Fay

The first Sunday that we went to the Hope UMC here in Frakes, one of the people who really caught my attention was Fay. Fay is an older woman, around eighty years old, with white hair pulled back into a sort of bun. She often wears a big maroon sweatshirt and jeans, but to church she usually wears a long dress or skirt, giving her the look (as one volunteer put it) of an old-fashioned schoolmarm.

Fay sat next to us at the potluck dinner that first Sunday. She told us how she wasn't alive when Hiram Frakes arrived here in the Laurel Fork Valley, but she was born shortly after. It was clear to us as soon as we met her that she was a force to be reckoned with. She's a Methodist, even though all of her family (and most of the people around this area) are Baptist and think she's going to hell, and she is a strong, independent woman.

She started a women's Bible study at the church, so of course I wanted to be part of that! We are studying all of the women in the Bible, starting with Eve, and it's really interesting to hear Fay's perspective on women like Tamar (check out Genesis 38 if you don't know the story)--she thinks Tamar was really admirable for taking charge of her situation. (I've had the chance to spend some time with some other really cool women from the church in this study, too.)

We were able to have dinner with her at her home last week, and her house is great. She lives up a steep driveway in a little house with a couple of additions and a purple fence. She has four dogs that she rescued from being strays, and her house is FULL of books. And she paints, too--she has several of her own paintings hung on the wall, and she did a beautiful mural of a countryside scene in her bedroom.

Fay has had so many interesting experiences in her life, and those experiences have made her very strong-willed...and just strong in general. She knows exactly what she thinks about things, and she has so many incredible stories to tell. I know that my description of her doesn't really do her justice. I'm very grateful that I'm getting the chance to know her and talk with her and learn from her.