Tammy Titus: I Need God

In this episode we sit down with Tammy and reflect on James 4:13–17. Through stories of her family’s travels for work, her journey of becoming a Christian and part of this church, and sharing the Scriptures that have meant the most to her, one message is clear: we need God.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Consider One Another is a podcast focused on each other. Thank you for tuning in to this podcast that is all about stirring up love and good works in one another. Good morning or good afternoon or good evening. Welcome back to the Consider One Another podcast. Today is an exciting one, as always. I'm sitting here with Tammy Titus. Tammy, thank you so much for being here today.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

You're welcome. Glad to be here.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Tammy just came from Tai Chi. Tai Chi.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Sam and I do Tai Chi on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We go to a class.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

I wish I had a hobby like that because you guys stay busy doing stuff.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

We do try to, whether it's planning for trips, going on trips, um, going to the gym, doing our Tai Chi, trying to stay active and healthy through our senior years.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

We'll talk more about your travels and your trips later because that is fascinating to me. We're gonna start with scripture. I'm in James 4. James 4, a fairly well-remembered passage. I'm gonna read James 4 13 through 17. I'll just read the passage and then we'll talk about it a little bit. Sound good?

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Sounds good.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

James 4, verse 13. Come now, you who say, today or tomorrow, we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit. Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead, you want to say, if the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that. But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

I work hard to remember this one because with all the salmonized travels, I am the one who does all the planning. I'm usually looking one to two years ahead for our trips. At all times I have something on the back burner. There's either something booked, something being thought about being booked, something I need to add, plus anything that gets added to the bucket list of, you know, saying, well, maybe I better start learning about this. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

So then I can think about booking, so that I can book.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

Right. So um I uh do try to keep that in mind because God's plans aren't my plans. I mean, He has much more wisdom and He tells us when things are appropriate and when they aren't. And so even at when I'm looking at all these, I remember that, you know, when is that how does that fit in with other important things?

SPEAKER_03 2:35

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

Like my time as a Bible class teacher. You know, I try not to inconvenience somebody too much when I plan a trip.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Right. Or if I'm gone all the time.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Then I'm not available as a teacher. Right. And Sam has the deacon duties, um, his are nearly uh more constant. We need Sam. Right. So I also try not to book us back to back to back. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

And that's what planning is for. So James Ford is not telling us don't bother planning, but it's just saying, hey, just remember, your plans come second to God's plans. And I must say, I was hoping you were gonna say something like that. As I figured with the way you guys travel, it must be pretty thought out. So 2026, you guys are already thinking about 2028. Is there something in the works?

SPEAKER_02 3:25

Well, I've got this year's travel planned. We're taking our granddaughter to Costa Rica this year, and we're going on an Alaskan cruise that we fly into Juneau, well, into Fairbanks, start up in Denali, and then cruise from there. And then to fly to Juneau and cruise around the inland passage that we're doing the very end of August and beginning of September. I'm still looking on what is going to happen in 2027. Usually I have something booked by now.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

You're so far behind.

SPEAKER_02 3:56

A lot of my trips depend on what are a good deal to fly somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Okay, yes, I like that sort of thinking. Which planning lends itself to. You can plan ahead and see the deals.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

Yes. So I also subscribe to some things for traveling. So when trips I book all my trips on point for the flight.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Okay, write that down. Travel fans. Always use the points.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

Always use the points. Except domestic travel I do for cash mostly, but uh international travel I do by point. Point the break point of what I get value for is higher on the international trips.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

And you've done the math.

SPEAKER_02 4:33

I've done the math, and I go premium cabin when we go international, so we fly in business class with lay-flat seats for something that's going to be six hours or more. That's one of the reasons to book them on points. Use the points. And it depends on what airline puts what available. It's very variable, and it has nothing to do with the cash cost.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

It's not like a one-to-one or a two-to-one. It both vary independently.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

Yes. And sometimes it's like I've done all this planning, I've done all a bunch of things I know we can do, and then something shows up and it's like, okay, Sam, and I'm booking this and I'm booking it now, and we're going and you know.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

It opened up, we gotta do it. Right. Oh, this is so funny that James Ford launched us into this super detailed discussion into planning trips.

SPEAKER_02 5:25

I know.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Planning trips is good, but don't overplan and expect it to be guaranteed. Nothing is guaranteed, not even points or miles.

SPEAKER_02 5:34

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Let's launch right into this because we're talking about it. Because you've had the chance, obviously, to travel a lot, both for fun, yay, and for work. Can you just take us through some of your favorite places? Just take us through the travels and the Titus family. We want to know.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

Well, Sam grew up traveling. His parents were school teachers. So during the summers, they were out living in the middle of the Pacific on Guam and they would travel all summer. I grew up, if you went on vacation, you know, that was going camping, maybe an hour's go away.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Forget business class, just a tent.

SPEAKER_02 6:08

Yeah, I don't even think about getting on an airplane, right? Just go camping. So it was a little bit of a a struggle to get me going and a little bit unnerving, but I did fly out to see Sam's parents to meet them more fully one semester while we were in college after for a summer break.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Detroit? Am I making that up?

SPEAKER_02 6:28

They started in Detroit.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

If you haven't heard the story, Jay, my father-in-law, uh middle of winter in Detroit. He was teaching in an inner city school, which he actually liked. Oh, good for him. He really liked the kids and such, but it's the middle of winter, and on a bulletin board in the break room is an advertisement saying we're looking for teachers on Guam. And Jay, not a great geography guy at this point, pulls up a map, says, That looks warm. Middle of winter Detroit, Pacific Island, moves the family out there.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Yeah, but funny, your Jay impression sounded like a Sam impression.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

Um, in those ways, they're very similar.

unknown 7:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Do you flew out to Guam then to meet the family? That's what you're saying.

SPEAKER_02 7:13

Yes. No, I had met them very briefly as they came for a mother's weekend, mom's weekend, um during while we were at school at WSU. Gotcha. But I'd met them like one after. Sam and I were dating. We weren't that serious at that point. It was different at that point. Right. We were much more interested in each other, were not engaged, but very close to it.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Okay, yes.

SPEAKER_02 7:37

So go to Guam, meet his spend time to really get to know his parents. Cool. Because they lived so far away, Sam came home um with me for most breaks while we were dating. So he knew my parents pretty well.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Right.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

So that was my first long trip.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Yeah, he was like, it's no big deal. It's Guam.

SPEAKER_02 7:56

Right. And Guam was great. And I truly did enjoy it and love it. Um, we got out of school, we moved up here, we moved over here, I should say, not up.

SPEAKER_03 8:06

Over.

SPEAKER_02 8:06

Yeah. Yeah. Over to the west side of the state, because we went to school at WSU. Then for work, we first started with Sam, had a project in San Diego that took him a couple of months, and it was a long-term project, and everybody in his office was rotating, coming down for at least a month into San Diego. And Sam volunteered to do two months if he got to pick the two months.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:34

So we chose when the kids were going into the fourth grade or going into the fifth grade that somewhere between fourth and fifth grade for them.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

Nice. San Diego summer.

SPEAKER_02 8:45

Yes, San Diego summer. We spent two months down there and had a ball. Sam went to work. The kids and I spent uh pretty much every day at SeaWorld because we had an annual pass.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Yes, SeaWorld, shamu. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

And so that was fun. And then the next year they were looking for somebody to go to Pearl Harbor. Wow. And again, they were offering him to do that. And he took the summer and a little bit of the fall and into the spring. We went four months to Hawaii. They're paying for us to live in a house. They normally put people up in hotels and they were offering condos. And there was a real estate agent who wanted to work with the people who were being sent there. He said, You could give me a call if you're coming and I'll um get you a great thing. And he said, Most everybody wanted a condo on the beach. Sam says, I want to bring my family and I want a three-bedroom house. And they found us seriously a fully furnished three-bedroom house for what Sam was paid for his hotel room, the equipment. Use it on the house. Use it on the house, and they were perfectly fine with Sam using it that way. And so way.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

How long was this period of time?

SPEAKER_02 9:57

That was four months. So we were there for the summer, and the end of the school year the teachers gave me all of my kids' books and teachers' guides and exams. And we worked through the rest of the school year, and I sent the tests back to the school and then we had the summer off and came back.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

That's amazing. So you just kind of homeschooled-ish the kids.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

Homeschooled-ish the kids, but giving somebody else's curriculum and something they were very familiar with because it was the same books. Yes, I was very pleased with them.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Okay, so they're just living life, having a good time. Dad's working, he's probably working really hard. But everyone else is having a good time.

SPEAKER_02 10:36

Everybody else is having a good time. Thank you, Sam. Yes, thank you very much, Sam. I used to pick him up on Fridays from work. I'd have a picnic packed and we'd head from well straight from work out to the beach, and we'd spend Friday evening with the kids playing on the beach and swimming and then heading home. They also built brand new a water park just below the hill from our house, so we ended getting an annual pass there. And we'd go to the water park for an hour every day. I took Sam to and from work and so I'd have the car during the day, and as we'd pick him up, I'd make the kids go with us to pick him up, come back, go to the water park on the way home. That was pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

And uh I was trying to ask this question to like reveal some challenging times. I'm sure they get challenging. So far it seems just like a pretty good time. They were you're just beaming as you're talking about this.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

Well, I th I often tell uh Sam and others that this seemed to be God's way of telling me I could do these things because these were just everything fell into place to make these work. These were not us worked hard at them, they just kind of fell in our lap.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

God's saying you can do this.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

You can do this. Which led to the following year going to Germany for three years.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

There's the big one.

SPEAKER_02 11:55

There is the big one. And truly learning about another culture because you're not just kind of visiting and playing in or in Hawaii. Right, and you're not spending your w days playing at the beach and things like that. Now you're living in a new country. New everything. Fortunately, most Germans speak English, but you know, you're still working at learning a language. Just day-to-day things that you look at as normal are not necessarily in a in a foreign country.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

You perhaps to learn it the hard way sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 12:26

Sometimes. The idea that you would go grocery shopping daily for what you were going to eat that day, and you would walk to a small store, pick up dinner for the night, make sure you have milk on hand for breakfast in the morning to go with cereal or something.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Every day.

SPEAKER_02 12:43

Well, no, we did it more like two or three days. And eventually there was a supermarket uh that was built that was a little farther away that I would do more like what we would think of weekly shopping. But I had a a refrigerator that was a little bit bigger than a mini fridge you get in a hotel room. And the freezer was, you know, about the size you would see in a mini fridge. The refrigerator itself was bigger, but the freezer was about the same size. You can barely put a a thing of ice cream in it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

That's an adjustment. And you're learning how to do that in in real time.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

Yes. And a lot of shops, small shopkeepers don't speak English. Most people will speak it. Somebody who is running a cash register at a grocery store doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

They don't need to. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

One of the best things though was the local congregation. We did Sunday mornings on base with uh two other couples that were Americans that were there for the military.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Okay, very cool.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

But we uh decided we wanted to expand a little bit, so there was a congregation that was not far away that was German but had a large group of Americans that also went there. So that's where we chose to worship on Wednesdays or to go to Bible class on so we would get that. And that was very interesting to see how somebody else would do something, even from the name of the the building. Gemunda Christa, which means friends of Christ.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Okay, interesting.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

So, you know, it's a and you're like, you know, first you're thinking, well, is that is that okay?

SPEAKER_01 14:18

And then what does that mean? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:21

Right. And uh, you know, culturally how people would set up to to do a class, you know, if we're used to an auditorium and split up, and um that wasn't always how it was done. You know, sometimes we were in one room, sometimes we're in another room. I just different ways of doing things that are perfectly fine.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Fine, unusual. Different. You gotta think for yourself now. Is this okay? Can the sign say friends of Christ? Yes. Yes. Right. It's okay.

SPEAKER_02 14:51

It is okay. So that was a that was a really good learning.

SPEAKER_03 14:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

And uh work with the cultural pieces for that, especially as the Germans are not a very religious people. A lot like the West Coast here. You will meet a lot of people who are not religious. However, they do have state-run or state-authorized denominations. Wow. Um, Lutheran and Catholicism in the South in the South, which we were in Stuttgart, so that's consider that's southern Germany.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Okay, the South.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

That's where Catholicism was still really strong, even after Luther and the Thirty Years' War.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Okay, so you got Catholicism in the South and everywhere else, Lutheran, that's what's authorized.

SPEAKER_02 15:36

Yes. There can be other churches, but those ones had tax breaks. They Oh wow. So most everybody, if they were going to identify with something, identified with those. And a lot of it times it was for t things like tax purposes. They were kind of like a state-sponsored, though those religions got money from the government, and you got a tax break if you did certain certain things with them.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

I gotcha. More figuring out, because that's not very American.

SPEAKER_02 16:05

No, no. So that was also interesting talking to people because they only really recognize those two religions. Even though there are so many denominations of Christianity out there. So while we didn't have that discussion of which one among the myriad are you, it was like, so you're not Lut you say you're not Lutheran and you're not Catholic. Well that's those are the choices. What are you then? Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

It's one of those two. Like, well. So you're navigating all sorts of things, everything. Yeah. Do you ever feel like you settled in in those three years?

SPEAKER_02 16:39

Absolutely. Um, I my mom got very sick during that time. And I flew back to the States when my stepdad called that should said she was very ill. And matter of fact, she passed away during that time. Um, my in-laws, um Jay and Laura, were renting Sam and I's house. So that felt comfortable to stay in our house for that period. You know, yes, I'm not in my master bedroom, but uh the house was still comfortable. It felt felt like mine.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 17:07

And then I came and I stayed uh went to Yakima and stayed in my stepdad and my mom's house, and my mom was in the hospital 90% of that time before she passed.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

You were out here for a couple of months, you said?

SPEAKER_02 17:19

Yeah. Okay. She had a um long drawn out illness and a and a surgery and never fully recovered from the surgery and then passed away. Going back home after she passed, you know, I've done all the things I can here and done the memorial and you know, preps and everything. Right. And I fly home. And it really did. It felt like I when I walked into Stuttgart and got off the plane, it was like I'm home. Just like arriving back in Bremerton, both felt as equally as home at home.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

That's a good feeling. Yeah. This is home.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

This is home.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

Far away from home, but it's still home.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

It's still home. Which is very interesting in walking off the plane because every place smells different. And that maybe surprise people, but um that's part of the alien feeling about traveling for us, or at least for me, yeah. Is this doesn't smell like home. But after all the but those, you know, living in Germany, I was probably we've lived there for over a year, year and a half, when I came back for this time with my mom. I walked off the plane in Seattle, it smelled like home. I walked off the plane in Stuttgart, and it smelled like home. Totally different. Too different. I could definitely identify them at that point, but it was they they both have the smell of home.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

I I love what you said earlier about God saying you can do this. Maybe you felt that in Hawaii, maybe that was preparing you for Germany, because that's way harder than you consider three years, different culture, and then the trial just right in the middle of that. I could have felt like God saying you can't do this had it been at a different time.

SPEAKER_02 19:00

Yes. And um I I will tell you that I never got as good at the language as I wanted because when I came back I was grieving for so, you know, for quite a while. And it was, you know, in many times just uh hard to get the kids ready for school, do the do the things I needed to do, let alone put the mental effort into expanding my vocabulary and a new language. And such. Um so Sam actually got better at German than I was.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Right. Because you got that break right in the middle, and then grieving just lends itself to talking less.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

In any language.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Let alone a new one. So then you finished out the probably a year or so more.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

Another year and a half, I think, of there, another a little more than a little more than a year left, and we we came back to to Washington.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

Okay, gotcha. Well then we'll rewind in a little bit, but for now, just like keep going on this timeline then, because you're telling me the kids get to high school and then you go back to work. And I was getting to learn just a little bit more about your job when we were sitting down at the Warringtons, uh, it was just fascinating to me about your your role in the shipyard on a submarine. I just want to open up that conversation again for everyone to learn uh what was that like? Tell us what was the job on the submarine and those close quarters and all the other different challenges.

SPEAKER_02 20:18

Um, so I have a degree in soils, soil science.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Soil science, cool.

SPEAKER_02 20:22

Yep. Which um allowed me to pretty easily get a job at the shipyard um as a radiological control technician. While it's not really in my field, they want somebody with a strong science background because of the qualifications. It's not that the job requires it, but there is a pretty extensive exam you have to take to qualify to do it. And you have to go through a pretty uh fast-paced class.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

And you could do that.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

Because of the degree in the strong science background. So I was hired in the shipyard, and immediately or about a month after I was there, then I had to go to my to school in Norfolk for six months. Not quite six, so closer to five months.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Just by yourself.

SPEAKER_02 21:06

Just by myself.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Okay, fam stays home.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

So Sam is being the single parent at home with Jake and AJ. Though we made sure that at least once a month, er every month, either somebody came out or I came back because we I left shortly after Thanksgiving, and I was home for Christmas, and then um So you made it work. We made it work. Whether the kids came out alone, whether they came out with Sam, whether Sam came out by himself and the kids stayed with grandma and grandpa for whatever it took. Someone someone was always visiting, and we were always trying to connect together by doing that. Um then back to the shipyard, um, get my qualifications, and I just gravitated to working in submarines more instead of carriers, mainly because the work group. The people I worked with were quirky but fun to work with, entertaining. They were weird in the same way I was weird, so it was just enjoyable working. With them. But that also meant that came with some of the other things with a submarine. The close quarters, as I was telling you that before at the Warringtons, I don't have a normal space bubble anymore. It's expanded since I've stopped being on the waterfront. But you know, for a while it was just flat gone.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Eliminated.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

Because there were some times in some spaces where we had to have a mechanic doing a job. I was, I am the oversight for the radiation part of work. So I have to have my eyes on things to make sure that we aren't that we're following the radiation rules, radiation contamination rules. And we would also have inspectors who are watching the technical aspect of how that we were operating in in cleanliness of things because nuclear power plants have to be very clean. You cannot get debris in anything. And so those had to be verified. So more than once in a very tight space, you know, smaller than this conference room, we're sitting around, we'd have a mechanic, his assistant to help him, his boss to watch him, and then two people oversighting, one for radiation, one for keeping the plant clean and inspections. And we're all shoved in together.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

And you gotta work too.

SPEAKER_02 23:21

And you gotta work. And there are times I've literally been leaning, you know, over somebody and handing them in survey materials, swiping so that they can take a radiation or a type of a survey for me. And an inspector, I'm not kidding. One time we had an inspector, both of us had to kind of shift a weight a little bit or spread our legs a sum so they could be below us underneath with their flashlight shined on the valve the whole time.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

The submarine life. That's a whole different culture, too.

SPEAKER_02 23:51

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

Different social boundaries.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

But you got used to it, and you I guess you said you gravitated toward it.

SPEAKER_02 23:57

And uh honestly, I enjoyed worth the sailors that I worked with.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Cool.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

I was surprised when I was hired that my interviewer, who was later a boss of mine, said one of the main reasons we hired you is because you were a Boy Scout leader. And I'm like, okay, she says, You are familiar with dealing with young men. I'm like, yeah, so you'll be able to tell sailors what to do. I'm like, but yeah, they're they're adults. I'm talking about I was dealing with teenagers. Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

It's the same. Boy Scout leader, perfect qualification for this for working on a submarine. That's hilarious.

SPEAKER_02 24:34

Yeah, or for sailors in general. As I spent more time with them, a lot of the young sailors, a lot of the sailors that were working around were not much older or very much the same age as my sons.

SPEAKER_03 24:46

Right.

SPEAKER_02 24:46

During that time when I was doing this, our oldest son joined the Navy and became a submarine sailor. So even more so could I relate. Yeah. It's just Boy Scouts. Right. So I could easily chew them out when they needed it and also be somebody who could be very supportive when that was needed too.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

Yes, you had to do both.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

I had to do both. I we call it mom and mommy.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Mom is the harsh one. Mommy's the nice one.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

Yep. Mom is the one who makes you clean your room and get all your homework done on time and you know, doesn't let you, doesn't cut too much slack. That's mom. So as a sailor, it's like, no, you can't go in that space. I don't think you're telling me the truth. Go back.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

Yeah. I know when you're lying to me. I'm your mom.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

Yes. Um mommy is the one who realizes you're struggling with something and it's really stressing you out and can take a whole lot of easy time. Yeah. He's a very gentle speaking voice, give easy instruction, and make you feel comfortable doing something, especially through a stressful time. And that happened a few times uh with sailors as well. And you know, sometimes I usually the chiefs usually let me do it because it was a time when the kid was starting to fall apart, but the chief can help their kids, but he also need to be their boss.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Yes, you had a unique role in that.

SPEAKER_02 26:11

Yeah. And so there were a few times that the chief just let me do that so that we got his sailor through something that was going on. A hard time. A problem that we were having with our work that he was struggling with doing properly, or something, and I could get them through that. It would be a teaching moment, and nobody had to come down on the kid.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

Okay, so so you were able to do both roles then, and that's cool that even chiefs were able to recognize okay, maybe she can do something here that maybe I can't, and we needed both. Okay, so now we have to rewind. And I'll try to pair two questions together to close us out here. This is a very open-ended question, and we got to hear kind of Sam's perspective on this, uh, but we really want to hear yours. Uh, just tell us about how you became a Christian when that happened, and when you started attending the Bremerton Church of Christ. Because right now, Tammy does a lot of work as one of our middle school Bible class teachers. And when I met Tammy and saw the work that she's doing, it's easy for me to forget that there was a moment where like a person has to come to Christ at first, and where this person was new at this church. I just see her as she's been middle school teacher all the time, forever. Uh, not quite the case. So tell us about how you became a Christian and when you started attending here at Bremerton.

SPEAKER_02 27:33

My childhood best friend and her family, the Manly Girls, is what they we called them.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 27:40

Uh Bev, Kathy, Cindy, and Tammy.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

Cool.

SPEAKER_02 27:44

Uh they were members there in Yakima. The same place that Dan was Wow, very cool. Dan's father, Morris, was the preacher.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

Okay, gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 27:54

And Dan, though, is a few years older than me. But my time with with Bev, especially, who is my best friend, and her sisters, um, and her mom, I was very exposed to the church. I didn't do anything with it, but I was very exposed to it.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 28:12

Religious background for me, my mom um was a naturalized American citizen. She was from Germany, so you're talking about religion. She was a Catholic. She never went to a Catholic church ever. But I saw that in Germany. People didn't necessarily go, but they they associated with that because that was part of the culture. So that's what she was here as well. Um, but I spent my time with Bev and would go to church with her um, you know, fairly often. Gotcha. Off I go to college. Tammy and her husband were also going to WSU at the same time. Um, so I spent some time going to the church there in Moscow, Idaho, just across the border.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

Fun.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

Decided to get baptized during that time, but pretty quickly fell away. You know, doing the the college student life lifestyle, yeah. Right. You know, add a few years, Sam and I have married, we've moved out here. Sam and I went through a rough patch with each other. And I just looked at it and said, you know, I need God. You know, I'm I'm gonna go here. I know there's a congregation here. Um while I I think I may have stopped by once and went to a service once here, I hadn't really attended otherwise. But I knew that there was a a good congregation here. So I said, okay, Sam, I'm I'm going to church. And Sam's like, well, we're in a bad we're kind of in a bad spot. What we don't need is for us to be doing separate things that don't uh that we need to be doing something together. So if you're something important to you, I'm gonna go. So good for him. Yeah, very good for him. So we went and a few months later, I decided to be baptized actually again. I just did not feel the my heart wasn't right when I chose to do it.

SPEAKER_03 30:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

Um, I just wasn't I it was like I was making a promise knowing that I was keeping something back.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

Yeah. You'd gotten in the water, but there's something else hard-wise that needed to be done.

SPEAKER_02 30:22

Right. So I was baptized here.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 30:24

And this is probably 1991. Maybe 92 that time frame. And uh we continued going. Sam finally asked for a Bible class, and uh we studied for quite a while with Chuck Lindbergh, and eventually at one point Sam said he was afraid to be baptized because he thought Chuck would stop studying with him. Oh and I had to reassure him that that would if you felt the need for a personal Bible study, nobody was going to stop. We're gonna keep doing that. Yeah, it just because you wouldn't stop at baptism. Right. So um, and so then we've been with the Bremerton congregation ever since, except with our stints of travels, whether it was in San Diego, Hawaii, Germany.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

Okay. So that's 1991 until now, that's that's a good long time. It is. I'm sure you've seen lots of different uh phases here, um, whether it's the building or the people or anything else. I I love the story, and Sam told us his perspective from it about about those studies and how he had to learn. And and now again, when I see Sam and Tammy, I don't even think about that. I just see these devoted folks uh who have just committed their lives to this. But there was a moment where you had to commit in the first place.

SPEAKER_02 31:46

You did, and it's as a lot of people find, you know, it's not necessarily an easy step. You know, I had to take it, I take the t take it twice, right?

SPEAKER_01 31:54

Yes. Yes. You're like, hold on, did I really commit it? Did I? Okay, so and and then uh clearly you have since then, and uh Sam and you have been such good examples to this group of hard work. Um I want to talk more about middle school, but talk to Tammy about it. She works hard in that class, even planning her vacations around it. If you want to teach middle school, talk to Tammy, she'll tell you all about it and the joys and challenges of it. But this podcast was exactly uh what I was hoping for, just all across the board, interesting and edifying. Close us out then with the favorites. Tell us about your favorite verse. I think it's gonna be verses in the Bible and how they pair together.

SPEAKER_02 32:36

John 3.16, for God so loved the world that he son, his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him will have an everlasting life. And then with it, Genesis 1.27, let us make man in our image. Those together remind me that I am what I'm worth to God. I've always struggled with self-worth, with confidence. And that for me is one way to remind myself of just what God thought of me and thinks of me. And on the same note, it's also my go-to when I struggle with somebody else. Yes, because they were made in the image of God, they're also in the image of God. And Jesus came and died for them as well. Right. And uh, you know, so that it it's my reminder to myself every day, and my reminder about everyone else here and what my why God wants me to talk to everybody and try to bring this up because they were God's when they were born, they were made in his image, and he wants to be reunited with them.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

Yes. So whether it's a self-worth issue, it's I'm made in God's image, God wants me. That's gonna help your self-worth. Or if it's uh everyone else just seems annoying today, hey, they're made in God's image too. Also, Jesus came to die for them, not just you. So it's two verses we just take for granted. Genesis 1.27, that God made man in his image, John 3.16, yeah, yeah, we know it. Right. Pair them together. I love the way you've paired those together. That changes the way you view yourself and others. So we're gonna leave it right there with scripture. That's just an awesome thought. Tammy, thank you so much for your time today. Sam just walked in and he gave us the two-minute bell. He said, get out of here, time to go. Uh so thank you for your time today. Uh, this was just awesome.

SPEAKER_02 34:25

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

The Bible tells us to consider one another in order to stir up love and good works in each other. So thank you for stirring up love and good works in me just by listening to this episode.

SPEAKER_02 34:37

I tried to be careful about my job because there are classified things.

SPEAKER_01 34:42

I keep joking to people like David Kelly that I want to do a podcast where every question I ask is just classified. Can you tell us more about that? Ah, that's classified.

SPEAKER_03 34:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

Alright, thanks for coming in today.