It’s about incarnation, or “My friend Ginger”

If the contents of this post sound familiar to some readers, that's because I am republishing the October 2005 newsletter which I sent out to friends and family last week: posted for the benefit of readers who have not already received (or read) it. —alm

I first met Ginger Weeber in the mid-1980s. She was a campus minister at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania and I was a student at Allegheny College, 20 miles south.

In May of 1988, a couple weeks shy of my college graduation, I remember standing in a Geneva College dorm room, holding Ginger’s two-month-old daughter and sharing my excitement and apprehension about joining CCO staff myself. Ginger and her husband Dave were attending the CCO’s annual Spring Institute. I had driven down to Beaver Falls from Meadville to meet with my soon-to-be Geneva College colleagues.

In 1989, when I moved to Erie to work with Gannon University students, Dave Weeber became my new supervisor. I joined First Presbyterian Church of the Covenant, Ginger’s home church, where I ended up worshipping and playing in the bell choir with Ginger’s mom, Peg Herrod.

In 1990, the Weebers moved from Edinboro to Pittsburgh so that Dave could attend graduate school. While raising two small children, Dave resumed student life and Ginger continued to work with the CCO, supervising Pittsburgh-area staff people.

When I prepared to move to Pittsburgh in 1993 to work at CCO headquarters, guess who was instrumental in finding me a place to live? Ginger not only connected me with two great roommates — Lynne was a grad student at the University of Pittsburgh and Sarah worked for the CCO at Chatham College — but the townhouse we shared happened to be just a few doors away from the Weebers’ home. The “Beacon Street Community” was born and remains vital to this day, even though none of us live on Beacon Street anymore.

The baby I remember holding in a McKee Hall dorm room is now applying to colleges. Ginger recently celebrated 25 years on CCO staff, and since 1990, she has served as Regional Director, as Director of the Intern Program, and as Director of New Staff Training. She has done work around leadership development within the CCO, and she currently holds the position of Development Associate, raising money for the CCO's General Fund.

Not too long after coming on staff, I remember attending a Staff Seminar where Dave and Ginger were recognized for a decade-plus of ministry at Edinboro. That seemed like an eternity to me at the time. I was moved to tears by their testimonies of God’s faithfulness in the midst of steadfast commitment to a single campus community over the long haul.

The CCO was only 17 years old then. I’ve now been on staff that long. And Ginger Weeber and I, after so many serendipitous intersections of our lives, are now collaborating on various projects to strengthen the effectiveness of this ministry we both love so much.

The CCO is twice the size today as when I joined staff 17 years ago. Even though I haven’t held the number or diversity of positions that Ginger has, my work has changed significantly since 1993. I still do a lot of the same jobs that I was doing back then. I write and edit brochures and magazine articles. I facilitate inter-staff communications. I proofread my colleagues’ work. But over the past 12 years, I’ve had to become much more computer-savvy — I wouldn’t have recognized the term “Web site” back in 1993. The CCO is now a 34-year-old, 21st century ministry with close to 200 employees, and it requires more of its support staff today than it did in 1971 or 1988 or 1993.

I have learned how to write and distribute press releases. I send “Weekly News” emails to all of our staff members. Lately, Ginger and I have been working together to compose a new case statement for the CCO. Why do we exist? What needs does this organization meet? Why should anyone financially support this ministry?

We have also been tracking down former students of CCO ministries to find out what is going on in their lives. We ask them how they imagine their lives might be different today had they not been involved in the CCO’s ministry when they were in college. What influence has the ministry had in how they pursue their vocations, raise their families, contribute to their churches and communities?

Here’s the not-so-surprising discovery Ginger and I have made as we’ve worked together and talked with student alumni of the CCO’s ministry:

It’s about relationships. It’s about friendships and community. It’s about people caring about one another, encouraging one another, challenging one another, and pursuing faithfulness together. It’s about the incarnation: God with us, Emmanuel, Jesus Christ.

Ginger Weeber herself has illustrated this for me, so naturally and with such constancy that it’s taken me half a lifetime to recognize how deeply she’s influenced my life. Those of you receiving this letter have also been that for me — caring, loving, encouraging friends and family members. Thank you for the many ways you support me and the work I continue to do through the Coalition for Christian Outreach: transforming students to transform the world.

Welcome, baby Jack!

My mom celebrated her 64th birthday yesterday (Monday, October 24), the same day my friends Sarah and Jeff welcomed their third child into the world. Little Jack joins two sisters, Alison (who turned four in August) and Taylor (who turns two on Christmas day).

Welcome, baby Jack!

And happy birthday, Mom!

The Other Side of the Bridge, or “2 Good 2 Be 4 Gotten”

My archive of previously published articles is not exhaustive, and for that reason, I hesitate to post them all too quickly, should a serious writing drought strike sometime in the future, as it inevitably will. But this essay is timely, and so I'm posting it now.

This past weekend marked the one-year anniversary of my 20th high school reunion. (For those keeping track at home, that means I graduated from high school in 1984: The Orwellian Year.) It was a really enjoyable, if surreal, event, as I had not seen most of these people in the full two decades since we had tossed our mortar boards into the air and scattered to our colleges (or other destinations) of choice. I was especially excited to be reunited with Deirdre and Jenny, two women I had completely lost track of and to whom I was close at different points in our brief high school career.

I was amazed by the number of people who greeted me and whom I barely remembered, considering our graduating class number didn't even reach 200. I was particularly startled to step into a room full of almost-middle-aged men and women who bore little resemblance to the kids with whom I'd gone to school. Where were the upturned Izod shirt collars and Tretorn sneakers, once so prevalent in our preppy little corner of the world? Feathered-back hairstyles had been replaced by sleeker and more mature coifs...or, in the case of several of the men, gone altogether, compensated by varied styles of facial hair.

Many of these people are now spouses and parents, with respectable careers and full lives which greatly exceed the limiting identities we adopted and assigned to one another two decades previous. The event was way too short to get a full glimpse into their lives, and many questions were left unanswered. And I don't really have any idea what, if anything, my classmates thought about the 20-years-older me. I only know that I was glad to have the opportunity to participate in this time capsule of a weekend.

Below is the essay I wrote a little over a year ago, in anticipation of attending my 20th high school reunion. Enjoy! —alm
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“To Amy, you're a wonderful girl. We had great times in Health. You will never find the answer to my prom question. Eric '83”

“Amy, to a girl I met in 1st period. For all the help you have given me in Spanish. Steve”

“Amy, Remember our senior year and all the fun. It's been great knowing you and I know you'll achieve everything in life. Take care and see ya this summer. RMA Linda (We're out of here!!)”

I never will know the answer to Eric's prom question. In fact, I'm unlikely to ever remember the question, since I have no clear recollection of Eric himself.

I'm glad I was able to help Steve with Spanish. De nada, Steve. (Steve who?)

I am relieved to be able to say that I do remember Linda. But I'm fairly certain that I never saw her the summer after we graduated, let alone in the two decades that have passed since June 6, 1984, when we marched forward to the strains of “Pomp and Circumstance” to claim our high school diplomas. (They did give me mine, in spite of the principal initially skipping over my name during the graduation ceremony. Apparently, he couldn't see me for the flag obstructing his vision, and so he announced it — and probably mispronounced it — only as I was returning to my seat, correct diploma in hand. I could easily have been voted “Least Likely to Want the Spotlight,” and I was the only person in my high school graduating class of 176 people to receive an ovation that evening.) As for whether or not I've achieved “everything in life” — whatever that means, exactly — well, that remains to be seen.

As you have probably figured out by now, I've been perusing my high school yearbook lately. I will attend my 20th high school reunion on October 2nd. This is the second reunion for the class of '84, and I missed the 10-year gathering. I wasn't sure that I was going to participate in this one either, but in recent months, as I've reconnected with a few of my long-lost classmates, the curiosity factor alone makes it an appealing event.

In the survey posted on the website through which most of us have RSVPed, members of Quaker Valley 's Class of 1984 are asked to “describe what you have been doing since high school.” There is space provided to list the name of your spouse or partner, names and ages of your children, any songs you'd like the DJ to play at the reunion party, and whether you think we should have a 30-year reunion. There is also an opportunity to express “warm wishes to someone in our class.” The most interesting question by far to me is the first one.

Twenty years is a long time, and if my former classmates are like me, questions about whether there will be a pop quiz in history class or if tomorrow will be a snow day — or at least, please, a two-hour delay — have long since been replaced with weightier concerns. (No pun intended.) When a high school friend and I reconnected via email a few months ago, she wrote, “I just realized that I've lived more years since I knew you than I was years old when I knew you. Frightening thought!”

Over the last two decades, at least three of the girls I remember from the early '80s — Wendy, Libby and Karen — have reportedly passed away. Two, and possibly all three, died from cancer. According to the survey, many of the class of 1984 are married with kids, but I'm not sure of the percentages on that one. It's been an interesting guessing game to figure out from email IDs who people are, especially when the women forget to identify themselves by their maiden names.

Considering how I often feel as though my life really began in September 1984 with the advent of my freshman year of college, I'm intrigued to find out what ever happened to the people I knew in my “previous life.” Who have these people become? What is important to them? How do they measure success in their lives? How do I answer those questions for myself?

In my work with the CCO, I often emphasize the need for ministry to college students by talking about what social psychologist Sharon Parks once identified as “the critical years.” The ages between 18 and 25 have been identified as the bridge between adolescence and adulthood, a period during which we begin to make decisions which will affect the kinds of people we ultimately become and how we will live the rest of our lives. Because I didn't really start to take my Christian faith seriously until I was a college student, at which point I began considering how what I believed about God needed to influence all of my life, this emphasis on the critical years resonates with me in a very personal way.

When I recently told a friend that I was planning to attend my high school reunion, she shuddered and told me, “You are the most secure person I know.”

Me?

Clearly, I'm not the only one who thinks back on high school and conjures feelings of insecurity, inadequacy, and uncertainty. In fact, when I think too much about the upcoming reunion, my palms start to sweat just a little. Junior high was the more painful time for me; in high school, I just felt sort of invisible. Not one of the popular kids, but not really unpopular either. Just…there.

Within the first few weeks of my freshman year at Allegheny, I remember showing my high school yearbook to Chris, my first “almost-boyfriend” in college. He noticed how many pictures of me were in there, and he commented, “Wow, you must have been really popular.” This seemed to impress him, and while I tried to correct his misinterpretation (“No, I was just good friends with one of the yearbook photographers”), I could tell that he didn't believe me. I stopped trying to convince him otherwise.

My closest friends today, with one or two exceptions, are people I met after September of 1984. They are people who love me for who I am, not for any image I tried — successfully or not — to project. They met me during the most open and adventuresome, honest and impressionable years of my life. I met many of them when we were, together, crossing that bridge from adolescence into adulthood.

As I read through the autographs in my high school yearbook, I look forward to catching up with people I actually do remember, even if most of the inside jokes referenced in their scrawled messages are now a complete mystery to me. I hope that, during our brief reunion time, we're able to catch at least a glimpse of who we have become and what transformations took place on the bridge.

And I pray that the true Source of my security will shine through from me to them.

This article was originally published in October 2004. Copyright Coalition for Christian Outreach, 2004.