"Story Night is amazing!" I would often hear from the ladies at Santa Barbara Community Church. I believed them, but just never registered to attend. Twice a year I would hear the announcements at church about the next Story Night event and would think about going, but never showed up. Despite being an extrovert, I didn't want to go alone or awkwardly try and find a table to sit at among hundreds of women. Then finally I decided to invite a friend and attend. I wasn't sure what to expect...

It was a beautiful evening. The room was filled with round tables and chairs, beautiful decorations, and appetizers and desserts. There was a little live music, some fun ice breakers, and then a lady named Krista stepped onstage to tell her story. It wasn't long before she reached a chapter of her life that matched mine. Suddenly I felt like the whole room might understand what I was going through as they listened to her share about a specific suffering. Tears flowed down my cheeks, but they were good tears. Tears of emotion as it felt like God was saying, "I see you. You aren't alone in this valley." Krista became a dear mentor for me. From that point on, I vowed never to miss a Story Night!

As the years went by, I invited more and more friends to each event. Eventually the Story Night host gave me a prize for bringing the most guests!

When my husband and I moved to Oregon, I was so sad to leave the Story Night events behind. Once we settled in McMinnville and found a church, I shared the concept of Story Night with the leadership. They loved it and invited me to try it out in 2019. So I scheduled an event in May with speaker Elizabeth Walczyk and an event in October with speaker Lucetta Elmer. We had about 100 ladies show up in May and then about 150 in October. To my surprise, the church asked me to join their staff as the Women's Ministry Director. For the next five years, I served on the church staff and hosted many more Story Night events. When the pandemic shut everything down in 2020, we launched the Story Night podcast. The idea was to record a handful of stories from ladies within our church so all the ladies stuck inside would have something encouraging to listen to and hopefully feel more connected to their church family. It wasn't long before the podcast grew... I started recording stories with women all around the country. Stories of grief, abuse, addiction, divorce, cancer, infertility, mission work, adoption, suicide, marriage, motherhood, lonliness, mental health, travels, wars, and so much more found their way to the podcast. Guests came from all different backgrounds and ranged from their early twenties all the way to a lady who was a week shy of her 100th birthday! Now there are over 100 episodes and the podcast has spread into over 80 countries.

In October of 2024, I made the hard decision to step down from leadership at CalvaryMac. My amazing friend and mentor, and former Story Night speaker, Lucetta Elmer, offered me a chance to join forces with her and take Story Night to other cities to reach more women. We are so excited to launch a new season of women's stories in 2025!

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