Meet Kathryn Rice – Longmont Times-Call

“I’m a bit of a wanderer,” Kathryn Rice admits in a soothing tone and a piercingly direct gaze. We sat down shortly after coffee hour at St. Luke’s Orthodox Christian Church in Erie.

After masterfully capturing the silence between time and space, she added, “But not all who wander are lost.” There’s nothing wrong with wandering, I reminded us both. It’s a lot like daydreaming. Engaging in both is human, as long as the goal is to get a taste of broader, deeper reflection and self-discovery.

Rice is a paragon of serenity. Transformative, not businesslike. A conversation with her is like resting in the sanctuary of the church, hungry to shake off the toxicity of a divided world and refresh one’s spirituality. What I like about Rice is her straightforward style. She doesn’t come with an agenda, a well-crafted, well-rehearsed script. She’s an antidote to the bigots who set up shop outside King Soopers. I tend to avoid her.

Full of energy and guided by a holy light, Rice packs a lot into her life. The 35-year-old Louisville native started a cleaning business that gave her a steady clientele. “Another unusual thing in my life is that I’ve never had to advertise. God gave them (the clients) to me,” she said.

As the company flourished, Rice recalls, her life path changed. “God put it on my heart to go to a ministry school in South Africa,” she said. “I had so many clients.” Although the deadline for applications had already passed, she took the plunge and submitted the application anyway. And it worked. “Suddenly I was on a plane to South Africa!”

The school Rice was involved with, tucked away in the Langeberg Mountains, was sponsored by Iris Global Ministry. The Christian nonprofit exists to support “the underserved, the needy, the lost, the broken and the forgotten,” according to its website. The group operates 70 locations in 37 countries. The school Rice was assigned to is one of 27 mission agencies on a continent of 1.5 billion people. The mission school had a unique approach, Rice said, in that the curriculum encouraged students to “express what was on (their) hearts. It was all pretty simple, but some of it was pretty rich. Each student took turns sharing their testimony.” At the same time, the students also became teachers. “We taught everyone, no matter how young or immature we were.”

While in South Africa, Rice lived in a vineyard, mostly during school holidays. The owner, she said, “had a shop on the highway nearby and people would stop” and buy sparkling wine. Rice thrived in the temperate climate, where temperatures ranged from 15 to 21 degrees. Through contact with new people, she said, she learned the Afrikaans language, adopted by 17th-century Dutch colonists. “I understand it better than I speak it,” she added.

In addition to her work in the vineyards, Rice also worked in the “Field of Dreams.” The grassland, she recalls, was covered with “every flag of all 193 countries in the world. They were arranged according to their geographic location in the world.” Under Rice’s watchful eye, each flag was painstakingly hand-painted on wooden pallets.

“It was as if the field was a map of the entire world,” and the flags served as signposts to Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for all people. “His body is globally constructed and joined together in the Holy Spirit,” she claimed.

Rice fell in love with South Africa, more than 9,000 miles from Denver. “It’s a mix of first and third world. It’s called ‘The Rainbow Nation.'” Although she had access to a laptop, she had to drive into the city to check email. “You felt largely disconnected back then.”

As she looked at her life holistically, Rice became thoughtful and convinced that the trials that are placed upon everyone are for a reason. Before her time in South Africa, she was active in an evangelical church near Longmont. Without going into detail, she said her time there was stressful. The experience, she noted, was a shining example of how God’s mysterious plan was unfolding in her life. “The bottom line is that God was drawing me more and more into his spell.”

Since returning from South Africa, Rice has found work as a home health aide.

“I work in the traumatic brain injury unit,” she noted. “I help people learn basic life skills.” Although she is too close to see much progress on a daily basis, the real test comes when she evaluates progress from year to year. When appropriate, she talks to her clients about God, even if it’s just a sentence or two. She knows that helping adults regain their strength to reenter society is another level of her pastoral care.

During our 90 minutes together, Rice summed up the matter with a statement as smooth and delicate as the new pavement being laid on the streets of Longmont: “I want to be back on the mission field,” her face beaming, “in partnership with my husband.”

The right one is not yet in sight, but when I met Kathryn Rice, with her exuberant self-confidence and strong personality, I was convinced that this dream would also come true.

With a name like “Rice” as the answer to her question, the clairvoyant in me can imagine the heavenly tolling of wedding bells. And all at God’s choice and secret time.