Narrative Summary
Interview with Joyce Eddy by Julia Haberland
Joyce works as the Executive Assistant to Dr. Baker at Missouri State University. She is also the coordinator of the International Friends program, which matches international students with American families. She and her husband Ken have hosted several Chinese and one Japanese student. Joyce was born and raised in Arcadia, Louisiana but has moved and traveled all around the United States. It is her dream to travel the world and she has made her start in China, where she visited Beijing, Dalian, and Xian. She considers herself an Evangelical Christian.
Joyce’s religious journey started as a child, as her parents were Baptists. However, there was a dispute in her family about which church to go to. This led to the family not going to church at all for several years. Joyce says that the females in her family were more connected to their faith and missed going to church. Joyce’s brothers were very skeptical about religion, until they got older. Joyce suspects that this might be because often times, males feel like they do not need a religion or a church support system because they are strong.
Despite being only a teenager, Joyce noticed right away that she was missing something and that she felt lonely without her church community. She felt lost and scared without God and finally went back to Baptist church. When she professed her faith at the age of fourteen, she discovered that God had never left her but had been in her heart this whole time. For Joyce, her religion is very important because it gives her strength for tasks and problems in her everyday life. It gives her support and the overall feeling that she is loved by God. It is important for her to tell others about her story because she says that sharing your faith is part of being a good Christian.
Joyce has agreed to share a very personal, but amazing story of a couple moments in her life when she felt very close to God. One was the birth of her daughter after years of trying to have a child. She had prayed every day and after six years, she could not believe the miracle that God had sent them. Another moment was during a time when the young family was struggling financially and was about to lose their house. However, a last minute miracle- a check from her uncle from the timber sale, on part of a property that belonged to Joyce, arrived and it was the exact amount to the penny, which they owed the house insurance. Joyce describes this moment as very special to her because it confirmed to her that God was listening and taking care of her and her family.
Joyce is heavily involved in the community life of Northside Christian Church. She loves going to church every Sunday and participating in Sunday school class because she likes the Bible-based teaching approach and the people in the community. What she likes most about her community is that it feels like her family. Joyce never hesitates to help a community member in need because in her view that is what church is supposed to be about. During the times when her family was struggling, her church community supported her immensely. In the past, she has volunteered to cook meals for people in need and she has helped to build a new church close to Springfield. She has also been involved in teaching junior high class, organizing events and going on trips with the youth group.
Joyce is just as caring with her international students- most of them coming from China. She is very passionate about welcoming her Chinese girls into their home and lovingly calls them “daughters”. For Joyce, it was a big challenge at first, how to communicate with students from a culture that is so different from her own. Yet, she says that her faith has taught her that once you treat people kindly, it is easy to get along no matter how big the language barrier is. She loves to share her faith with her students and to introduce them to her church community, where everyone accepts them with open arms. However, she is also respectful of the student’s background and welcomes them into her family, even if they don’t want anything to do with religion. A few of her Chinese students have been so intrigued by the experiences they made with Joyce and Ken at church and Bible study, that they became Christians.
At the end of the interview, Joyce says that she wants everyone to know that it is important to be open-minded and willing to learn because on the way one can meet amazing groups of people. In the interview, she has made it clear that a common misconception about Christians is that they judge others for their sins and for not being religious. However, Joyce wants to remind everyone that there are so many good Christian people in the world who do not judge, who do not push their faith on others, and who do their best to accept everyone. She believes in a second coming of Christ and would like everyone to be prepared and to at least know about Jesus. She firmly believes that the world would be a better place if everyone just followed the word of Christ and treated each other kindly.
Missouri State University Fall 2016 Religious Lives of Ozarks Women