(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)

Hey, ladies of faith, I'm Jenny Pecklow. I am the host of our new podcast. It's a podcast we hope will make the community of women at faith feel smaller and more connected.

We'll be releasing them periodically over the next several months. So if you don't want to miss even one episode, hit that subscribe button and I hope you'll join me. Thanks for listening.

Well welcome today. I have a friend, Anne Marie Shambaugh with me. Some of you guys know her because she grew up here and other of you haven't had the joy of getting to know her very well, but hopefully after today you'll know her a little bit better.

As I met with Anne Marie to do our interview, I gave her two confessions. One was I always wanted to be a news reporter. So I guess this is God's giving me a little dream here with the podcast, but also that it was a little intimidating because I'm interviewing a journalist.

So that's a little intimidating, but she was very gracious and kind and very fun to talk with. So I hope you, well, you'll be able to hear some of her stories and some great things that the Lord's done in her and through her. So Anne Marie, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself and then we'll get started.

Yes. Well, thanks for having me on the podcast and I'll start with a confession as well. It's a little bit intimidating for me to be on this side of an interview.

This is not where I usually am. So this will be a different experience for me also. But yes, I'm Anne Marie Shambaugh.

I have been here at Faith Church for, well, I started coming here 40 plus years ago when I was a very small child and have been here for most of that time. There was a few years where I lived elsewhere. But other than that, I've been here and have just loved serving in various ministries over the years and just really feel like this is home.

So I'm really glad to be here. Yeah. Well, and for some people who don't know, like who are your parents and maybe share about your husband a little bit and your kiddos.

Yeah, sure. So yeah, my parents are Randy and Allison Ellis and they go to church here as well. So they're the reason I'm here.

They picked this church when we moved here from Oklahoma City back in the 80s. So they've been here this whole time. And so I have three sisters and I'm the oldest of the four.

And then my husband, Steve, I'm sure many of you know him. He started going to Faith here when he was a high school student we met in the youth group. And so we got married in 2004 and we have two kids.

Amelia is 13 and Donovan is 10. Can you share a little bit about maybe what, I'm assuming Faith Church was foundational in a lot of aspects in your life. And so maybe you can share a little bit about that or maybe people or experiences or places that played into that.

Yeah, definitely. So, you know, like I mentioned, I've been here since before I can remember. I do remember just spiritually, you know, coming to Christ as a young child.

And I don't remember a time where I wasn't at this church and didn't know about Jesus and his love and just the story of salvation. So I'm thankful that this church puts such an emphasis on the gospel. It's just something I've always known.

But just looking back over the years, it's just fun to kind of see and think about some of the people who've been, you know, helped me form my faith and just been a part of our lives. So if you want to go way back. Yeah, let's go back.

I don't remember this, but if you really want to go back, I know that Margaret Johnston has talked about that she was, I guess, one of my first babysitters when we were new to the area. So I don't remember that, but I'm thankful for it. I'm sure my parents were as well.

But growing up here, you know, went through the kids program. We did Pioneer Boys, Pioneer Girls back when I was a kid, we didn't have Awana at the time. But I remember having Deb Klotz as one of my group leaders and just, yeah, we, well, she wasn't Deb Klotz then.

But what was she? Do you remember? Deb Vogler, I believe. Oh, Deb Vogler. Yeah, I think you're right.

I'm sorry if I mispronounced that, but she was a lot of fun. And it's just been really, really cool to see over the years as after I had come back to faith after moving away, I did youth ministry and her daughter was in my small group. So that's been cool to kind of see that come full circle.

And then I would say in high school, you know, high school is always a time of, you know, just growth and change and figuring out who you are, what you want to do. And I would say Don Beachy, who was a former youth pastor, he was a major influence on my life and for Steve as well, especially as Steve came to Christ through a youth group trip. I know Don really helped to disciple him in those very early days.

And he's meant a lot to us, even though he's not here anymore, but yeah, he's made a big impact on both of us. That's awesome. I'm sure many people can say that as well.

Yeah. All right, well, why don't we talk a little bit about your journalism career and that path and how you came and got, you know, how you moved here and moved back and how that all worked. Yeah, I can walk through that.

So I did not grow up wanting to be a journalist. I didn't really know what I wanted to do. Which is kind of funny because your dad's a weatherman in case people didn't know that.

Yes, yes, he is. He's retired now, but I do think, you know, I used to go down to the station with him as a kid and I loved that. And I think, I mean, I just love being in the newsroom.

I thought that was cool. So I think maybe subconsciously that played into my future, but it wasn't something I aspired to really. My first experience with journalism in middle school, I really hated it.

It wasn't so much the journalism, but just I had a bad experience with the class. So anyway, I kind of was like, I'm not doing that anymore. But then in high school I had a teacher who was the journalism teacher and she was the English teacher as well.

She was my favorite teacher. And she was like, hey, I think you should give this a try. And I think if it hadn't been her teaching the class, I don't know that I would have done it.

But I decided to try it and I loved it. So around that same time, I also took like a career aptitude test, which put journalism like way at the top. Oh, interesting.

It felt like confirmation, like, okay, maybe I should think about this. Maybe I would really enjoy this. It was right behind Forest Ranger.

That was my number one. Wow. Forest Ranger.

So have you regretted your career path? No. But at the time I was like, what? Forest Ranger? That's pretty funny. But I grew up in a city, but honestly, I think I would love that job.

So I think it was right. But anyway, I did not become a Forest Ranger. Not yet.

Maybe that'll be my second career someday. My niece actually does that and she loves it. Yeah.

Yeah. I think I would love it too. Just being outside.

Anyway, I won't get too distracted on my future career dreams, but yeah. So I went to IUPUI, got a journalism degree, ended up while I was there, I had gotten married in 2004. So I still had a little bit of college to do.

Steve moved down to Texas for a job down there. And so I finished my last semester up here, joined him down there. And then it was kind of tough because a lot of times in journalism, it's like who you know, like connections.

And I had made several connections up here through internships and school and whatnot, but I didn't know anyone in the Dallas area really. So that was a little challenging. My first journalism adjacent job down there was actually doing traffic reports on the radio.

So that was an experience. It was one I don't think I would have wanted to do full time because it was just the same thing over and over again. But anyway, eventually, soon after that, got hired at a tiny little town newspaper and stayed with that little group of newspapers covering some different communities for a few years.

And then I went over to the Dallas Morning News and worked there for a few years until my daughter was born. So we were down in Dallas for eight years before we came back here when Amelia was two. So what brought you back to Indiana then? Yes.

So that was, I guess, technically because Steve got a job up here, but we had always planned to move back. This was, it felt like home to us. And we both grew up in the Indianapolis area.

And so it was kind of a plan we always had all along. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Good.

Moms love to hear that. That plan. Yes.

Can you share a couple of maybe memorable events or interviews that you've done through the years? That would be kind of fun to hear. Yeah. So one that stands out to me, so I am a sports fan of most sports.

So when Dallas hosted the Super Bowl, which was the year before Indy did, I was able to kind of at the last second, figure out a way to go to media day, which is a big spectacle. If you follow, you know, the NFL, I mean the week before the Super Bowl, it's all over the news. So fun.

So I was really, first of all, surprised I got in. But the night before, Dallas got one of like the, probably the worst ice storm it had while we lived there that whole eight years. And so I had to drive, I mean, without traffic and without ice, it's already, you know, 45 minutes to an hour away.

So I decided, I'm going to, I'm going to try it. I really want to go to this. So I drove on a sheet of ice.

I think it took me about three hours to get there. But the good news is no one else was on the road. Right.

So there was... Dallas doesn't do snow and ice, do they? No. No. They don't really know what to do when that happens.

But they still had media day. Wow. So I got there and it was crazy.

It was just like walking into like, not just ESPN, but like every NFL sportscaster that you see on national news all the time. I walk into this room and we're all just mingling about in the same area and you've got all the players. That's incredible.

Well, different times, but they're just mingling about too. And that for me, as a, as a big football fan was just really, really fun. And then the ice made it even more memorable.

The adventure. Yeah. Yeah.

And I guess if just one more I'll mention briefly, this one was actually during an internship, but it's one of the experiences I've gotten to do that has just stuck the most with me. I was interning at a TV station and this was back at probably 2005-ish, whenever there was that Amish school shooting. I don't know if you remember that.

It was out in Pennsylvania, I think. But we decided that we were going to go try and find an Amish community in Indiana and just go see if they would speak with us about, you know, what, how, what do you think of this? Yeah. And we knew it was a bit of a risk because we had to drive a couple hours to get there and like, would they accept cameras and TV reporters? And so we drove two hours north, finally found a community that was, had a big Amish population and everyone was very helpful.

They kind of directed us to like where the schoolhouse was. And so the teacher at that school agreed to let us come in and we were able to, we were able to get audio of his voice, but as long as we didn't show his face and we could like show part of the room, but not like the faces of the kids. But still being able to be in there and just to, just to see, you know, a culture that's very different than what I'm used to was, was a very cool experience.

So that's one of the things I love about journalism is just the opportunity to get to talk to so many different people with different opinions and different life experiences. And I know I've, I've learned a lot through that. That sounds incredible.

Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about being a working mom? I mean, I think you've worked all the way through, right? Maybe you had a little bit of a pause at the beginning, but that can be a challenge. And in the church, that can be a challenge too.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's such an important topic and one that I have struggled with, like what's the right balance? And honestly, when I continue to struggle with, I feel like I've been very fortunate that I have had a job that has allowed for flexibility to allow me to be with my kids a good bit of the time, but also to still do what I love.

So after Amelia was born, I left the Dallas Morning News because it wasn't going to work out for me to go part-time there, which is what I ideally wanted to do. So I ended up working for a city government that I had previously covered for a couple of years and just worked part-time for them, mostly from home. And that was interesting because I got to kind of see the other side of what happens when I'm doing these city government stories.

But when we moved back to Indy, I had a fresh start and I missed journalism. I missed just the pace and just everything about it. Well, not at most.

There's some things I didn't miss, but I really wanted to go back into that again. And so that's when I ended up working for Current, which is where I still work now. And I feel like God has kind of directed my steps all along the way, career-wise, helping me to kind of land in places that are a good fit for that life stage.

So the job I have now, I really appreciate about it that it's very flexible in terms of I have my work I need to get done, but when I get it done is not on a strict schedule. So I've been able to kind of, along the way, balance that with also being around for my kids. I've done, especially when they were little, a lot of work at nighttime after they went to bed.

Thankfully, now that they're older, it's not quite like that anymore. But I mean, it is. Yeah.

I think in the church, there's a lot of pressure on women on what's the right thing to do. And I'm just, I'm someone who I love to work. I feel called to it.

And I do feel like, I'm thankful that I feel like God has guided my steps in this journey. I'm sure I haven't been perfect along the way. There's been a lot of mistakes and sometimes that I feel like maybe I did, I don't know, didn't give my kids enough attention.

And that's not a great feeling. But yeah, I'm very, yeah, I can relate to the struggle. And I can imagine your husband's had to play a big part in that.

Because even though it's flexible, you probably have to come and go at certain times for specific things. And so maybe you can speak to that a little bit. Yeah, absolutely.

I'm very grateful to my husband for supporting my journalism career, you know, before kids, but especially since we've had kids, because yes, it does. I mean, without him being willing to step in and, you know, I mentioned those late nights working or I go to a lot of meetings that are in the evening. So he's with the kids on those nights.

In fact, I have one tonight. So yes, I think that if he weren't as, you know, supportive of that, obviously I couldn't do it. So I'm really grateful just for him for stepping in and making it work so that, you know, yeah, so that I can do this.

Yeah, I love that because they have two parents, right? And God uses both of you in their lives. And how wonderful that the Lord just opened doors and places specifically for you that allowed you to do that. I think that's wonderful.

And when I get these, like when I'm on Facebook and a story pops up, I always click. Is it Anne Marie's story? It's kind of fun to see if I'm like, oh, there she is. She's writing another story.

It's very fun because I'm like, oh, she got to talk to that person or check that out. Well, thanks for reading. Yes, I love it.

Yeah. So you guys look for the current articles or whatever you call them. Yeah.

Okay. Well, why don't we talk a little bit about serving? You've served at Faith in the Past. And then after that, maybe share what you're doing now.

That would be fun to hear. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, in preparing for this, I was thinking back to what are the ministries I've been involved in. And I mean, we can go all the way back. I remember as a kid, you know, being in the madrigal that we used to do here.

Do you remember that? Actually, I think that's before my time. Okay. We just started coming, but we've heard so much about it.

Yes. Yeah. So I remember being kind of in one of those roaming choirs.

Okay. So that was a fun time. And, you know, I served like around that same time in the bell choir.

Okay. Helped with the nursery. Yeah.

And then when I was in high school, started getting involved with the worship team first through the youth group, but then eventually in the main service as well. So I played drums and bass for that, mostly bass. But yeah, so after we had moved away and came back again, the area where I got involved first was serving in youth ministry.

So helped lead a small group. Started when the students were in seventh grade and kind of stayed with them until they graduated. And Steve was doing the same with the boys small group in the same grade.

So that was cool to kind of do that together. And then we kind of rolled out of that as our kids got into it, just to give them some space. And so since then I've been serving on the women's ministry team.

So I'm still doing that. And then recently joined the worship team again after like a 20 year break. I love it.

Yeah. That's been really fun. Not drums though.

Okay. All right. We won't, we won't look for you in the drums.

Does Steve play drums? Yes. He just taught himself to play over the last few years with the goal of like serving on the worship team because we were getting a little short on drummers. So that's been really cool to see is to just see his dedication to that.

And now he's at a state, a level where he can do that. So that's been really fun. Very fun.

And I love to hear the full circle. He's now serving in the youth ministry where he first met the Lord. Wonderful.

Yes. So amazing. All right.

And there's something else you're doing at faith where you get to invite people to share their stories. So journalism is all about stories, but here at church, you invite people to share their stories. So you want to tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, sure.

Yeah. So this was one of those situations where it just felt like another God thing, you know, with just my professional experience and just love for this church and the people here as well. So Betty Lindquist, she's been, she moved away several years ago, but she launched the faith stories class.

This was back when I was still in Texas. So I wasn't here for that when it began. But so she led that for several years.

And that's where we have people from the church who will come on. It's the Sundays throughout the summer, basically, is the schedule. And they'll speak for about 30 minutes on what God has done in their life.

And that's very open in terms of how they want to go about telling their story. But yeah, it's both hours during the Sundays in the summer. And I know summer feels a little far away at the moment, but we are getting to the point where we're going to start preparing and ramping up for another season of that.

Okay, nice. Yes. Faith stories is a fun thing to do in the summer.

So it's usually June and July, right? And August. And August. Okay.

So you trickle into August too. All right. And so in March, you're going to start inviting people to consider sharing their stories.

When we talked earlier, I loved that you said everyone has a faith story. Because some people feel like, well, I don't really have anything to say, or I didn't have some significant this or that. But God is at work in all of our lives in different ways.

Are there specific examples or anything you wanted to share about that? Yeah, I think just without calling anyone out, you know, I think that is a response that I get pretty frequently when I ask people if they would be willing to speak is they feel like, well, I don't have this big dramatic story to share. And I mean, that's fine. I think some of the stories that are the most relatable are stories just of people living day to day faithfully for the Lord.

And we want to hear those stories too. Like, we won't turn away dramatic stories. Right.

Those are fun. But no, we want to hear, you know, just the day to day stories of how you've seen God at work over the years. And it's open to, like I said, however you want to do it, whether it's like a testimony of coming to faith, whether it's God getting you through a certain season or situation, or more of a broader just look at how you've seen God at work over the years.

So it's not limited to one specific formula. And yeah, like you said, you know, I think God's always at work. In our lives.

And so, yeah. Okay. And I love that you said you usually like to try to ask at least one high school student.

Yeah. And maybe you can ask a college student too. You know, I thought that'd be kind of fun to hear from our college students as well.

Absolutely. I love that because God's working in their lives too. Great.

Okay. So when you ask somebody and invite them to do a faith story, maybe you can just give us a little view into what does that mean? Like how do they prep for it? And in case there's somebody listening who might be interested or that you're going to invite in, what does the prep look like? And that kind of thing. Yeah.

Happy to talk about that. So once I ask someone and once they've said yes, and this is information I probably should share before they say yes, just so they know what they're in for. But it's not one of those situations where, you know, you agree to do something and then you're just left all alone.

What I try to do is just give some guidelines in terms of, you know, how to prepare the story, which again, is very open in what you want to share. But we ask for the stories to stay about 30 minutes. And then along the way, you know, I'm here to help, you know, if you're having trouble thinking of, well, how do I tie these things together? Or like, you don't know exactly what direction to go in.

I'm happy to, you know, help answer those questions and just kind of look for maybe a theme or just give feedback along the way. And then usually, you know, about one to two weeks before the presentation, I'll meet with the speaker and have them just kind of do it, go through the story as far as it's ready at that point. And just, you know, listen for anything that doesn't make sense or that might be confusing because, you know, it might make sense to you when you're talking about your own life, but might not make sense to everybody.

So we'll look for things like that and then kind of just talk through that and anything else really that comes up. So, you know, I hope to not leave people just all alone to do this, but to just be collaborative and help however I can along the way. That's great.

So when they share, when you come in, they share twice that morning, right? And generally, you just have icebreakers at the beginning. Yes. Then you'll introduce them and they talk for about 30 minutes and then you have like a question and answer afterwards.

Yes, yeah, that's right. So people can just kind of follow up on something that was said or whatever. Okay, great.

I was checking into, because I don't, I haven't gone back to listen to the faith stories, but if you want to go, if you miss one or you're like, you want to hear somebody's specific story, you can actually go on the app and it's under grow. And then you can just scroll down. It's where the women's podcasts are.

It's where the cut for time are. So you can just look, oh, there's faith stories. You click on it and we have them on there all the way back through 2023.

Okay. To listen earlier, I'm not sure. We probably have to ask Brittany about that, but I know on the app it goes all the way back to 2023.

So that's fun. If you want to go back and hear some, maybe hear it again or catch some that you haven't heard before. I think the faith stories tries to do what we try to do here in some regard is connect people to the Lord and to each other and just walk in our faith together.

And here on this one is more focused towards women, I guess a little bit, but I'm still hoping to do the same thing. All right. Well, we're going to wrap up, but before we do, sometimes I just ask a little ending question.

So what is something that refreshes you? Is there a particular person, place, thing, activity? Yeah, I would say, you know, maybe my favorite thing or one of my favorite things is just like reading a book in a hammock on a nice warm day, but not too hot. Okay. But nice.

A nice cool breeze. Yeah. So that's kind of my go-to.

I would say just, or just being outside in nature, but I have a more specific one that has been something that I've enjoyed lately. And I don't know that this will be forever. Okay.

Because, you know, the weather we've had over the winter is not very conducive to, you know, being outside much at all. Right. So I have to find more indoor things that I can do.

And this is kind of silly, but I've been really into paint by numbers lately. I love it. Yes.

Yeah. Ah, so do they have like adult paint by numbers? I mean, the one I don't care. I like Hello Kitty or.

I mean, I don't really care, but the one I'm doing now, I mean, it's very intricate. So I don't know that like it's really, you know, for kids, but. Okay.

It's, but yeah, I don't, I don't know what it is, but I just find that it is just really relaxing and a nice way to just kind of give my mind a break. Yeah. At the same time, you know, create a little outlet.

Yeah. Yeah. And again, I don't feel like it's that creative because I'm just filling in the numbers.

Right. But yeah, that, that is my answer for now. That might not always be my answer.

I love that. So how would you think like, maybe I'll try that. Were you like wandering the aisles of Michaels or.

No, I just, I know like when I was a kid, I enjoyed them. I did too. Yeah.

And so I did one a few years ago, just randomly. And I think it may have been, I had bought some for my kids and I wanted to do it kind of alongside them. So I bought them some, and then I bought myself one that was a little bit harder.

And in that process, I just realized I really enjoy this. This is very relaxing for some reason. And so a few months ago I was out and just happened to find one that was on sale.

And it's like this very intricate peacock. Okay. It's very big.

It's taken me a long time and I'm maybe halfway done with it right now. So I'm hoping it gets me through the winter season. That sounds very cool.

So it's something you can just keep coming back to. It's not difficult to drop it and pick it back up. Yeah, exactly.

And that's, what's nice. I try to keep it, you know, mostly out of the way, but there's just a little corner of the table where I've had it set up. I work on it just a little bit at a time, because I don't usually have a ton of just time to dedicate to it.

I love that. Honestly, I was just thinking about that a week or so ago. I don't know why, because I was thinking about when I was a kid, I loved to do the paint by numbers.

And I just, I don't know, I started thinking about it. I wonder what they have out there. You should try it.

Maybe I'll check it out. It's very relaxing. Yeah, I love that.

All right. Well, thanks so much for being on the podcast. You said, you know, if I ask people to do faith stories, I need to reciprocate and share your story.

So I do appreciate that. And it's been fun to get to know you a little bit more. So thanks for coming today.

Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah.

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