Hi.
I’m Tammy, and I’m the wife and mother of this crazy brood.
Jeff and I have been married since 1978 and there hasn’t been
a predictable day since. I didn’t marry a preacher. Although
we were both active in our church, Jeff worked for a local farm equipment
company and I was a secretary. When Jeff felt called to the ministry,
I considered it his calling, not mine. All I wanted was to
be the stay-home mom in what I hoped would be a large family. The
Lord has since blessed us with four amazing children and somewhere
along the way, He blessed me with “the call”
also. Mine seemed to sneak up on me gradually, but has nonetheless
been a definite call to ministry on my life. My ministry, however,
like so many other pastor’s wives and mothers, has been a day-to-day
lifestyle evangelism ministry. The most important people in my personal
congregation have been my children, and beyond them, their friends.
With an open door policy in our home, there is never a day that does
not present the opportunity to share our lives with others.
I’m a huge believer
in home. I believe that there are far too few homes left
in this world. Though, most everyone has a place to live, homes are
becoming endangered. The house our family lives in is quite modest
in comparison with the houses of most of the people we know. But our
home is amazing! It is a safe place; a noisy, busy, cluttered place.
It almost always smells of something cooking and is often filled with
the sounds of music and the telephone ringing. There are usually shoes
on the floor and baskets of clothes waiting to be folded, -- but it’s
a home; a place to work and play, laugh and cry, argue and love.
Of all the rolls I play in
life, my most important and proudest is that of a homemaker. I’m
not a housewife. I’m not a domestic engineer. I work hard day
in and day out and often well into the night to make a home.
Home does not require any
particular kind of house. Our housing situation has varied greatly
through the years. We’ve rented and owned. We’ve lived
in apartments, trailers, and parsonages. We’ve lived in other’s
homes and even in a small wood cabin with dirt floors and no modern
conveniences. There have been times that our family has been houseless,
-- but never homeless.
This is my calling, my “soapbox”,
my ministry, my toughest job, and my greatest honor, -- to be a homemaker.
This is who I am and what I do. Specifically, the list is endless.
It varies day-to-day, and year-to-year. It changes with the direction
God leads my husband’s ministry and the ages of our children.
I believe it’s the most difficult, endless, and politically
incorrect job on this earth. And I highly recommend it!
-TFW
