Public Affection
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Friendship moves from restaurants to classrooms –and now, to book covers. If there are key pillars in every friendship, then the first
for Pam Morton and Kathy Jingling has got to be salsa.
“We love to meet in Mexican restaurants and discuss life,” Jingling says. Those meetings took on a new focus a few years ago, when the pair decided to take a women’s Bible study they’d been teaching locally and turn it into a national curriculum. The study is dubbed Creative Friendzy, and now Morton and Jingling are its author-ambassadors. Their faces are on books and boxes all over the country. They go on speaking tours. They balance the commitments of work and family with day-to-day maintenance of their self-owned publishing company, Daisies in the Rain. And they continue to develop new material every week for the Sunday-morning class they teach together. It’s a good thing they get along “God has made this a very special friendship, that we can tolerate each other at such a high level,” Morton says. She’s 37, married, with two preteen girls at home. Jingling is 48 and single, a full-time missionary and fluent Spanish-speaker who has spent the last 17 years developing teaching curricula for use in Latin America and the Caribbean. On the surface, the two women don’t have much in common. But the surface isn’t where true friendships form. “I became friends with her children before I became friends with their parents,” Jingling says. She taught children’s Sunday school at James River Assembly, the church both women attend outside Springfield, Mo. They found their lives intersecting there in many ways: at children’s musicals, at missions conferences, at women’s get-togethers. They both loved to be creative, though in different ways. And they found they shared a sense of humor. In 2002, the seed was planted for what would become Creative Freindzy. I was having lunch with a friend one day,” says Morton, “and she made a joke – she said, ‘I’m going to have to move.’ I said, ‘Why?’ She said, I’ve decorated every room in my house, and I don’t have any rooms left.’” Somehow, the comment stuck with Morton. Is that it? she drove home thinking. Or can women use their creativity for something more? “That was my epiphany,” she says. “I really felt like it was time to combine women’s love for God and their love of creativity for the purpose of encouragement and evangelism.” When Morton couldn’t find a study to do that, she wrote her own. She started with a 10-week Tuesday-morning class, combining themed Bible studies with discussion, fun skits, special guests and new ideas for recipes and home projects. She wrote and printed each week’s lesson herself. “I got out my big industrial publishing company – a copier at Kinko’s,” Morton says. “I printed 52 and had 53 women come the first day. We were already out of print! They were walking away with Bible content and a new skill each week, and they really loved it.” When Morton planned a lesson about writing, she decided her friend Kathy Jingling would make an ideal guest speaker. She used up the entire time, plus my time,” Morton says. “That’s really true,” adds Jingling. “I thought she was so zealous,” Morton says, “we might as well reign her in and have her teach full-time.” Tuesday mornings changed to Sunday mornings, weeks turned into years and Morton and Jingling became a team. To the initiate, their partnership now borders on iconic. “When they get up and do their thing, it’s so hilarious,” says Susan Matthews, a longtime Creative Friendzy student. “Pam is a little freer and Kathy is a little stricter – what one doesn’t say, the other one picks up and says. You get the best of both worlds.” When it comes to writing, new concepts seem to be Morton’s forte, while responsibility for structure and execution falls squarely on Jingling’s shoulders. “Pam has all the ideas,” Jingling says. “She gives me substance,” Morton answers. The study’s style and execution took on new importance in 2004, when the friends were invited to share their curriculum at the Assemblies of God National Women’s Ministries Conference. Up to that point, Creative Friendzy had existed as a local class. But Jingling and Morton would need something solid and transferable to send home with conference attendees. They’d need published lesson books. And if they were going to go that far… “As a result of that one-hour invitation, we decided to launch the whole thing,” Morton says. Her husband John was an experienced entrepreneur; he jumped on board and Daisies in the Rain Publishing was founded. “We had to get a lot more serious over those times with chips and salsa,” Jingling says. They’re getting through. Thanks to conference exposure and a solid Web site and e-mail newsletter, Daisies in the Rain has taken orders from 30 different states and is enjoying broad international interest. The next steps are a broad bookstore push and speaking tour – which means more time teaching, talking and traveling together for Morton and Jingling. It’s a good thing they get along. “I think we’re Creative Friendzy, the philosophy, personified,” Morton says. “The whole point is to combine your love for what you do and your love for God to encourage others. Our big fear is that we’re going to be found out. We’re having so much fun.” |