Jeff Adams

This post is about Emily, but there is nothing second class about her at all. To the contrary! After Cheryl, my beautiful wife, Emily is the second lady in my life who helps me keep my sanity in weeks like this when it seems everything turns upside down. For the past two years Emily has been my executive assistant. Many of you who read this blog do not live in Kansas City. When you try to call or contact me, you often end up in communication with Emily. So, I decided to give you a glimpse of this very special young woman.

I thought to do this a couple of weeks ago when I was in Argentina to train the staff of Thomas Vögelin’s CEC. Emily has often corresponded with Febe, Thomas’ assistant.  Febe asked me, “What does Emily look like? What is she like?” Great questions!

Emily was born in Iceland when her father was stationed there in the US military. She is, however, Costa Rican. After over 30 years of ministering in two languages, Emily is the first bi-lingual assistant I have had, and I can’t begin to tell you what a blessing that is! She is not only bi-lingual, she is perfectly bi-cultural. Her uncle is Marco Castro, the pastor of our Hispanic ministries and director of Que Dice la BIblia, our Spanish-language Bible institute by extension. She has been part of our church family since she was in high school and she is as comfortable in English as she is in Spanish. So, we enjoy mixing up languages together.

Though she has been my assistant for almost two years, Emily has worked on our staff for seven years in a variety of responsibilites. She has served as a leader in our student ministries and is a great mentor for young women. She is bright, competent, given to details and has a great sense of style. Perhaps most important, she both loves and makes a great cup of coffee! If you can’t find either one of us, you just might bump into one or the other of us at Benetti’s Coffee Experience, or some other fine establishment dedicated to great coffee.

People like me who are out in front leading, speaking, training, and all that sort of stuff are often administratively challenged. People like me simply cannot do what we do without people like Emily. Life is never about a single person. Life is a team sport and we need each other.