Robin & Dave’s Story

When I asked Robin how she met her husband, Dave, she laughed and said, “That’s a whole podcast on its own.” Decades ago, Robin and Dave had belonged to the same Tucson health club, but their connection was strictly friendship. Eventually, Dave moved to Minnesota and that, it seemed, was that. 

Over a decade later, Robin got a call. Dave was in Tucson on business and didn’t know anybody left in town. Would she like to get dinner? 

For Robin, that first dinner wasn’t the spark. She and Dave continued to spend time together as friends while, off and on, she dated other people. Until Dave caught her off guard. One day, Dave summoned the courage to tell her: “I think you and I should date.” Robin wasn’t convinced. But as the weeks passed, she had a lingering feeling: maybe he’s right. Maybe we’re perfect for each other. Turns out, they were. They married in 2008. 

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According to Robin, Dave is someone who’s “continually searching. He’s one of those people who’s always looking to evolve.” He’s the kind of guy who loves puzzles and is intent on learning. Robin laughed again, adding, “I mean, thank goodness I’m over the fact that I can’t keep up with him. He’s growing, evolving, becoming a different person.” No matter the pace at which they grow, they continue to grow in the same direction, orienting toward a shared future. “Grow,” she says to him, “as long as you love me and we’re together.” 

But it’s Dave’s spiritual growth, Robin thinks, where she has laid the foundation. 

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Robin was raised in rural Texas in the 1960s and 70s in Sunday school and Vacation Bible School by a very devout Baptist mother. “I felt loved,” she said, and had a “strong sense of community.” But “very early,” she remembers asking questions. She was taught that Christianity is not just the only true religion, but that Baptists are the only people who are really Christians. Her best friend Connie went to the Lutheran church and she couldn’t fathom that Connie wouldn’t go to Heaven, too. As she got older, Robin started to wonder if there was a “right” path to truth—and was she on it? Her mom, though a devoted Baptist, planted in Robin a life-changing seed: comfort with uncertainty. Her mom would tell her she didn’t think Connie would be excluded from Heaven, but she didn’t know, and it was okay not to know. Robin would carry that understanding with her. 

*

By the time Robin was in her thirties, a friend invited her to a Methodist church in Tucson, where she was living. It was eye-opening. The congregation’s leader began saying things that, according to her Baptist upbringing, were “way off.” He would say, “Everyone is welcome here. Whatever color you are, whatever orientation, you are all welcome.” Robin says it “blew [her] mind.” She started realizing that she could be spiritual and be part of a spiritual organization without feeling like people were excluded. It was the first time she realized a spiritual community like that existed. 

But her deepest revelations came halfway across the globe. In 2008, the year she and Dave married, they moved to a suburb of Taipei, in Taiwan, for Dave’s job. 2008 was a year of political upheaval in the United States, and of personal loss and shake-ups for Robin. Her mother, who had been very sick, passed away. Then, on the brink of their 7,000-mile move, Robin left her beloved job of over twenty years. 

Eventually, they settled in an expat community just outside Taipei, where they didn’t speak the language. Gratefully, many people there spoke English. “It was a big city,” she said. “In some ways, it moved faster. But in some ways, it was slower.” As much as Dave is keen to grow, Robin said, he was cautious about diving into this new life. But Robin was eager for adventure.

In Taipei, she met a woman who would become a dear friend. This friend and her husband had started an orphanage in Taipei. “They are wonderful, wonderful people,” Robin said. As their friendship deepened, they arranged a trip with two other girlfriends to India, where the friend is from. “She took us to India and really showed us in depth what the country is like.” It opened Robin. “I realized,” she said, “that my friend was nowhere close to ever having known what Christianity is. But if there’s a heaven, she’s going to it.” 

This was an awakening. “It’s like my spirituality softened,” Robin said, “or expanded.” She realized a loving spiritual community didn’t merely accept people into their group; it accepted everyone, period. “That was big for me,” she said, “that not only do I have to accept people into my spirituality, but I have to accept people in whatever their spirituality is.” 

*

In 2012, Robin returned to Tucson a few months before Dave. She wanted to find a home for her softened spirituality. She went to two or three churches when her friends, Tibor and Denise, suggested she try “some place called Aldea.” 

Upon his return, her plan was to bring Dave to each spiritual community and see how he felt. But, in her heart, she knew she wanted him to choose Aldea. When he visited Aldea with her for the first time, he said, “You don’t have to take me anywhere else. This is it.”

*

When Robin and Dave first joined Aldea, the community was hardly more than a dozen people who met on Sundays in a “rundown building on Fort Lowell.” For the next eight years, Aldea grew, eventually outgrowing their rundown building and moving to two services. Just before the pandemic would dramatically alter church life around the world, Kevin, Aldea’s beloved pastor, stepped down. He had been leading Aldea while working full-time and traveling. It was a marvel, Robin insisted, that he lasted that long. When COVID-19 swept Tucson and the globe, Aldea moved online, then dwindled to nearly nothing. It seemed like the dream of this beacon of interfaith community would be lost. 

But the dream was not dead. Throughout the lockdown, it hibernated in the hearts of many community members. Eventually, a few of them would take action to resurrect it, calling for Aldea’s members to meet in the parking lot—socially distanced—and voice what they wanted. Robin wasn’t there, but the lore goes that one after one, each person there made it clear: “We want Aldea back.” 

Guided by a handful of dedicated volunteers, the search was on for Aldea’s next pastor. “I am amazed,” Robin said, “that they found Jake. He’s what? 31? It’s just awe-inspiring. I mean, how can you not believe in some kind of spirituality that he would end up here? There’s something going on in this universe.” 

*

“Today,” Robin said, “Aldea is a beautiful place with beautiful people who truly, truly accept everyone who comes in the doors with open arms and no judgment.” She has noticed the ways Aldea has stirred and shifted her personally. “It has helped me be better for the world, better for my husband, better for my friends. It helps each of us think about what’s going on in our hearts, our souls, our lives.”

But the best part is the way she has shared this journey with Dave. Growing up, she went to church and, when she walked out the door, that was it. They got lunch, went home. But, at Aldea, she says, “It’s the first time I’ve ever left a service and we talk about the message.” Every Sunday as they drive home, Robin and Dave turn to each other: “What did you think?” Sometimes, he hears something in the message she didn’t and vice versa and they learn by listening to each other. 

In a marriage, it is not easy to grow simultaneously. But through Aldea, Robin and Dave continue to grow alongside each other, orienting toward love.