Rachel: My name is Rachel. I'm 20 years old. I'm from Zeeland.
Sarah: Hi Rachel. My name is Sarah. I am 35 years old. I am from Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Rachel: Where and how did you grow up?
Sarah: So, I grew up in rural Illinois, right on the Mississippi River. Very much a working-class family. My dad was a union laborer for a long time. My mom worked a ton of jobs, schools, churches, the whole nine yards. My childhood was very much the rural Illinois stereotype, corn fields and all of that fun stuff.
Rachel: I grew up in Zeeland, Michigan. My parents got divorced when I was five. I had like split custody every week, so I would switch houses every week. Both of the houses were in Zeeland, so I didn't have to like change schools or anything. It was a little difficult growing up. I had a brother that was a lot to deal with. I think my parents are a little overstretched. They were doing their best, but I definitely feel like it was a little hard on me. But I feel like I did have a lot of good memories. My dad in the summer would bring us up to my grandparents' house and we'd play with their cousins all day long in the forest. So that was really fun. So, I do have a lot of good memories, but it was a little bit of a rough childhood. I've had like a lot of like experiences and like blips about healthcare. I took little like healthcare camps when I was in middle school and then finally in 8th grade we took a survey. What should you do when you grow up? And nursing was one of them. And I was like, oh, so in my senior year of high school took a CNA class, which is like certified nurse assistant. So, it's like a nurse tech in the hospital. And I love that. That like really solidified my love for nursing. I love science. Like I love school, and I love humanity. And so, I feel like nursing is just like the perfect match.
Sarah: I went to a secular liberal arts college. After that, I was part of a Christian student ministry there and found out that I really loved the community aspect of things. I really loved being able to set up worship services in such a way that we could learn something and feel something and grow together. I went to seminary, had a complicated experience at seminary. At that point, the seminary, it was not overtly hostile to women, but there were a lot of little things that made it really hard to be a woman in seminary. After I graduated, I went to look for a job as a pastor, decided I wanted to be part of a small church community, and realized that in that particular denomination, being young, unmarried, and female was essentially three strikes and you're out when you're applying for pastoral jobs. So, long story short, I wound up working at a Presbyterian church and doing like children's ministry for them for a couple of years. Learned a lot and then wound up going to work for another Presbyterian church. And by that point I was like, I should just probably be a Presbyterian.I did all of the paperwork and transferred everything over. Now I'm a Presbyterian pastor in West Michigan. That's a unique kind of ministry, I think to know the bubble, but to not be inside the bubble.
Rachel: Yeah. Thank you for sharing. That's very interesting. I grew up Christian. I loved it. I thought I'd be Christian forever. I grew up in a really good church. It was nondenominational. I never grew up with a fear of God. It was just love, and I really enjoyed it. In 8th grade, I got really into it, Bible study, camps and stuff. My friend who died, her name was Lizzie. I think Lizzie started to give me some questions because you know, suicide is a sin and that started to make me think a little bit. And then I kind of started having some questions, like if God created humans, who created God? And I just like, couldn't really figure it out. And I guess like in 2020, I kind of like had too much access to the internet and I just started to like, I think I watched like a podcast or something about like people who were like, used to be religious and no longer are. And I was like, oh, I think they have some good points. I still could never let go of that spirituality piece, but I don't feel like I have to figure out what religion is and like what religion to pick. I feel like if I'm a good person and if whatever happens at the end, if they don't want me, then that's okay. I spent too much time thinking about what happens after life, but I feel like what's important is like living my life at this moment. I go to like a spiritual community now, so it's like values-based. I liked religion for the fact that you had like community and it was a really strong community. could go there every week, you knew everyone. So, I was like missing that and I was missing like good teachings every week. I really liked that. So, I go to C3 now, that's what it's called in Grand Haven. I know you said you were a pastor. I'm curious about your experience with that.
Sarah: A couple of things that stuck out to me in your story, moving away from that focus on what happens after death. Where are we going? What's going to happen? Who's going to say what? I really appreciate the way that you named that and like the important thing is here and now. We don't have any control over what happens later.What's happening here and now is what's our responsibility. Just wanted to say I appreciated that and I'm glad you found a community that you can still be a part of. That's awesome.
Rachel: Thank you. Can you describe in your own words what your personal values are or political values?
Sarah: I care mostly about people. I tend to vote for one political party over the other, but I am not invested in the structure of any political party. I am not invested in any one way of doing things. Whatever is going to be best for the people involved in all of these policies, that's what I care about. For me, it's about who cares the most rather than who's the Democrat, who's a Republican, who is affiliated with this group or that group.
Rachel: I really resonate with that. I think that pretty much sums up me too.To add on to that, I like, I'm very passionate about like personal choice beyond the abortion issue, but personal choice and like the daily decisions, whether it's, you know, diet or how you want to live your life, because all my education has just like made me understand like every person is different and every person like needs different things and has different choices. So that's one thing I do like about the original core values of America is that freedom to choose who you want to be.I care a lot about people and I just want people to have basic needs. Working in healthcare and also like being a student in healthcare you can just kind of see how people fall through the cracks and how we could save much more money if we focus on prevention. I guess that gave me the perspective. I feel like we both definitely care a lot about people.
Sarah: From your perspective in healthcare especially it's a somewhat hot button thing right now about who gets health care and is it a right and who pays for it. I would love to hear some of your thoughts on that.
Rachel: It's definitely a confusing and complex issue. You look at Canada and you know they have health care fall but you have to wait like 14 hours. How many hours to get into an ER or something. Or you look at other countries and they have free healthcare. I feel like in America, we definitely could benefit from a more universal outlook on that because it's not fair and it's, I feel like it kind of evades personal freedom to like live if you can't have basic access to healthcare. It's like a mix between like everyone gets healthcare, but you can also like pay for services. I do think that we need to expand healthcare and if that means paying more taxes, I'm fine with it.
Sarah: Same. As someone looking in from the outside, I have wondered a lot how the people in the midst of it feel about it and what we can do.
Rachel: What's something that you will take with you from this experience?
Sarah: The thing that I'll take with me is really a sense of gratitude, knowing you're out there and headed into healthcare and that there are more people like you who care deeply about other humans across divides of all kinds. Really grateful and grateful to be able to get to know you a little bit.
Rachel: I'm also very thankful for the experience to meet you.I think what I'm going to take away from this is that I don't have to go into situations or conversations trying to like, persuade people or be friends with them or whatever. I think I want to go into conversations that just see them like who they are as a person instead of trying to see what I can gain out of it, guess. Seeing what I can learn about other people. Just get to know someone. I just really respect you and I really want to just thank you for sharing all your opinions and all your experiences with me.
Sarah: Same, thank you.