On the stage and behind the scenes

REBECCA –
Our senior year in college we both began to sense that God wanted to do “something” with us.

BIRDIE –
I don’t remember how it came about. It wasn’t a revelation, but more like something we just grew to know.

REBECCA –
We had the oddest idea that we were a team. We didn’t think of it as a calling into the “ministry,” because it was very taboo for a female to think about “ministry” as a profession. So we called it “something.”

REBECCA –
What we didn’t want to do is what landed us exactly where we had to be.

BIRIDE –
We graduated college. Our parents loaded their cars and drove us nine hours from home to Louisville, Kentucky to start seminary. As they prepared to leave, we cried so hard that it embarrassed even them.

REBECCA –
Before that, we went down to register. There were no rooms available. We would have to pull out. We were leaving when the phone rang. “Two places just opened up,” the gentleman said. “Because you’re here, I’ll give them to you.”

BIRDIE –
However, we were no longer roommates.

The Team

REBECCA –
One month till graduation from seminary! Then what?

BIRDIE –
Soooo many said: “You’re crazy! No church will hire a woman.”

REBECCA –
We knew it. All we could say: “If God called us, that’s His problem.”

BIRDIE –
One night traveling, Rebecca said, “Wouldn’t it be awful to spend this long in school and die before graduating?”

REBECCA –
We laughed.