Kay Bontrager-Singer's story

I am at AMBS because of a mid-life re-evaluation. Or what some people may term a mid-life crisis.

Hitting forty really wasn’t so traumatic. It was the next several years that followed when I realized I felt emotionally and spiritually depleted.

I had been busy tending to others’ needs at the expense of my own emotional and spiritual care. As a wife, mother of three boys, congregational chair for my church and business owner, I could always find someone that “needed” me.
I began asking myself some questions: “What do I need to do to take better care of myself?” and “What do I still need to do the second half of my life that I haven’t done in the first half?” I quickly decided I no longer was going to do all the family laundry, much to my family’s dismay!

Beginning some new spiritual disciplines was also part of what I decided I needed to do for myself. I began going on day-long silent retreats. On one of those retreats while journaling and listening to music (ok, it wasn’t completely silent), the words of a song broke through to me in a powerful way. “Listen to your heart, your heart knows…”

I began weeping; actually sobbing is a better way to put it. I knew what God was calling me into for the next half of my life. I wept tears that were mingled with fear, a sense of inadequacy, and joy. I knew I was to say “yes” to the call of pastoral ministry and return to seminary. With fear and trembling I began to test this calling with others. First my husband, who said, “Kay, this isn’t anything new, it has always been a matter of when.” No one else seemed surprised either. It seemed like what had been hidden from me was more obvious to others.

As I reflected, I realized my life journey has been taking me in this direction since a child. At five years old I remember walking up and down the sidewalk in front of my house preaching sermons in my head. As a teenager I thought the way into pastoral ministry was by marrying a pastor. I changed my mind and married an engineer. I started out studying Bible in college the first two years, and then I switched to social work. After college I went to AMBS for a year. It was a wonderful experience. But after one year I left and pursued my masters in social work. However, I believe all my first half of life experiences are part of enriching my second half of life work.

So I returned to AMBS, twenty years from when I started the first time. The first day of class when Arthur Paul Boers asked me to introduce myself, tears suddenly clouded my vision and choked my voice. In saying my name, I was somehow saying “yes” to something much bigger then myself. I was giving witness to God’s grace and love and guidance in my life. I was thinking about how God called my name, nudging me to listen to my heart and inviting me into new places deep within my soul for this part of my life journey.

Each time I enter through the doors of AMBS I am aware of a deep sense of gratitude and joy for the gift of being called on this journey to learn and prepare for my second half of life work. At this point my work at AMBS is about using every reading, lecture and project to inform my journey. This is not as much an academic exercise for me as bread for the journey. I have found the faculty and staff affirming of this approach to learning. I need to “chew” on everything I read and hear, asking myself the question, “What is God saying to me through this material? God is not letting me down!