Recipes for Living Shane Elizabeth Simpson

Elizabeth is the Community Development Project Manager of the Clarke County Development Corporation. Her husband, Shane, is pastor of Christ'sway Church in Osceola. Elizabeth tells how they transitioned from Phoenix, Arizona to Clarke County, Iowa.

I was born and raised in Mesa, Arizona, in a family of seven children in which there were two sets of twins. My two older sisters, Brigette and Ann, and my older brother, Robert, were three, four, and five when Mom had my twin brother, Joe, and me. Three and a half years later, she had my other sister and brother, twins Lisa and Michael. When she had her first twins, ultrasound was not available. Mom was huge! When she was in the beginning of her seventh month, and she was 54 inches around, she knew something was wrong! Also, in those days, the men didn't go into the delivery room with the women. When he went to her room, Dad said, "Well, what did we have?" She said, "Both." He stuttered, "What do you mean both?" She said, "We can use both names." Now, Dad is a large man, over 300 pounds, and he started shaking. The doctors began yelling, "Get him a chair!" because they knew if he fell, they'd not be able to get him up. They put him in the chair, and my dad was in shock!

They survived that event, and three and a half years later, Mom was pregnant again. She said to the doctor, "I'll bet I am having twins." He said, "There is no way. The chances of that are like one in a million. That is not going to happen." She insisted, and so did he. He said, "If you are having twins, I'll pay for the ultrasound. If not, you are paying for it." They went for the ultrasound and while the doctor was watching, he said, "There's a head, there's a foot...there's another head - I think there might be a third." My mom almost died. She said, "I know what to do with two, but I wouldn't know what to do with a third one." On the front page of the Father's Day edition of the Phoenix paper, there was an article about us. When the reporter was interviewing my parents, with all of us were standing there, he remarked about all the children and asked my dad how much work it was to have such a large family. Mom said, "Him? what are you talking to him for? I'm the one who does all the work!"

If anybody had a reason to go crazy, our mother did, but she made it through and did it well. She is a very loving person and my father worked very hard to support us. He was an engineer, working for Motorola. With all those mouths to feed, we didn't have a lot of money. Our parents couldn't afford daycare, so our mother stayed home with us.

We kids spent a lot of time outside, playing together and making up games. One of our favorites would sound silly to kids now. We set up an oatmeal container and threw clothes-pins into it. The one who got the most clothes-pins in, won. We had a lot of that kind of games, which produced a competitive household. All seven of us competed for affection and attention from our parents. We were heavily involved in music and drama. I was in show choirs and did musicals. I sing in our church now and am the worship leader. My twin brother is very musical as well. He plays the piano and multiple instruments beautifully. This is what we did at Christmas time. We'd get together and sing. That is what I miss - being together with my family.

On the day after Christmas, when I was in third grade, we had a house fire. I wasn't home when it was discovered. My mom, twin brother, and I were going to my great-aunt's house for piano lessons. My grandma and aunt were down the block from each other, and Mom was going to give Grandma a permanent that day. We pulled up at my grandma's house, and Mom walked to the door. Grandma said, "Is everything okay?" Mom said, "Yeh. What are you talking about?" Grandma said, "Your house is on fire." At that time Mom was driving the first new car they had ever owned, which was a Chevette. Why we had a Chevette with nine people to transport, I don't know, but we actually did squeeze in there a time or two, with some of us lying in the hatch-back. Anyway, we got back in the car and I don't think it ever went as fast as it did that day.

At home, Ann was taking a shower. It was a tri-level house, and she and Brigette were in the basement. My younger sister and brother were on the main floor where the Christmas presents were, and Lisa came tearing down the stairs and yelled "Brigette, there's a fire!" Brigette wouldn't believe her, so Lisa pulled her up to the main floor. The fire had started from an electrical problem behind the couch, went up the wall, across the ceiling and hit our non-flammable Christmas tree. Their nature was, when they hit a certain temperature, they blew up. When Brigette saw the fire, she thought it was in the ceiling so she went to get Ann out of the shower. She screamed, "Ann! Ann! There's a fire!" and Ann cooly said, "Yeh, right. You just want in the shower!" Brigette grabbed her, threw a towel around her, and dragged her out.

At that point they began to ask, "Where is Michael?" They couldn't find him anywhere! Brigette had Lisa on her back, Ann was with them, and all three went running through the house frantically looking for Michael - in closets, under beds, screaming at the top of their lungs. My parents' bedroom had a balcony, and when they went there, they saw Michael standing by the swimming pool. These are common in Arizona. In relief and anger they said, "Why didn't you go to the mail box? Don't you know that is the rule?" From a four year old perspective, it was logical, and he explained, "Yes, but I thought if I caught on fire, I could jump in the swimming pool."

A difference between Phoenix and Osceola is that my younger sister and brother knocked on three neighbors' doors before someone would let them in to use the phone. Of course, we were new to the neighborhood, but the people could surely detect there was a problem. They finally came to a house where they were allowed in to use the phone.

That was happening at the house while we were tearing home. We had just moved into this house the day after Thanksgiving. It was the back house in a cul de sac. The firemen had it blocked off and wouldn't let us in. My mom literally punched out a fireman yelling, "Those are my children in there!" The police were there, and my grandmother said a bit more calmly, "Please let her go. She needs to see that her children are okay."

It was finally over. We lost everything we had in the house except for a cockatiel that was in his cage, hanging just inside the front door. A neighbor had gone in with a garden hose and gotten the bird out. The aftermath was, the new tenants hadn't yet moved into the house our parents sold them, so they let us continue to live there for a little while. The move had meant that we enrolled in a new school that was strange to us, and all the teachers and children were strange. They had a clothing drive for us! That was so humiliating for us kids to have a clothing drive and every body knew it was for the Kelley family. We got toys and all that sort of thing. We were able to have what we lost and ten times more, because God used that whole experience to bless our family in many ways. The closeness of our family, the ability to make it through something like that, changes you.

A few years after we had the house fire, the older siblings, Brigette, Ann, and Robert, moved out. That meant our family didn't need as much room, and we moved into a smaller house. My twin brother went into the military and was in the Army for several years, serving in Germany and Bosnia. He was discharged just before the Iraq situation happened. That was very fortunate because he had two small children and a wife who had been through quite a bit. People don't realize what a big deal the Bosnian conflict was. Not a lot of people knew what was going on. It was between Christians and Muslims. People were murdered in their homes, children were being killed. The soldiers went over there and tried to do what they could, but they were limited because they were a third party. That whole experience really affected my brother in a big way. He is a much different person today than when he went in. He is a good father and a good man.

As we grew up, we children were told and we believed, that we could accomplish anything we wanted to, and all seven of us are very successful in our own ways. We all grew up to be good people. Probably you can't ask for more than that when raising children. We all went to college. After high school, I went on to Arizona State University on a full academic scholarship, with an academic grant on top of it. I didn't have to pay anything. My daughter Rachael recently asked, "Mom, where is my college fund?" My answer was, "It's in the student loan fund, same as mine." That was how we went to college and that is what we were told was the way to do it. I was involved in music there, as I was in high school. It has always been a passion of mine. I got my Associate's degree, but didn't finish to get my Bachelor's. Eventually I will, but just now it is not a necessity in my life.

Our father had a college education but our mother didn't. She went back to school when all the children were in school, got her certification, and became an interpreter for the hearing impaired. She worked in the elementary schools for years.

When I was a senior in high school, Mom had a stroke. She was only 43 years old. Her mother and grandmother was both diabetic. Mom was quite a bit overweight, and the diabetes, which she didn't know she had, really hit her hard. It affects many parts of the body, and caused her to go blind temporarily. She has had a couple more strokes, but she's a fighter, a very positive person who works hard. She has a lot to offer and is still going strong.

Three years ago my father was laid off from his job. He worked for Motorola for 25 years and was laid off just before he was eligible for retirement. When someone asked him how he felt about being laid off, Dad bitterly said, "Well, I think they should lay off those who are here on work permits before they lay off U. S. citizens." He had a problem with it, but it has turned out wonderfully for my parents. The company doesn't allow their retirees to draw out their retirement money prematurely without severe penalties. They have to invest it. So my parents invested in two little motels in Arizona, up north near the Grand Canyon, in a town called Williams. It is where the Grand Canyon railroad starts, right off route 66. They now own the oldest historic motel in Williams, Arizona, called the Grand Motel. They have restored it and live there. However, Mom decided she didn't want to stay there the whole time, so she recently got a job working with the mentally handicapped at a high school in Flagstaff, and loves it.

Between all of us kids, my parents have nine grandchildren so far. My younger brother just graduated from Arizona State with a law degree, and recently married. They are trying to start a family, so I am sure there will be more grandchildren soon.

I knew Shane's father before I knew Shane. His family and mine lived two doors from each other. His father was the first person who ever told me, "I love you just as you are." That was so important to me because I'd grown up in such a competitive house, where I was always trying to earn that love. And to have somebody say that to me was wonderful, so freeing!

Dick Simpson was a Vietnam vet and a Marine Corp Recon. They were always the first ones to go in anywhere. He had Agent Orange dumped right on him. He was in a wheel chair because of multiple sclerosis. From exposure to Agent Orange, he also had peripheral neuropathy, in which the nerve endings throughout his body were dying.

He didn't talk very much about being in Vietnam. One day when I was pregnant with my son, he took me to lunch and really opened up. He told me many stories that he'd never told his wife or Shane. They knew he had been shot in the stomach, because he was sent home, and that was when he and Judy were married. His second time of being sent overseas, he was shot in the leg and was discharged shortly after that. But from the time they were married until he was discharged, Judy wrote him every single day, and she wrote Shane every single day when he was in boot camp. She is that kind of person.

On the day we had lunch, Dick told me of a time when a kid, a red-headed, really nice guy, was to be sent on surveillance. Dick didn't want him to go. He knew the kid didn't have it in him to survive out there. He asked his sergeant if he could go instead, and the sergeant said, ''No, you just came back." The kid went on rounds that night and didn't come back, but he had such an impact on Dick's life! He always wanted to find his parents and tell them what a wonderful person their son was.

Dick had been a prisoner of war. At that time the enemy's method of handcuffing was to position the hands palms up, one on top of the other, and run a piece of bamboo between the thumb and index finger. Dick had scars on his hands from that. But he had other, deeper scars. We learned never to startle or surprise him. For instance, my mother-in-law was cautious about waking him. When they first were married she thought, "I'll wake him every morning with a kiss on the cheek." You don't do that with a Vietnam vet. When she did that, he almost knocked her out because he was on alert. From then on - and I saw this myself - she took a broom to the foot of the bed and poked him with the broom.

Dick was a person who always let you know where you stood with him. Everybody loved him. He had such a warm heart. He had grown up in a very poor home, with nine brothers and sisters. His mom had left when he was little, and his dad died when he was 13, so he had to move back in with his mother. In these days we would say that is a recipe for a troubled, messed-up youth instead of who he became. He died three years ago from a massive heart attack that occurred in his sleep. We miss him greatly. I saw so many of the characteristics of his father in Shane. That was part of what made me fall in love with him.

Following in his father's and uncles' footsteps, Shane enlisted in the Marines. I hope the legacy stops there. He was in Security Forces, and in London when the embassy was bombed probably in '96. He had a medical discharge, which was a blessing because he'd have been in Iraq now. This was just what God intended.

Shane was born in Iowa. Because of the type of work his father did, they moved around a lot after Shane was 10 or 12 years old. The first 10-12 years, he grew up in Ankeny, and he always said he wanted to come back, so our coming to Iowa to serve Christ'sway Church was his dream come true. It is strange that it felt like coming home because all our family is in Arizona. We do have several relatives in Sioux City, but we don't see them often because our weekends are full.

Shane didn't start out in the ministry. He was associated with the Sheriffs office in Maricopa County, Arizona. It is possible that readers may have heard of Sheriff Joe. He has inmates wearing stripes, pink underwear, and living in tents - they call it "Tent City." Shane worked as a detention officer at "Tent City."

We were introduced by his father when Shane was home after being discharged from the Marine Corp. His father bugged and bugged him until he asked me out. We dated for three months, were engaged, and married three months later. His call into the ministry came as a shock because we weren't even going to church at the time. I was born Catholic and raised in religion, but not in faith. However, God got into Shane's heart. He started studying the Bible and enrolled in a division of the Dallas Theological Seminary. So this has been our life for the last five years. His ministry at Christ' sway Church brought us to Iowa.

We started our family. I was 20 years old when I had my first child, Rachael - I didn't know I had given it a weird spelling until other people spelled it. She is now nine years old, and our son Hunter is seven. We have wonderful children. Even other people tell us how good our children are. We are fortunate, but we have given attention to their upbringing. We believe that firm grounding in faith, values, and character, produce good children. We do our best to be good examples, and it is so nice to have other good examples around us.

We live our lives by faith. There was a time when Shane was in seminary, that I was a receptionist in an insurance office, where I later went on to be office manager and then agent. But I was making very little money. God had to have been helping, because there is no way we could have paid rent, electricity, car payments, and all. There was one time when we had no money, and it was five days until payday. We ran out of milk. When you have little kids at home, milk is needed for everything- macaroni and cheese, cereal, and all. Shane and I decided we weren't going to tell anybody about our need, we were just going to pray. We prayed that God would make a way for us to have a gallon of milk. It wasn't more than two seconds after we finished our prayer there was a knock on our door. Mom was standing there, and she said, "I was at Fry's (a grocery chain in Arizona) and they had a sale of two gallons of milk for one, so I picked up a gallon for you." God has been faithful to us in such little ways as this throughout our whole marriage. Coming here, for example, was a huge step of faith. We were leaving everything we knew, and here we found a wonderful church family.

CHRIST'SWAY CHURCH

Members of our church will not be offended if I say we are kind of an odd-ball church. This is how we think of ourselves. Shane and I are not here by appointment. We have no national affiliation. We are the only non-denominational church in town. It began as a Bible study in homes and grew to be a church. We have single moms, farmers, couples, who are struggling to make it day by day-just everyday people who don't come to be seen. They are there to worship God and Jesus Christ. I regard that is a huge compliment and so does our congregation to be this kind of odd-ball.

The way we came here was that we wanted to follow the Bible and God's leading. One day Shane was looking on line for a pastor's position and saw this one. He decided nothing lost, he would send his resume. It was literally months later when he had a phone call. That was on Wednesday before Labor Day weekend. The caller said, "Can you be here Sunday?" Shane said, "No, but I can come a week or two later," and added, "I will come only if my wife can come, too, because if this is something that is going to happen, she also needs to see the situation." They arranged for us to come a couple weeks later.

We decided to go, thinking it would be nice to see what happened, and it would be a good experience. By the time we had been here and were leaving, they didn't tell us we would be coming, but we just knew it. They had to take a congregational vote, and said, "We'll let you know." One week went by, nothing. In the middle of second week, we were getting uneasy. We needed to get our lives in order if we were to come. Finally Shane called and said, "So?" Had the congregational vote been taken? Yes, everything had gone just great. "When are you moving?" They assumed we would know that if they didn't call, everything was a "go." I wanted to wait until after Christmas so I could spend one more Christmas with my family. Shane knew that was just going to make it harder, so we packed the moving van and left Arizona on October 16, 2004. We will be celebrating our one year anniversary the 19th of this month- just a few days from when I am telling our story.

Now we have bought a house here, so we'll be here for at least ten years (I hope). Our home is the former 7th Day Adventist church. The first couple weeks there, I found a mouse. It scared me to death. I was raised in a city. I wasn't accustomed to rodents, and I don't like bugs or mice. I described it to Shane, "It's as big as my fist! It's huge!" He found it and it was a little tiny thing. He said, "It's a church mouse." It is funny how God has worked. He brought us out here away from all our folks, but we love Iowa! People are so wonderful, so warm and caring. It is a great place to raise our children. I can let them play outside without worrying that something will happen.

When we came, I stayed at home with the children, and then I decided it would be nice to have a little spending money. I worked at the Village part-time with the little babies, but then I decided maybe I should go for something that would give us more income. I had been an insurance agent, but I didn't want to get back into that line of work. The job with the Development Corporation fell into my lap. Someone told me about the opening and thought I would qualify for it, so here I am! I was so excited about the opportunity because I really wanted to do something with my life that would make a difference. I didn't want just a job. I wanted something that would have an impact in some small way. This was a good fit - especially what they are having me do, which is to be in community development. Stacy Gibbs, the Executive Director, handles the corporate side, bringing in manufacturers and new businesses. I am working on the Great Places initiative. I will be working on the recreational trails they want to develop. I am very excited about it.

The Development Corporation is the license holder of the casino and with the money we receive from there, really have a huge opportunity to make a difference in the community. So much of what we are doing, people don't know about. There are two different forms of grants we give out. One is Pillars and one is LCRCAF, which is Lakeside Casino and Resort Community Action Fund. From it we do things like the after-prom program for the high school - different things like that. There are people who think the Development body should produce new buildings and get new companies coming into town. We would love to have that happen, but that isn't our main focus.