As a child I spent a week each summer with my Aunt Kay. She’d take my older sister and me to Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, the miniature golf course and the movies. Toward the end of each summer, right when the dawn of a new school year threatened to overtake summer’s laziness, Aunt Kay would send us each a photo album filled with memories of our summer adventures. I still have each of the photo albums she made for me, and I still go through them from time to time. But one of the memories not captured in those books are the quirky sayings Aunt Kay so readily used. One of the things I remember hearing her say time and time again is, “I’m dating myself!” It took me awhile (until I was 8 or 9) to understand that what she meant wasn’t that she was romantically involved with herself, but rather that whatever she had just said had in some way betrayed her “old” age.

I never thought I’d be old enough to date myself, but that’s just what I’m about to do. I have to admit to you that until I took this job, I didn’t really know what a blog was. Sure, I’d heard the term used before and I had a general sense of what it must be by the way it was described, but I had never actually seen one. I had never read a blog entry. And I had certainly never written one of my own! You see, the internet and email accounts were the new thing when I started college. Back then people didn’t ask you what your email address was; they asked you if you had an email address. (We still carried around pagers back then, too. No one I knew had a cell phone except for my friend Liz’s dad, and it was about the size of a standard cordless phone today.)

As the new program associate for NNPCW, let me assure you that what I don’t know about blogging I make up for in other areas. That’s exactly why I’m so excited about this position--because it combines so many of my different passions and experiences. In line with NNPCW’s mission, I, too, feel called to live within and share God’s grace, acceptance and love; I long to build a community of women that reflects God’s extravagant hospitality to all persons; I strive to challenge systems of oppression, domination, exploitation and suffering; and I choose to work for justice and reconciliation in both church and society. And I am blessed to have had formative experiences in my life that have led me to this place, feeling equipped and excited to work as the staff person for this faithful and prophetic ministry. After graduating with a degree in biblical studies from Azusa Pacific University, I attended Princeton Theological Seminary and graduated with an M.Div. in 2003. I’ve spent the last two and-a-half years working as a community organizer with local faith-based justice organizations, first in Toledo, OH, and then here in Louisville, KY.

These experiences have shaped me into the woman I am today: a young woman (“dated”, however, by my earlier admission) committed to working with other young women to better understand what it means to “claim a Christian faith that empowers women” (to quote NNPCW’s mission statement.) I am eager to begin this journey, and I look forward to working and journeying with many of you.

In anticipation of all that is to come,
Noelle Tennis Gulden
NNPCW Program Associate