I sat on a pillow on the floor in the tidy apartment. There was a short table loaded with big seedy grapes and tea. My pastor’s wife was from Korea, her husband was an American. She fascinated me. I could tell she was kind and warm, but her face had an expressionless strength. Her name was Rose, or Sami in Korean.

I had told her about how I enjoyed the collective prayer room at church. Her face came to life and she told me a beautiful story, which was especially precious because she hardly ever spoke.

“I was the first person in my village to become a Christian. I was only a little girl, eleven. I would walk to the next village to go to Morning Prayer in the church there. I remember walking through the snow, early in the morning. I had to walk through the woods in the dark, and everyone believed that the woods were full of demons. On my way back from Morning Prayer, my footprints were still the only ones in the snow.

“My parents, and everyone in my village, thought that I was demon possessed because I wasn’t a Buddhist. They locked me up, and once they beat me. They threatened me, and tried to keep me from being a Christian. I would sneak out the window. They couldn’t stop me.” Her eyes twinkled as she talked about her defiance. “Now everyone in my family, and most of the people in my village, are Christians…” she said.

“How did you meet your husband?” I asked. She jerked her face like I’d swatted at her. It was a moment before she answered.

“He was stationed here.” she said.

“He was in the army?” I said.

“He was a Specialist.” she said.

“You met him in church.” I said.

“Yes.” she lied flatly. Her personality flitted away, she became quiet, and her expression was flat again.

From her reaction to my question, I made an unspeakable assumption about how she met her husband. Her story makes me glad that life moves on, and things change, often times for the better.