Tiffany, thankfully, is a fairly straightforward and open person (which should not convince you for a second that there isn’t great depth hiding under the smile and positive mental attitude. There is.) She strikes the balance with great skill. These things I can tell you unreservedly about Tiffany:
Tiffany loves Jesus.
Tiffany wants everyone to love Jesus.
Tiffany loves people the best she can because that’s what Jesus would do.
It’s wonderful and refreshing. You find yourself asking all kinds of questions, namely, what do you do when your friend is as enthusiastic and exuberant about her faith as Tiffany is?
The answer is “Get on-board and enjoy the ride.”
Tiffany challenges me in some very unique ways.
Recently in Nepal, Tiffany and Danielle helped rescue a homeless girl off the streets after standing their ground against a group of six men in the middle of the night.
I was reading.
As Tiffany came into the building with another of our squadmates, she appeared flustered. She wasn’t. Within a few minutes, the plan was conceived. The people involved coordinated their plan with leadership, got in touch with the appropriate ministry, and were off in a taxi with the young girl – as Michael put it – “under their wings.”
I was sleeping.
I didn’t need to jump in and help just because I could. I wanted to, but I didn’t. I was convinced it was going to go horribly sideways I’m glad I trusted the Lord, because the story he wrote that evening was a beautiful one, and one I am glad I played no part in. It let God’s love shine through Tiffany and Danielle, and He got the glory, not our human efforts.
I tend to put a lot of stock in systems, plans, and preparedness. It serves me well in my life back home, helps me maintain a reasonable level of professionalism, and it keeps my Dad from having a panic attack when I drive home from Kansas City.
Tiffany blows that out of the water. Since Ecuador, she is the one who stops and, like Jesus, finds the one in the crowd. She just stops. Like, in the street. With strangers.
I haven’t figured out how to do that yet, but having her on my team, I learn. She loves unabashedly. She isn’t afraid to jump out in faith, because she fully expects Jesus to either catch her or give her a hang-glider. Where I shy back from feelings, she reminds me why they’re so necessary a part of our existence as humans.
Recently she reminded me of something. She commented to me – in very sensitive and kind terms, for the record – that I place a high value on intelligence and analysis, but that I tend to push people who process emotionally to the side as irrelevant, and that doing so is hurtful.
Ouch. Unfortunately, I realized that it was true, but still… Ouch.
It made me think of my grandparents. My grandfather was a surgeon and a researcher. He wrote computer programs and designed security systems and sailed boats and was active in his church. He was a godly, brilliant man. I have put him on a high pedestal for a long time, and I built it so high that I forgot about my grandmother.
My grandmother was an English professor. She went back to school and got her Master’s degree after having six children, and she still raised those six kids. She taught Sunday school. She loved literature, read crime novels and science fiction, and in her brief time with me, she made me feel deeply loved. She was as demanding and intelligent as he was, but she was also a woman of deep emotion.Their marriage was not one of all intellect or all emotion, but a blending on both of their parts.
I somehow lost track of that, and it took Tiffany being on my team to remind me that those things go hand in hand, and should be embraced They’re not mutually exclusive. The perspectives she shares and the way she views the world are deeply beneficial, and I reap the benefit of her faith and her friendship.
I am excited to see what else our team will learn as we continue on this crazy journey together for the next four months.”
