Later he and his wife and I talked about the concept of being a female intellectual. He said that many times it is used somewhat pejoratively, as if appending “female” to “intellectual” brings down the impact of “intellectual.” And it occurred to me that even when that doesn’t happen, “female intellectual” is used as the exception that proves the rule. There are intellectuals, and then every once in a while there’s a female one, an abnormality even if just as intellectual as the “real” ones. “Female” is unusual among intellectuals, and “intellectual” is unusual among females. Very few people would come right out and state such an attitude, but it’s often present, invisible and implicit.

I’m thankful to this particular pastor for treating me not as a female who wanted to take part in his theological conversation with another pastor but as a fellow lover of theology and a welcome part of his district convention experience. And I’m particularly thankful for an upbringing that taught me not to see “female” as a barrier to anything I was suited to do nor as a detriment to any profession I might enter or activity I might want to take up.

In my family growing up, boys washed dishes and girls cut wood; boys learned to sew and girls learned to fish. These things were things that needed to be done, and everyone did them, and they benefitted everybody. Everybody was expected to get good grades in science as well as in English. Captains Courageous and Tom Sawyer were not books pushed on boys and not on girls; they were on the bookshelf, and anyone could read them who wanted to. My older sister was interested in the small engines class in high school, and I was interested in taking Spanish and Russian at the same time, and both were perfectly fine choices. I grew up recognizing that my parents would be fine with any career choice I made, as long as it wasn’t selling drugs or being a mob boss or something. There was no bias that said girls shouldn’t take up certain interests or professions any more than there was a bias that said people with brown hair shouldn’t do them. You could do whatever your mind was fit for.

Add to that the conviction I had that I could do anything God called me to and gave me the talents to do, and that God called me to ministry and gave me talents for education, language, theology, analysis, contemplation. I’ve never felt out of place in my various educational and ministry settings; in fact, I felt very firmly in place, because I knew I was where God had designed me to belong. For a great part of this I owe thanks to the Assemblies of God, which welcomes women in the callings God has given them. My ministry and theological education has only affirmed me and my place in God’s mission.

and beautiful landscape

Don’t get me wrong: I love being female. I may share my personality type with far more males than females (INTJ in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator), and I may share interests with more males than females (ministry, theology, science fiction, superhero movies, programming), and I would really, really prefer to have a nice theological conversation than a nice conversation about children or shoes or most anything else that’s stereotyped as belonging to women—but I love dresses and teacups and figure skating and Pride and Prejudice and—well, many things stereotypically assigned to the feminine persuasion. I love being who I am, and being female is part of who I am. Part of who I am. Not the single deciding factor in who I am.

The thing is, I’ve never felt like a “woman in ministry,” that separate and special category assigned to separate and special ministers who happen to be female, and I’ve never felt like a “female intellectual.” I am first of all me, a human being with a brain and a soul and interests and talents and weaknesses and struggles. I am not a female modified by “intellectual,” nor an intellectual modified by “female.” I am me, and I am modified by “intellectual” and “female” and “introvert” and “short” and “quirky” and “American” and everything else that coalesces to describe me. They all have varying effects on each other and on the totality of who I am. Take any one of those things away, and I wouldn’t be me. They are all valuable parts of who God has made me to be.

Before you ever start to classify someone, as, for instance, “the female intellectual” or “the woman in pastoral ministry” or “the introverted youth minister” or “the teenaged writer” or anything that may in any way cause you to discount that person, stop yourself for a moment. Recognize that that person is first of all a sovereign human being, a bearer of God’s image, a person with a calling and a soul, a personality and point of view that has something to offer which you don’t. And only then begin to examine the characteristics which make up that complete person: her gender, her nationality, her race, her interpersonal style, her talents, her weaknesses, her interests. Don’t let “female” or “intellectual” or anything else force you to make assumptions about what that person can or can’t contribute or about that person’s value in ministry or any other situation in life. This is first of all God’s child, a divine, sovereign person valuable in and of herself. Only secondly is she your pastor or your professor or the short, brown-haired missionary who wants to join your theological conversation.

It was in Anaconda, Montana, a long, narrow town with which I have quite a few pleasant associations. My aunt and uncle used to live there, and they were always marvelous to visit. The AG church is pastored by a man who knows my grandparents and a dozen or so of my relatives, because he used to pastor my grandparents’ church and had all kinds of stories about my grandfather’s absurdities, because my grandfather was delightfully absurd. I also used to live in a house this pastor used to live in, which is just randomer and randomer.

It was a little church in a little town, and I love little churches in little towns. I grew up with them, and they feel so familiar and comfortable to go into. It being a Wednesday night just after the holidays, there were only ten or fifteen people there, but really, for my first service, that was a perfect number. I like small groups. They’re cozy. Also the ten or fifteen people who come to a Wednesday night missions service just after the holidays are going to be the ten or fifteen people who are the backbone of the church.

Missions table: international teacups, Greek study books, and Greek translation journal

I set up a little table, and it was beautiful. Until I had my multicultural teas back in November, I wasn’t sure what I would do for a missions table at services, because I’ve never been to Belgium, so I haven’t accumulated any neat Belgian things, and also I’m not really going to Belgium, as Belgium. I’m going to a multicultural setting. But the teas made me realize that I have loads of lovely items that represent a multitude of cultures: teapots and teacups. Also since I’m going as a Greek professor, I can use the large number of Greek study texts I own, including the beautiful leather journals of my own translations. I used a sari as a tablecloth, set out my most international teapots and foreign teacups, and neatly arranged a few books on it, and it was as representative of me and my ministry as you could wish.

There was a lovely, potluck sort of meal, and afterward I spoke for half an hour or forty-five minutes. I told them about what I’ll be doing in Belgium, how I was called into missions, and gave a mini-sermon on Peter and Paul and how God changed their lives but also used the talents and personalities He’d given them. They were a lovely audience. They laughed frequently.

We had a short hang-around-and-chat time afterward, and I went home with a remarkably generous contribution to my cash budget. Tiny church, great generosity. I left very encouraged.

A teapot named Claudia, teacups, and Greek study books, on a sari.

Itinerating usually means speaking to large groups, usually churches, about one’s call to missions and the work one is going to do. For me, in November it meant holding tea parties.

I have a lot of family and friends in the Missoula, Montana, area, and few of them go to any of the churches I would be itinerating at. So when I was thinking about how I could introduce them all to my new life, short of sending out a mass letter, which can be a bit boring, I remembered that when my sister Maria came home from her two missions trips to Kenya, she held a Kenyan dinner for her friends and family. What a great idea! People always want to come and have food.

However, I’ve never been to Belgium. I know nothing about Belgian food and Belgian customs. In addition, I’m not technically going to do ministry to Belgians. I’m going to do ministry in a multicultural setting. And then I realized that I already have everything I need to hold a multicultural event. I own loads of tea, and tea is drunk around the world in a million different ways. I own loads of teacups and loads of teapots from all around the world. I have cookbooks with many European recipes. I love to bake. Why not have a multicultural tea?

So I had three multicultural teas. I sent out about forty hand-written invitations on neat little notecards to about sixty people and spent three weekends crafting and holding tea parties. I held the teas in my programming team office in an old, quirky, brick building and decorated with saris (of which I have many), a few foreign objects I own, and Greek-study books. I baked European desserts, like these Hungarian butter biscuits, Italian olive oil cake from a recipe by the same cookbook author as the Hungarian biscuits (one of my clients), and proper cucumber sandwiches, because what is tea without cucumber sandwiches?

Japanese tetsubin and Chinese yixing teapots.

And I had many kinds of tea in their proper teapots with their proper teacups. Black tea (a blend I created called Romany Caravan), served English-style with sugar and milk in a lovely vintage teapot (named Claudia) with lovely vintage teacups. Indian chai in an English Brown Betty teapot (named Harold) with mugs. Kenya chai in Kenyan thermoses printed with Bible verses, also with mugs. Chinese oolong and pu-ehr in little clay Yixing teapots with small tea bowls. Japanese genmaicha (green tea with toasted rice) in a Japanese cast iron tetsubin with Japanese rice bowls and tea bowls.

Mathalia, who makes and sells potholders in Missoula.

Four people came to my first tea, including my friend Mathalia and her mom, whose website I’ve helped with, and we had a lovely, cozy time. Eight or nine people came to my second tea the next weekend, mostly people I know from church but also one of my web development clients and my aunt and uncle. And about nine people came to my third tea, all of whom just happened to be family members, including my sister’s very dear in-laws and my two brothers, neither of whom I get to see very often.

We all sat and stood about eating and talking and having a lovely time, and presently I drew everybody together and told about my future missions work in Europe and my current itineration journey. The lovely thing was that I wasn’t giving a speech. I was just telling people things, and they were interested and asking questions and giving ideas and discussing among themselves.

Even if none of the people who came ever support me (which some of them already have, lovely them), it was valuable for me to meet with them and get them involved in a way in my ministry. I learned that about itineration recently: it’s not about raising funds so much as it is getting people involved in ministry and in your own missionary journey. I hope I inspired my friends and family. At the very least, they had a lovely tea.