10 came on the wings of stirrup pants and Debbie Gibson Electric Youth perfume. Since my
birthday and Christmas are only 20 apart, I can’t remember what I got for which, but by the time December 26th rolled around, I was the proud owner of a skateboard, suede boots, a jean jacket, Exclamation perfume, and my first “real grownup” tape- Amy Grant heart in motion. I thought I was the hottest thing around! I was SO excited for my 10th birthday because I was finally “double digits.”
After years of being in love with Justin Connor, I had finally started to move on, but all of a sudden I knew for sure that he was going to “ask me out.” He arranged a time for us to meet and so I arranged to hide my 2 female friends in our cottage beforehand so that they could hear the whole exchange and give me advice later on what to say to him. Justin came in, asked me if I would like a cup of tea, and then started expressing his feelings for me. All of a sudden he
spotted one of the spys. Luckily we were already the best of friends and he forgave me. I accepted the ring he had purchased for me to signify our relationship, but swore him to secrecy so that my mom would not find out since I was not technically allowed to have a boyfriend.
10 was when things really started changing for our family again. After years of hearing missionary stories and having missionaries on furlough to come visit us, my parents came to us and told us that we would be leaving Danbury and becoming missionaries. At first they were looking into joining Wycliff Bible Translators. My dad gave his notice at the church and we planned to move into one of the year round houses that my dad was fixing up at Camp Faithful til we were ready to go. Then we were no longer joining Wycliff, but my parents knew missions was next for us. Our old pastor from Canterbury was presently a missionary with an organization called Youth With A Mission (YWAM) and told us about Mercy Ships and since my dad was an engineer with years of ship yard experience, it seemed like the perfect fit.
So we started packing our Danbury house to move to Southington, CT for the first half of my 5th grade school year. Jill ended up heading off to college a year earlier than originally planned and she moved to MASS. The school I started going to in Southington was a lot smaller than Pembroke in Danbury and I remember being so nervous the whole first morning about who I was going to sit with at lunch, but the kids ended up being so friendly at that school. I had always had a lot of guy friends, but at this new school the boys were so much fun and so much less dramatic than the 5th grade girls, that one of the other girls in my class, Tammy, and I spent all our time with the boys in the class instead of the girls. We still got invited to the girl slumber parties, but when recess rolled around, we were invited to play kickball with the boys and when groups were chosen, we were loyal to the boys. I spent pretty much every afternoon that I wasn’t over at Tammy’s riding my bike around the campground. I had not yet figured out my style and had started buying some of my own clothes, but dresses were an issue for me. The dresses that everyone else wore (and were what I currently owned) were too silly frilly for me and I
hadn’t yet discovered a good alternative. The church that we went to at that time, I had to dress up at so I would wear one of my silly frilly dresses and then cover it with my big bright orange
windbreaker. Luckily more stylish days were ahead!
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