Last week, in Steve’s hometown of Bellville, Ohio, a crowd gathered in the center of town to join hands and pray for a young man they all know and love. That young man has cancer, and has battled with the heart of a warrior for years. The entire community is behind him, and has been giving their love to him and his family since his battle began. As an outsider, I have been truly moved by watching this young man’s journey and the support his community has provided. As part of my life with Steve, I have sat in church while the young man’s mother played the piano, I have seen my husband moved to tears at various points both high and low during the battle, and watched various fundraisers from afar as the community embraced the cause as their own. Through this example and many others like it I have gained a greater understanding of what makes small communities like Bellville special. Close knit villages like Bellville are an example to all of us about how to create a community and support those around us. Supporting each other not just in the hard times, but in life’s daily struggles with both large acts of generosity and small tokens of inclusion in a community. This support is special, and something we should try to recapture, even as we wander in this great big world.
Strangely enough, as I was considering this blog post I received a card from a woman I have met a hand-full of times in Steve’s church. She was “just writing to let us know that she was thinking about us” during the deployment…when I realized who wrote the card, and the fact that Steve moved away from that town 22 years ago, it made me think about how I and my children will never have a similar experience. It’s not all bad, in so many ways our family is blessed. We have seen more of the world than most, we understand how small the world is, and we love our third culture kids – but there is something special about a small town, especially Bellville, Ohio, that rekindles my faith in America and the communities that make this great nation strong.
When Steve first took me to Bellville, Ohio almost 15 years ago I admit I had negative stereotypes and was afraid that this small town boy would try to drag me back to his hometown someday. He seemed unnaturally attached to what I saw then as a little “backwoods” corner of America. To be clear, I wasn’t exactly a big-city girl, but I had big city dreams. I was as ignorant of his world as Steve was of military brat living. What I found in Bellville didn’t really surprise me. The town is straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. They have a gazeebo at the center of town that serves as the focal point for a street fair every fall. Fall is special in this town because everyone is wrapped up in the high school football team, just as one expects. The leaves are changing colors and life moves slow enough that you can actually appreciate when the orange and red leaves match the gorgeous sunsets. But it’s not the idealic setting that makes Bellville special, in this town everyone seemed to know everyone else. They know their back-story, how good they were at football (Steve wasn’t very good…more of a baseball player), and who their family members were. Everything about that is to be expected in a small community, but what I didn’t really notice at first was that everyone genuinely cared about each other. To an outsider, the interactions in Bellville look like the casual conversations we have in most parts of the world, but there was a deeper part I didn’t quite understand, a true love of thy neighbor. I didn’t see that deeper level in my first few trips to “The Valley”.
It took me awhile, but in the last 3 years or so I have really come to appreciate not only the country living (I have caught myself dreaming of having a goat or maybe some chickens), but really growing to respect the community. When we were raising funds to help defray our second attempt at adoption, we sold hand-made scarves from Thailand. By a large margin, the majority of our purchases came from Bellville. Steve’s neighbor, Matt (who makes incredible furniture) bought 10 of them! Matt said he likes to support causes close to his heart. It is clear that many in this small community feel the same way and are willing to go the extra mile to help each other out. Countless others bought the scarves, not because they really wanted the scarves, but because they just wanted to support a member of the community. Yep, even if you leave, you’re still family if you’re from The Valley.
In our modern era of Facebook, Instagram, friends, and “followers” I hope we can find the time to make truly deep friends they way they do in Bellville. I notice Steve uses Facebook a little different than I do. He keeps up with friends he has known since birth and is truly invested in their lives. While he rarely sees them in the midst of his globe-trotting career, he keeps up with their parents, siblings, friends, and more; he knows all of them. I contrast this with my life. I have close friends I keep up with on Facebook, but it lacks the depth of the network that comes from a small town. The importance of that network and the support that such a network provides is the biggest lesson to be learned from Bellville and other similar communities.
Part of the reason for the support is the depth of the roots. Steve is only second generation in his town, but others have families that have been there for generations. Granted, with Steve’s parents, Jan and Jerry, being educators in the community their roots spread wide. Add to the incredible number of lives touched by the two teachers the fact that Jerry’s brother has lived and worked in The Valley sporadically. The fact that these two brothers from West Virginia both ended up 3 hours away in the same small town is not a cooincidence, but because it is such a great place to live. Now, with the Marshalls on generation three in the area, they are true locals.
It’s more than being “local” though. It’s about being involved. I mentioned Jan and Jerry and their outsized ability to touch lives within the community; that is not luck or circumstance. Their effect came from getting involved and going above and beyond what their jobs called for. Jerry coached nearly every sport at the junior high and high school, Jan participated in a full schedule of church activities, and both were regular hosts of gatherings at their home. They didn’t just arrive in the community and sit quietly, they were aggressive about getting out there and not just meeting people…getting to know them. This attitude is the key to inclusion in any community, and the biggest thing we can all learn from Bellville.
For those of us who are nomads, we have no chance of growing multi-generational roots in a town like Bellville. I don’t think that is in our nature; and I’m not planning on moving back to Central Ohio anytime soon. While plans can change (remember those chickens?), Bellville is Steve’s story. He maintains that connection as an integral part of who he is, but we need our own story. Our story is more nomadic, and involves many communities. In each of those communities my goal is to really get to know people the way we know people from Bellville, and also to provide our communities the support we still get from that picturesque community in the hills of central Ohio. In fact, if you ask Steve, he will tell you that Bellville is still our community. He’ll tell you no matter how far you get from a small town like that or how long it’s been since you’ve sat in the stands at a football game, it’s still home…even if you just married into the family.
He’s right.