Our congregation had shrunk the way these little country churches shrink. Forty families down to twenty-two.
The call committee prayed over it for months. Then they voted to bring in somebody young. They hoped a young family in the parsonage might bring other young families back.
Pastor Shay brought his wife, Tamra.
She was twenty-nine. Bright and busy and full of ideas.
For the first year, she mostly left the kitchen to us. She helped out on some Sundays. She learned our names. She learned that Eunice takes her coffee black and Marge can’t eat onions.
Then, in September, she went to a church conference in Lincoln. Something about revitalizing small congregations.
And she came back with a binder.
I don’t say that to make fun of her. I’ve come to believe that binder came from a good heart that just didn’t know this town yet.
