I was born in Vancouver, Washington in 1951 to Martin and Lurline Jensen. (Yes, that does make me 50 years old) I have three older sisters who all still live in that beautiful state. My Dad was a County Extension Agent so he was transferred a few times during my childhood. After living in Vancouver for a few years, we moved to Port Orchard, Wash. I gave my life to Jesus at the Port Orchard Christian Church when I was 10 years old. I can still remember that day as I walked down the aisle of the church and confessed Jesus as my Savior to everyone there and was baptized into him. It was my spiritual birthday and my parents treated it as such. My Mom fixed my favorite meal that day as she had done for my three sisters when they became Christians. How thankful I am that my parents loved Jesus and taught me about Him.

        And then when I was in 7th grade we moved to Bellingham, Wash. which is where my parents live at the present time. I graduated from Bellingham High School in 1969. Western Washington University is located in Bellingham and I decided that I wanted to be a teacher so while living at home and working part-time as a waitress, I attended Western and graduated in 1973 with a degree in Education.

        I had thought about attending Bible College after college graduation but something else awaited me. Conley Silsby, a retired professor from Puget Sound Christian College, was going to take a group of students to Asia on a 9 month tour of countries where we had missionaries from the Christian Churches. After praying about this for a long time, I decided that was where God was leading me. In September of 1973, I began traveling with a group of 13 people called the "Traveling Christian College." We would go to a country and spend anywhere from one week to 2 months with a missionary family and work with them. We worked in orphanages, took classes at Christian colleges, worked in coffee houses, went to remote villages and spoke at church services. All the while talking about our faith in Jesus Christ. It was quite a learning experience for a 21 year old Washingtonian who had not seen much of the world outside of the USA.

        The last 2 1/2 months were spent in Jerusalem at the Institute of Holy Land Studies which is now called Jerusalem University. That is where I met a young man from Caldwell, Idaho who was also studying there. We met, we fell in love, he asked me to marry him and I said,"Yes." That's the short version of the story. Needless to say, my parents were not quite sure of this short romance.

        In June of 1974, we returned to the United States and Evan went to Idaho and I went back to Bellingham. We had a long distance engagement while I taught school in the Conway, Wash, school district and he worked in a gas station. We were married in June of 1975. It seems like only yesterday that he proposed to me in a rose garden overlooking the Hinnom Valley in Jerusalem.

        Our first ministry was in Grandview, Wash and we lived there for almost three years. We packed up and moved to Lincoln, Illinois in July of 1978 so Evan could attend grad school at Lincoln Christian Seminary. We lived in Lincoln for a year and then moved to Witt,Illinois where we ministered to the Christian Church of Witt and he continued attending Lincoln. I loved living there because we had a wonderful church family who were so kind and generous to us. And in 1983, after 8 years of marriage we finally gave birth to our son, Dane. Dane was 26 days overdue and was born with some eye problems but this 9 pound 15 ounce boy was like a miracle to us after our difficulty in conceiving a child. I was 32 years old.

        Evan graduated from Lincoln in May of 1984 and was looking for a counseling ministry somewhere. After sending out 80 letters to various places in the Pacific Northwest, we got a call from Dodge City,Kansas (Not the Pacific Northwest) for Evan to be their Counseling Minister. We moved there in January 1985. On December 25th, 1986,our daughter, Kelsey was born. That was a very special Christmas present for us.

        I did not work full-time while our children were young but did do a variety of part-time jobs. I taught a class at Dodge City Community College one Semester and then worked for 5 years at an art gallery and frame shop. In 1997 I was hired as the Children's minister at First Christian Church in Dodge City. It was the perfect job for me;part-time,teaching children,in the church and with people I liked working with.

        After living in Dodge for over 15 years, we felt God calling us to Quincy. After a very hard decision, we pulled up very deep roots and moved here in July of 2000. So here we are. I will have to admit that I miss Dodge City. It gets easier the longer we live here. Our church family has been so good to us. I work with great people here at Madison Park and I am so blessed because of them. I am excited to see what God will be doing in the next years of my life. I want to find out where he is working and be there to see what will happen next. It's been pretty interesting so far.

Lindi