Contributed photo Christine Sprenger Norman of Liscomb is pictured with her violin and piano. A pastor’s wife, she spent years teaching young muscians among other things she felt called to do.

LISCOMB – Wife, mother, grandmother, violin and piano teacher, musician and yes, a minister’s wife.

To say the least, Christine Sprenger Norman of Liscomb has lived a very interesting life.

Born in Minneapolis while her parents were attending Bible college, Norman grew up in Joliet, Ill. where her parents settled and were support missionaries. After graduation she also attended Bible college in Minneapolis as she thought she wanted to follow in her parent’s footsteps.

“However seeing some of the missionary’s rough lifestyles I soon realized that I was not cut out for the kind of life — but I still wanted to serve God,” Norman said. “So I actually asked God if I could become a minister’s wife, and that could be my Christian service.”

Within her first year at college, Norman met her husband, Ralph.

“We called it Minnesota Bridal College after that,” she said, laughing.

To make things more interesting, Norman said her parents moved to Toronto. On the Normans honeymoon, the newly-married couple went to see her parents. While there, they tried out for a church and were accepted on the spot. She said they served there three and a half years.

As Ralph’s dad in Iowa was very ill, they wanted to move closer and relocated the family to Worthington, Minn., where they pastored a church. Norman took college classes and received her associates’ degree during their time in Worthington. She also helped start a preschool at the church.

They then moved to Minerva, Ohio and spent 28 years, where Ralph served as youth minister, senior minister and evangelism minister. Norman continued her education and received her bachelors and masters degrees in education. She taught preschool at the church as well as elementary in area Christian schools.

Music has always been a part of Norman’s life.

“A music store owner convinced me that he had people lined up around the block that wanted to receive violin lessons, and wanted me to become a teacher,” Norman said. “So I did — I think there was three!”

She began branching out with her teaching abilities — school, violin lessons, playing in an orchestra – even conducting it. All while being a pastor’s wife.

“I had 18-25 violin students most of the time I was in Ohio, and have always enjoyed watching those students plus those in the schools where I taught, grow,” Norman said.

Several years ago, Ralph visited his mother in Iowa and was involved in a serious car accident.

“We did not know if he was going to live, but had so many people in Iowa and Ohio praying for him that he did. He was in such fragile condition that I felt the need to protect him,” she said. “So when he got the call that Liscomb Church of Christ in Iowa needed a pastor and he said ‘I think God is calling me to my home church in Liscomb’, even though it was traumatic for me – I knew he had to do what God was telling him to do and we moved.

“I felt at first like I was being deposited on the dark side of the moon — I was leaving my violin students, our friends and the things I was involved in. But I know it was all in God’s plan,” Norman said.

After being here for six years and getting involved with so many welcoming people, teaching violin and piano students having recitals and many church activities – it is beginning to feel like home here too.”

Norman plays in a violin quarter made up of Marshalltown and Ames residents, is a member of the Tuesday Musical Club and PEO in Marshalltown, teaches Kids Club and Adult Sunday school at the church and sings in the choir – besides being Ralph’s “support staff” at the church.

“I’d always heard that being a minister’s wife was one who stands alongside him after the service to show off her new matching shoes and purse,” she said. “But I can tell you from experience, that is NOT all a pastor’s wife does.”

“I like challenges, and we have faced a few. But my prayer is that God will always get the glory in whatever it is that I am doing – every day of my life,” she said.