’ll wear them and when it gets really cold, I’ll bring out my boots, but if I can get away with not wearing closed-toed shoes, I will.

Are you a morning person or a night owl or neither?  Growing up, I used to be one of those annoying morning people who jumps out of bed really early and sings, etc.  Then, when I went to India, the time change was 12 hours and I was completely messed-up and pretty much have been ever since.  Top that off with much more major time change traveling, plus two years of staying up late at Bible college, plus having two babies in two years…and I basically sleep when I can.  Usually it works out that my little human alarm clocks wake up pretty early, and then my husband and I end up staying up rather late, enjoying the quiet…so I don’t know what that makes me!

Outside of immediate family, who had the most impact on your life? My friends in New Zealand.  They’re actually two different American families living there now and I ended up living with them for five months before I came back to the States.  Their commitments to our Father and openness to whatever He wants of them has really influenced my own walk with the Lord.

Your favorite spot in nature?  Anywhere green or by the ocean.

Where you hear or feel God’s presence the most?  Gazing out to sea.  Standing in the middle of a thunderstorm.  Gazing into my babies’ eyes while they nurse.  Singing with other believers.  In the quiet morning hours. 

If you could travel to any one place, what would it be?  If I had to choose just one, it would be New Zealand, hands down.  Though I was only there a relatively short time, I absolutely loved it and only something as strong as marrying my husband would have made me want to move.  I would also love to someday go to Israel (and the Middle East in general), northern Africa, pretty much anywhere in Europe, Australia, etc., etc. 

If you could describe yourself using a book character, which one would it be?  When I was younger, I used to like to think of myself as very similar to Anne Shirley, but I’m not sure how accurate that was (especially since I wasn’t as into talking as she was).  However, as I’ve gotten older, I feel like I actually am quite similar to the older Anne.

Where are you reading in the Scriptures just now? What is your favourite book of the Bible?  For our family Bible time, we’ve been reading through the New Testament and we just finished up First Peter.  I haven’t been super consistent with my own personal Bible reading so when I do read, I usually end up skipping around…I think I’m in John now.  My favourites would be the Psalms (especially singing them), John, Second Corinthians, Philippians, Hebrews, First Peter…and I think that’s it.

Where do you see yourself in ten years time compared to where you are today?  Hopefully learning to love and follow Jesus more and more.  Hopefully having a larger family than we do now.  Enjoying life with my husband and kids and sharing life with other believers.

If you’re married, what are some ways you’ve worked through conflict with your spouse? Communication.  Really, I know it sounds cliche and everyone says that, but there’s a reason for that!  Having really good communication has always been such a positive thing in our marriage.  If something is bothering one of us, we talk about it with the other.  We don’t hide things from each other and we don’t sweep things under the rug.  This has especially proved helpful in regard to things that aren’t necessarily conflicts, but just things men and women think/act differently about.  Talking about the difference and understanding (or trying to, anyway!) where the other person is coming from helps it become more of a non-issue.

If you’re married, did you ever question that your spouse was “the one for you” early on?  I’m honestly not really sure how to answer this question. After having so many friends in relationships, yet it never being me, it was hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that this amazing man was actually pursuing me.  This, coupled with the fact that our courtship was a whirlwind and crazy and very not your typical courtship, made me sometimes question if Aaron was “the one”.  But because many aspects of it were so obviously God, it also made me quite sure that this was it.  So, as you can see…I was somewhat confused!