Outpost Stories
Zach and Shay Rauch
Growing up, Shay Rauch’s world centered around her family and the local church. The truth of the Gospel was woven through the everyday, and she experienced and trusted God’s love as a young girl. Yet, her understanding of His character and kindness came gradually, in a patient unfolding of Truth. As she grasped her personal need for the Gospel, she began to earnestly pursue opportunities for evangelism - which led to her involvement in international ministry at University of Iowa. It was there that Shay met Zach, a newer Christian with a different background who shared her passion for ministy. Though she initially rebuffed Zach’s interest, the Lord slowly showed her that he was the man she would marry. Read their story to see how the Lord has knit their hearts together, taught them the importance of everyday faithfulness and the value of community, and continued to sanctify them with His Truth.
Read the full story
As a young girl growing up in Iowa, Shay struggled with fear and anxiety. In third grade, that inner anxiety manifested in insomnia. Waking frequently in the middle of night, Shay would scream uncontrollably for her parents. Her parents sought help from their pediatrician, but physical testing returned answer-less. Finally, they took nine-year-old Shay to talk with a pastor.
Shay: This pastor basically showed me that my need was not for my parents to come and be with me and fix my problem. My need was actually for the Lord. I think that was when I started to see God as my Father. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t sleep, but I knew I was scared, and I knew God could give me comfort. I remember one night in particular when I thought, “Oh, I don’t have to scream and tell my parents. I can pray and my Heavenly Father will comfort me.”
Understanding the love of her Father God was just the beginning of Shay’s faith journey. She was well-discipled in the local church, and grew in wisdom, knowledge, and character.
Shay: I was pretty goody-two-shoes. I never faced a lot of situations where I wanted to disobey. Being good came easily. But, I was terrified of sharing my faith. I wasn’t bold at all. Anytime I heard a sermon about evangelism, it terrified me. I didn’t want to hear it. So, I think the next season of my walk with the Lord was deciding whether I was going to follow His call in that, or whether I was going to be held back by this fear. Even in high school, people knew I had good morals, but I was usually too scared to mention the name of Jesus.
A class at Shay’s church challneged her to make a choice to follow the Lord whole-heartedly. With stark clarity, Shay knew it was time to make a decision. She had a friend with whom she had never shared Jesus, and she knew God was calling her to obey Him and be brave. Finally, she followed His prompting. Shay, who had long known that God was her Father and Comforter, now also embraced Him as the Lord of her life, the One who would ask her to trust Him and follow Him into uncomfortable situations. A willingness to be bold, live for God, and trust Him in all things was sprouting in Shay around the time she headed off to college in Iowa City.
Shay: I am grateful for the college season because I think that was when I really started to learn about God as my Savior. I had known that I had a need for God because I was anxious, and because I wasn’t bold. But I didn’t really see myself as a sinner. It’s hard to see the Gospel as beautiful if you don’t truly understand that you are a sinner in need of grace. During college, God used the book of Romans a lot in my life. A sweet friend was willing to call out some of the pride she saw in my life, and it changed me. I thought I was better than everyone else because of how I had grown up and because I had knowledge of the Bible. Pride was a hard sin to uproot, because trying to fix pride yourself just leads to more self-focus.
She studied Romans 7, where Paul cried out, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” As she wrestled with her sin, Shay began to see the wonder of Jesus’ love and sacrifice. Jesus, her perfect Savior, had rescued her from the body of death and sin she couldn’t escape on her own.
“Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.” 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
Around that time, Shay met Zach, a fellow student who had his own story of grace.
Zach’s upbringing was different from Shay’s. While he didn’t regularly attend church, his childhood was peppered with odd church encounters: churches that taught heresy, or presented bizarre Sunday School lessons. Those encounters didn’t amount to an understanding of the Gospel.
Zach: Growing up, I was pretty apathetic to everything except myself, I suppose. I grew up feeling like I needed to earn people’s approval and make them think I was cool. I learned to shape my identity from what I achieved and that bled into every area of my life. I always thought I had to bring something to the table to be worthy of acceptance. When I was a freshman, I had a good friend who was on the swim team, and I decided to go out for swimming with him.
The swim team practiced twice a day, logging many miles in the pool. As a young teen, Zach knew little about hydration, sleep, or refueling his body after those intense workouts. He became dangerously ill with rhabdomyolysis. He ended up in the hospital in acute renal failure, his urine pitch black and his energy depleted. After seven days in the hospital receiving IV therapy through a PICC line, Zach returned to “normal” life - even finishing his swim season. But the intense experience changed Zach.
Zach: It was a wake-up call in a lot of ways. It stirred my imagination a little in that I realized that if I had died, it would have been sad, but it wouldn’t really have mattered. I hadn’t done anything to contribute to the human experience. So, it sent me on a spiritual journey, a quest to figure out how to make my life count. One of my teammates (a senior) was a pretty ardent Buddhist. He took me under his wing, and taught me how to do meditations and mantras and other Buddhist practices. As I was experimenting with those practices, I was also invited to attend a Christian youth group. Since I was just in the phase of spiritual experimentation, I decided to check out Christianity, too.
Zach attended the youth group for a few months before he had a realization that the students who were proclaiming Christ had something he didn’t. Their lives had a meaning and purpose he didn’t quite grasp. Eventually, he decided that the only way to make his life really matter was to follow Christ. He had heard the Gospel and was beginning to make sense of how Christianity was set-apart from other spiritual pathways. While Zach could comprehend the way his personal sin created a chasm between him and God, it was a challenge for him to accept the magnificent truth that he himself couldn’t bridge that divide.
Zach: I still wanted to earn my way to God by doing things to make myself worthy of His love. But as I learned more about the Gospel, I realized that there wasn’t anything I could do. I just had to accept what Jesus had already done. So I gave my life to Jesus my sophomore year of high school.
One of the first verses Zach memorized as a new believer was Ephesians 2:10, which says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” That verse penetrated Zach’s heart. He began to see that God just loved him; he didn’t have to prove himself or earn God’s approval. He could stop hanging his identity on the frail peg of his human works and live out of the abundance of God’s love. It wasn’t always easy to choose faithfulness over performance - to love God’s glory more than his own reputation.
Zach: Going into college, that continued to be a struggle for me. I had to confront this sin of wanting to be impressive. I grew a lot as I saw other Christians who were content to just be with Jesus and to trust Him. Galatians 3:3 says, “Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” That was meaningful to me as I surrendered my works to Jesus.
While Zach and Shay were both growing spiritually in significant ways, the Lord brought them together in ministry. They shared life and the Gospel with international students on their large campus, and became friends as they served together. After finally agreeing to a date, Shay quickly decided she didn’t want to pursue romance with Zach - until the Lord changed her mind. This time, she was the one who did the asking.
Shay: I’m really grateful for what the Lord had done in my heart. I think if I hadn’t known the comfort of God as Father and the sovereignty of God as my Lord, I don’t think I would have dated Zach. I was anxious and eventually it came down to God telling me, “I’m going to take care of you and this is going to be good. Trust me.”
They were married days before Zach’s college graduation in 2019 and began life together. Shay taught elementary school, and Zach worked full-time at their local church. They opened their home to students and saw the Lord continue to work in the ripe mission field of international students, despite COVID setbacks and changes. Eventually, Zach stepped away from vocational ministry while they continued to be involved in music, small groups, and Sunday School.
Zach: We were really blessed in that we actually got poured into more than we poured out. People older than us were willing to spend time with us and just talk about what faithfulness in marriage and parenting looks like.
Shay: We had our first baby, Esther, and I was working, and we didn’t have a lot of time to pour into our church community. But people poured into us. We were discipled by an older couple and it was so helpful to us. One of the things I struggled with during that time was wanting marriage and parenting to be fair, and feeling frustrated because I felt like I was doing more work and I wasn’t appreciated. I was reminded that, from a Biblical perspective, marriage is about loving your spouse and being fulfilled by the Lord. It isn’t about keeping score or being fair.
Zach: I had a lot to learn, too. The man who discipled me was really good about asking, “How are you serving your wife? Are you loving Shay well - in a way she feels loved and appreciated?”
As their family has grown (adding Thomas and, recently, little Mabel) Zach and Shay have learned to communicate more clearly and lovingly with one another. They have learned that both the mountaintop experiences and the Monday mundane can lead to sanctification and growth if their hearts are open to the Lord. When doors opened for them to move to Cody and manage a family ranch, they felt ready to embrace the adventure of Western life.
Whe they began to attend Outpost, they discovered a church body that was messy, and raw, and imperfect, but striving to follow Christ. They dove into community, found places to serve, and have continued to pursue faithfulness over fruitfulness - or, rather, faithfulness that will lead to fruitfulness only because the Lord is at work. They look forward to continuing to grow in godliness and contentment as a family, and to reaching out and discipling others the way they have been discipled.
Outpost Stories
Zach and Shay Rauch
Growing up, Shay Rauch’s world centered around her family and the local church. The truth of the Gospel was woven through the everyday, and she experienced and trusted God’s love as a young girl. Yet, her understanding of His character and kindness came gradually, in a patient unfolding of Truth. As she grasped her personal need for the Gospel, she began to earnestly pursue opportunities for evangelism - which led to her involvement in international ministry at University of Iowa. It was there that Shay met Zach, a newer Christian with a different background who shared her passion for ministy. Though she initially rebuffed Zach’s interest, the Lord slowly showed her that he was the man she would marry. Read their story to see how the Lord has knit their hearts together, taught them the importance of everyday faithfulness and the value of community, and continued to sanctify them with His Truth.
Read the full story
As a young girl growing up in Iowa, Shay struggled with fear and anxiety. In third grade, that inner anxiety manifested in insomnia. Waking frequently in the middle of night, Shay would scream uncontrollably for her parents. Her parents sought help from their pediatrician, but physical testing returned answer-less. Finally, they took nine-year-old Shay to talk with a pastor.
Shay: This pastor basically showed me that my need was not for my parents to come and be with me and fix my problem. My need was actually for the Lord. I think that was when I started to see God as my Father. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t sleep, but I knew I was scared, and I knew God could give me comfort. I remember one night in particular when I thought, “Oh, I don’t have to scream and tell my parents. I can pray and my Heavenly Father will comfort me.”
Understanding the love of her Father God was just the beginning of Shay’s faith journey. She was well-discipled in the local church, and grew in wisdom, knowledge, and character.
Shay: I was pretty goody-two-shoes. I never faced a lot of situations where I wanted to disobey. Being good came easily. But, I was terrified of sharing my faith. I wasn’t bold at all. Anytime I heard a sermon about evangelism, it terrified me. I didn’t want to hear it. So, I think the next season of my walk with the Lord was deciding whether I was going to follow His call in that, or whether I was going to be held back by this fear. Even in high school, people knew I had good morals, but I was usually too scared to mention the name of Jesus.
A class at Shay’s church challneged her to make a choice to follow the Lord whole-heartedly. With stark clarity, Shay knew it was time to make a decision. She had a friend with whom she had never shared Jesus, and she knew God was calling her to obey Him and be brave. Finally, she followed His prompting. Shay, who had long known that God was her Father and Comforter, now also embraced Him as the Lord of her life, the One who would ask her to trust Him and follow Him into uncomfortable situations. A willingness to be bold, live for God, and trust Him in all things was sprouting in Shay around the time she headed off to college in Iowa City.
Shay: I am grateful for the college season because I think that was when I really started to learn about God as my Savior. I had known that I had a need for God because I was anxious, and because I wasn’t bold. But I didn’t really see myself as a sinner. It’s hard to see the Gospel as beautiful if you don’t truly understand that you are a sinner in need of grace. During college, God used the book of Romans a lot in my life. A sweet friend was willing to call out some of the pride she saw in my life, and it changed me. I thought I was better than everyone else because of how I had grown up and because I had knowledge of the Bible. Pride was a hard sin to uproot, because trying to fix pride yourself just leads to more self-focus.
She studied Romans 7, where Paul cried out, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” As she wrestled with her sin, Shay began to see the wonder of Jesus’ love and sacrifice. Jesus, her perfect Savior, had rescued her from the body of death and sin she couldn’t escape on her own.
“Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.” 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
“Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.” 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
Around that time, Shay met Zach, a fellow student who had his own story of grace.
Zach’s upbringing was different from Shay’s. While he didn’t regularly attend church, his childhood was peppered with odd church encounters: churches that taught heresy, or presented bizarre Sunday School lessons. Those encounters didn’t amount to an understanding of the Gospel.
Zach: Growing up, I was pretty apathetic to everything except myself, I suppose. I grew up feeling like I needed to earn people’s approval and make them think I was cool. I learned to shape my identity from what I achieved and that bled into every area of my life. I always thought I had to bring something to the table to be worthy of acceptance. When I was a freshman, I had a good friend who was on the swim team, and I decided to go out for swimming with him.
The swim team practiced twice a day, logging many miles in the pool. As a young teen, Zach knew little about hydration, sleep, or refueling his body after those intense workouts. He became dangerously ill with rhabdomyolysis. He ended up in the hospital in acute renal failure, his urine pitch black and his energy depleted. After seven days in the hospital receiving IV therapy through a PICC line, Zach returned to “normal” life - even finishing his swim season. But the intense experience changed Zach.
Zach: It was a wake-up call in a lot of ways. It stirred my imagination a little in that I realized that if I had died, it would have been sad, but it wouldn’t really have mattered. I hadn’t done anything to contribute to the human experience. So, it sent me on a spiritual journey, a quest to figure out how to make my life count. One of my teammates (a senior) was a pretty ardent Buddhist. He took me under his wing, and taught me how to do meditations and mantras and other Buddhist practices. As I was experimenting with those practices, I was also invited to attend a Christian youth group. Since I was just in the phase of spiritual experimentation, I decided to check out Christianity, too.
Zach attended the youth group for a few months before he had a realization that the students who were proclaiming Christ had something he didn’t. Their lives had a meaning and purpose he didn’t quite grasp. Eventually, he decided that the only way to make his life really matter was to follow Christ. He had heard the Gospel and was beginning to make sense of how Christianity was set-apart from other spiritual pathways. While Zach could comprehend the way his personal sin created a chasm between him and God, it was a challenge for him to accept the magnificent truth that he himself couldn’t bridge that divide.
Zach: I still wanted to earn my way to God by doing things to make myself worthy of His love. But as I learned more about the Gospel, I realized that there wasn’t anything I could do. I just had to accept what Jesus had already done. So I gave my life to Jesus my sophomore year of high school.
One of the first verses Zach memorized as a new believer was Ephesians 2:10, which says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” That verse penetrated Zach’s heart. He began to see that God just loved him; he didn’t have to prove himself or earn God’s approval. He could stop hanging his identity on the frail peg of his human works and live out of the abundance of God’s love. It wasn’t always easy to choose faithfulness over performance - to love God’s glory more than his own reputation.
Zach: Going into college, that continued to be a struggle for me. I had to confront this sin of wanting to be impressive. I grew a lot as I saw other Christians who were content to just be with Jesus and to trust Him. Galatians 3:3 says, “Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” That was meaningful to me as I surrendered my works to Jesus.
While Zach and Shay were both growing spiritually in significant ways, the Lord brought them together in ministry. They shared life and the Gospel with international students on their large campus, and became friends as they served together. After finally agreeing to a date, Shay quickly decided she didn’t want to pursue romance with Zach - until the Lord changed her mind. This time, she was the one who did the asking.
Shay: I’m really grateful for what the Lord had done in my heart. I think if I hadn’t known the comfort of God as Father and the sovereignty of God as my Lord, I don’t think I would have dated Zach. I was anxious and eventually it came down to God telling me, “I’m going to take care of you and this is going to be good. Trust me.”
They were married days before Zach’s college graduation in 2019 and began life together. Shay taught elementary school, and Zach worked full-time at their local church. They opened their home to students and saw the Lord continue to work in the ripe mission field of international students, despite COVID setbacks and changes. Eventually, Zach stepped away from vocational ministry while they continued to be involved in music, small groups, and Sunday School.
Zach: We were really blessed in that we actually got poured into more than we poured out. People older than us were willing to spend time with us and just talk about what faithfulness in marriage and parenting looks like.
Shay: We had our first baby, Esther, and I was working, and we didn’t have a lot of time to pour into our church community. But people poured into us. We were discipled by an older couple and it was so helpful to us. One of the things I struggled with during that time was wanting marriage and parenting to be fair, and feeling frustrated because I felt like I was doing more work and I wasn’t appreciated. I was reminded that, from a Biblical perspective, marriage is about loving your spouse and being fulfilled by the Lord. It isn’t about keeping score or being fair.
Zach: I had a lot to learn, too. The man who discipled me was really good about asking, “How are you serving your wife? Are you loving Shay well - in a way she feels loved and appreciated?”
As their family has grown (adding Thomas and, recently, little Mabel) Zach and Shay have learned to communicate more clearly and lovingly with one another. They have learned that both the mountaintop experiences and the Monday mundane can lead to sanctification and growth if their hearts are open to the Lord. When doors opened for them to move to Cody and manage a family ranch, they felt ready to embrace the adventure of Western life.
Whe they began to attend Outpost, they discovered a church body that was messy, and raw, and imperfect, but striving to follow Christ. They dove into community, found places to serve, and have continued to pursue faithfulness over fruitfulness - or, rather, faithfulness that will lead to fruitfulness only because the Lord is at work. They look forward to continuing to grow in godliness and contentment as a family, and to reaching out and discipling others the way they have been discipled.
“Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.” 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
“Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.” 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
Outpost Stories
Zach and Shay Rauch
Growing up, Shay Rauch’s world centered around her family and the local church. The truth of the Gospel was woven through the everyday, and she experienced and trusted God’s love as a young girl. Yet, her understanding of His character and kindness came gradually, in a patient unfolding of Truth. As she grasped her personal need for the Gospel, she began to earnestly pursue opportunities for evangelism - which led to her involvement in international ministry at University of Iowa. It was there that Shay met Zach, a newer Christian with a different background who shared her passion for ministy. Though she initially rebuffed Zach’s interest, the Lord slowly showed her that he was the man she would marry. Read their story to see how the Lord has knit their hearts together, taught them the importance of everyday faithfulness and the value of community, and continued to sanctify them with His Truth.
Read the full story
As a young girl growing up in Iowa, Shay struggled with fear and anxiety. In third grade, that inner anxiety manifested in insomnia. Waking frequently in the middle of night, Shay would scream uncontrollably for her parents. Her parents sought help from their pediatrician, but physical testing returned answer-less. Finally, they took nine-year-old Shay to talk with a pastor.
Shay: This pastor basically showed me that my need was not for my parents to come and be with me and fix my problem. My need was actually for the Lord. I think that was when I started to see God as my Father. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t sleep, but I knew I was scared, and I knew God could give me comfort. I remember one night in particular when I thought, “Oh, I don’t have to scream and tell my parents. I can pray and my Heavenly Father will comfort me.”
Understanding the love of her Father God was just the beginning of Shay’s faith journey. She was well-discipled in the local church, and grew in wisdom, knowledge, and character.
Shay: I was pretty goody-two-shoes. I never faced a lot of situations where I wanted to disobey. Being good came easily. But, I was terrified of sharing my faith. I wasn’t bold at all. Anytime I heard a sermon about evangelism, it terrified me. I didn’t want to hear it. So, I think the next season of my walk with the Lord was deciding whether I was going to follow His call in that, or whether I was going to be held back by this fear. Even in high school, people knew I had good morals, but I was usually too scared to mention the name of Jesus.
A class at Shay’s church challneged her to make a choice to follow the Lord whole-heartedly. With stark clarity, Shay knew it was time to make a decision. She had a friend with whom she had never shared Jesus, and she knew God was calling her to obey Him and be brave. Finally, she followed His prompting. Shay, who had long known that God was her Father and Comforter, now also embraced Him as the Lord of her life, the One who would ask her to trust Him and follow Him into uncomfortable situations. A willingness to be bold, live for God, and trust Him in all things was sprouting in Shay around the time she headed off to college in Iowa City.
Shay: I am grateful for the college season because I think that was when I really started to learn about God as my Savior. I had known that I had a need for God because I was anxious, and because I wasn’t bold. But I didn’t really see myself as a sinner. It’s hard to see the Gospel as beautiful if you don’t truly understand that you are a sinner in need of grace. During college, God used the book of Romans a lot in my life. A sweet friend was willing to call out some of the pride she saw in my life, and it changed me. I thought I was better than everyone else because of how I had grown up and because I had knowledge of the Bible. Pride was a hard sin to uproot, because trying to fix pride yourself just leads to more self-focus.
She studied Romans 7, where Paul cried out, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” As she wrestled with her sin, Shay began to see the wonder of Jesus’ love and sacrifice. Jesus, her perfect Savior, had rescued her from the body of death and sin she couldn’t escape on her own.
Around that time, Shay met Zach, a fellow student who had his own story of grace.
Zach’s upbringing was different from Shay’s. While he didn’t regularly attend church, his childhood was peppered with odd church encounters: churches that taught heresy, or presented bizarre Sunday School lessons. Those encounters didn’t amount to an understanding of the Gospel.
Zach: Growing up, I was pretty apathetic to everything except myself, I suppose. I grew up feeling like I needed to earn people’s approval and make them think I was cool. I learned to shape my identity from what I achieved and that bled into every area of my life. I always thought I had to bring something to the table to be worthy of acceptance. When I was a freshman, I had a good friend who was on the swim team, and I decided to go out for swimming with him.
The swim team practiced twice a day, logging many miles in the pool. As a young teen, Zach knew little about hydration, sleep, or refueling his body after those intense workouts. He became dangerously ill with rhabdomyolysis. He ended up in the hospital in acute renal failure, his urine pitch black and his energy depleted. After seven days in the hospital receiving IV therapy through a PICC line, Zach returned to “normal” life - even finishing his swim season. But the intense experience changed Zach.
Zach: It was a wake-up call in a lot of ways. It stirred my imagination a little in that I realized that if I had died, it would have been sad, but it wouldn’t really have mattered. I hadn’t done anything to contribute to the human experience. So, it sent me on a spiritual journey, a quest to figure out how to make my life count. One of my teammates (a senior) was a pretty ardent Buddhist. He took me under his wing, and taught me how to do meditations and mantras and other Buddhist practices. As I was experimenting with those practices, I was also invited to attend a Christian youth group. Since I was just in the phase of spiritual experimentation, I decided to check out Christianity, too.
Zach attended the youth group for a few months before he had a realization that the students who were proclaiming Christ had something he didn’t. Their lives had a meaning and purpose he didn’t quite grasp. Eventually, he decided that the only way to make his life really matter was to follow Christ. He had heard the Gospel and was beginning to make sense of how Christianity was set-apart from other spiritual pathways. While Zach could comprehend the way his personal sin created a chasm between him and God, it was a challenge for him to accept the magnificent truth that he himself couldn’t bridge that divide.
Zach: I still wanted to earn my way to God by doing things to make myself worthy of His love. But as I learned more about the Gospel, I realized that there wasn’t anything I could do. I just had to accept what Jesus had already done. So I gave my life to Jesus my sophomore year of high school.
One of the first verses Zach memorized as a new believer was Ephesians 2:10, which says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” That verse penetrated Zach’s heart. He began to see that God just loved him; he didn’t have to prove himself or earn God’s approval. He could stop hanging his identity on the frail peg of his human works and live out of the abundance of God’s love. It wasn’t always easy to choose faithfulness over performance - to love God’s glory more than his own reputation.
Zach: Going into college, that continued to be a struggle for me. I had to confront this sin of wanting to be impressive. I grew a lot as I saw other Christians who were content to just be with Jesus and to trust Him. Galatians 3:3 says, “Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” That was meaningful to me as I surrendered my works to Jesus.
While Zach and Shay were both growing spiritually in significant ways, the Lord brought them together in ministry. They shared life and the Gospel with international students on their large campus, and became friends as they served together. After finally agreeing to a date, Shay quickly decided she didn’t want to pursue romance with Zach - until the Lord changed her mind. This time, she was the one who did the asking.
Shay: I’m really grateful for what the Lord had done in my heart. I think if I hadn’t known the comfort of God as Father and the sovereignty of God as my Lord, I don’t think I would have dated Zach. I was anxious and eventually it came down to God telling me, “I’m going to take care of you and this is going to be good. Trust me.”
They were married days before Zach’s college graduation in 2019 and began life together. Shay taught elementary school, and Zach worked full-time at their local church. They opened their home to students and saw the Lord continue to work in the ripe mission field of international students, despite COVID setbacks and changes. Eventually, Zach stepped away from vocational ministry while they continued to be involved in music, small groups, and Sunday School.
Zach: We were really blessed in that we actually got poured into more than we poured out. People older than us were willing to spend time with us and just talk about what faithfulness in marriage and parenting looks like.
Shay: We had our first baby, Esther, and I was working, and we didn’t have a lot of time to pour into our church community. But people poured into us. We were discipled by an older couple and it was so helpful to us. One of the things I struggled with during that time was wanting marriage and parenting to be fair, and feeling frustrated because I felt like I was doing more work and I wasn’t appreciated. I was reminded that, from a Biblical perspective, marriage is about loving your spouse and being fulfilled by the Lord. It isn’t about keeping score or being fair.
Zach: I had a lot to learn, too. The man who discipled me was really good about asking, “How are you serving your wife? Are you loving Shay well - in a way she feels loved and appreciated?”
As their family has grown (adding Thomas and, recently, little Mabel) Zach and Shay have learned to communicate more clearly and lovingly with one another. They have learned that both the mountaintop experiences and the Monday mundane can lead to sanctification and growth if their hearts are open to the Lord. When doors opened for them to move to Cody and manage a family ranch, they felt ready to embrace the adventure of Western life.
Whe they began to attend Outpost, they discovered a church body that was messy, and raw, and imperfect, but striving to follow Christ. They dove into community, found places to serve, and have continued to pursue faithfulness over fruitfulness - or, rather, faithfulness that will lead to fruitfulness only because the Lord is at work. They look forward to continuing to grow in godliness and contentment as a family, and to reaching out and discipling others the way they have been discipled.
“Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.” 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24