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Summary provided by: Sister Mozz
Young Ladies Christian Fellowship (YLCF.org, renamed in 2013 to Kindred Grace) was a website started in 1998 by Gretchen Glaser. Originally an off-shoot of a print newsletter, it eventually moved completely online and became one of the first and most well-known sites dedicated to Christian young ladies. It focused on the innocence and purity of girlhood and was the home of what they titled THE Index of Courtship Stories (http://web.archive.org/web/200607102122 ... p-stories/).
Early in the 2000's, Gretchen's YLCF Team Members grew to include her best friend Natalie Nyquist. The girls addressed each other as "sissy" and pictures of their occasional in-person meetings were highlighted all over the site. Natalie wrote and published "Quest for the High Places: Encouragement for the Waiting Heart" (http://web.archive.org/web/200607102122 ... tthoughts/) in 2005.
Gretchen was married in 2006 to Merritt Acheson, and their wedding was The Event for YLCF that year (http://web.archive.org/web/201205220316 ... n-wedding/)! Gretchen handed over the reigns of YLCF to Natalie, and she began her own blog (The Little Pink House gretchenlouise.com/little-pink-house/, now GretchenLouise.com). At the time of this writing Gretchen has three children and writes on glorious topics such as laundry, rhapsodizing on the joys of wife- and motherhood, while dropping hints that life may not be quite as glorious as she paints it to be.
The Event for YLCF in 2007 was Natalie's marriage to Rick Klein (http://web.archive.org/web/200712242156 ... /klein.htm). Their wedding was in October (http://web.archive.org/web/200710071258 ... .ylcf.org/). Natalie's father officiated their wedding and said that giving his only daughter in marriage was akin to "handing a Stradivarius to a gorilla". Rick seems to have been more of a gorilla than ever imagined, as the couple were separated by January and divorced a few months later.
Natalie spiraled after the divorce. Gretchen took back over at YLCF, commenting on the failure of Natalie's marriage by saying she believed that one day Natalie would find someone else, and she looked forward to dancing at their wedding. Natalie almost completely dropped offline, dealing with depression from the shattering of her much-dreamed-of marriage, and it has been hinted that she dealt with a mental illness even beyond depression during this time.
In late 2008 or early 2009, Natalie met James Ference (jamesferenceisaliar.blogspot.com/) at their church. After romancing her in whirlwind fashion, and not bothering to tell her he was still married to Wife #3, they made vows to each other and were "married" in April 2009, without telling any of Natalie's family or abundance of friends. Once his divorce was final from Wife #3 that summer, James and Natalie procured their marriage license in July.
Almost without explanation, in April 2009 most of Natalie's writings for YLCF had been scrubbed off the site. In May Natalie posted a statement in response (a link to which can be seen in the comments of this post: everlypleasant.com/2009/05/24/lost-or-just-misplaced/). Questioners have wondered how much about James Ference Gretchen knew to have pulled the plug so quickly, or if their scrubbing of Natalie had to do with the fact that Natalie married James without a courtship and without permission or even knowledge of her family. All ties between Gretchen and Natalie seem to have been severed at the time of Natalie's second marriage.
Natalie and James started their own blog at pursuethebeauty.com, which Natalie still maintains. FreeJinger caught wind that things were fishy with their marriage as early as April 2010 (http://freejinger.yuku.com/topic/1589/L ... yle?page=1). Natalie turned a blind eye to anyone who contacted her about what was being posted online about James. The couple welcomed a son in December 2010. In January 2011 Natalie finally had enough suspicions to check out what people were saying, and confronted James about what she read online. They separated that month and divorced later that year through publication, as scumbag James was nowhere to be located.
Natalie came to FreeJinger to answer questions in this long thread: http://freejinger.yuku.com/reply/137292 ... ip-stories. She now occasionally posts on the raptured FJ as well.
After leaving James, Natalie moved to Chicago with her infant son to be near her parents. Her father is currently president of Moody Bible Institute (moody.edu/edu_MainPage.aspx?id=956). She has since converted to Orthodoxy, is taking classes to begin a career, and has taken a pen name under which she plans to eventually publish books.
Other YLCF Team Members back in the Natalie years were Ashleigh Baker (ashleighbaker.net/), who has since had her own world shaken and is unsure about her faith. In one of the FreeJinger threads Ashleigh makes an unwise appearance, accusing Natalie's mental illnesses of skewing her view. Also Lanier Ivester (laniersbooks.com/), Natalie's former "mentor," a childless wife who runs a small farm in her suburban Georgia home. Lanier's writing is wordy but nearly unreadable with its vagueness.
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Update 5/30/2014:
Since Feb. 2013 there have been some significant updates in Natalie's life:
Natalie has left the Orthodox church (http://www.prodigalmagazine.com/i-dont-like-church/). The type of church she currently attends, if she attends anywhere, is unknown.
In April 2013 Natalie revealed that she suffers from both retrograde and anterograde amnesia (http://pursuethebeauty.com/2013/04/21/amnesia-life/).
She graduated with a degree from the University of Chicago and now works as a proofreader for Moody Publishers. Her father is still president of Moody Bible Institute.
While one can no longer find any traces online of the pen name (Natalie Jacobs) she had chosen under which to pursue writing, except for archived snark discussions about it, Natalie is currently active in the process or writing and pitching her book to publishers under her real name. Presumably the book will be titled "Pursue the Beauty," the same as her website, and will focus on young Christian women overcoming life difficulties.
In April 2014 Natalie was published in HuffPo in an article called What It's Like To Be A Twice-Divorced Mom at 28 (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/3 ... ir=Divorce). Free Jinger readers felt the article was inherently dishonest because it failed to mention how courtship and the purity culture played a major part in both of her marriages (viewtopic.php?f=8&t=21723&hilit=natalie).
Natalie keeps very quiet on the subject of her son (3.5 years old as of this update) and does not publish pictures of him online, which is probably smart considering who is father is.
Speaking of James Ference, he appears to still be living with Wife #5, whom he "married" in a fake ceremony on Oct. 31, 2011 (http://jamesferenceisaliar.blogspot.com ... hhhhh.html), and then legally married in June 2013 (http://jamesferenceisaliar.blogspot.com ... up-we.html). The two seem to have had a son around the same time as their legal marriage (viewtopic.php?f=134&t=19607).
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Posts
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Ozlsn 60,511
10 hours ago, NoneIsEnough said:Not only has God cleared all the obstacles for us to come to Zambia, He has also provided us a place to live a year before we arrive permanently!
They're paying a year's rent in advance? I can totally see that if they're not they'll possibly turn up to find it's been rented.
This is so weird to me. Personally I'd be more inclined to try and rent furnished and keep stuff in storage for the first year at least.
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Smee 15,645
I’m reading this conversation from the couch where I’m watching my daughters (9 and 6) and nephew (will be 3 in a month) playing with a bunch of colourful silicon straws. After talking about which colours they each wanted, they’re now walking around holding them on the sides of their heads as “pigtails”, on the tops of their heads saying “I’m an alien”, on their mouths saying “I’m a walrus”, pretending to use them as drumsticks, and waving them in the air like streamers. When one of them wanted the green one that another one had, they offered a swap. They’re copying each other, and building on each other’s ideas. The creativity, problem solving, and social skills involved in simple pretend play are too often underestimated, but even for older kids I think they’re so important. My girls don’t realise as they’re giggling with their cousins that they are practicing skills that will serve them long into the future, but so much comes from the capacity to ask “what if?”
Anyway. Play is absolutely essential work in child development, and kids have so many years of sitting at a desk ahead of them, no need to rush that. Also fwiw my 6yr old literally would not have opened her mouth to answer one of those questions when she was 2.5, and if she had, she would have “failed” that test too. She certainly couldn’t write all her letters and didn’t do any formal extra curricular activities at that age. Then we had 2 years of pandemic interrupting preschool before she started school in 2022. She settled in just fine and is now thriving there both academically and socially.
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Dandruff 81,672
12 minutes ago, fraurosena said:The thought of him actually getting his comeuppance and paying for his crimes makes me chortle with anticipation. So bring on the indictment cakes! I’m getting hungry.
I'll believe the comeuppance when I see it, though efforts are clearly being made. I'm wondering, and kind of hoping, that the documents case takes center stage soon since (IMO) it holds much more potential jeopardy for him than the payoff case.
He's amping up the aggressive rhetoric and his base doesn't appear to be biting. He has nothing else that I know of that might entice them. On Jan. 6th the mob may have believed that he had the votes to be President but that has been debunked enough that even they should get it. If some of them were willing and able to muster up something awful again there's no guarantee he'd become the R nominee or go on to win the election but a decent chance they'd end up in prison - it has happened before. So why bother?
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Idlewild 79,108
4 hours ago, PraiseRufus said:Log time lurker. I don’t know why, but Austin letting Joy use a hair remover on him as an ad on Insta is cracking me up. So far from what I would have imagined years ago.
It’s weird isn’t it? So self righteous about their modesty standards, but there’s money to be made so let’s shave our legs and video it for Instagram! Joy shaving her own legs is a long way from Michelle having her knees blurred out on TV.
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fraurosena 99,805
The Jan 6 mob was the just about the entirety of people willing to fight for him— and they lost. That crowd consisted of organized (white supremacist) groups like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Three Percenters. Most of their leaders have been charged and sentenced, so there is nobody left to organize anyone who is left that would consider attacking for Trump again.
There is no one else who is going to physically stand up for him, except a lone idiot here and there. That part of his base that is willing to do more than vote and feel aggrieved for him, may turn up to protest. And if you look at the size of the crowd who actually turned up in Manhattan last Tuesday, the day he was supposed to be arrested, it was rather pitiful.
No, Trump is slowly finding out that for all intents and purposes he’s on his own. Big donors are leaving him. His attorneys and conies are testifying against him. It looks like Ivanka and Jared will have to. And as soon as his MAGAt helpers in Congress realize the jig is up, they’ll start abandoning him as well. Only those with direct ties to Trump’s crimes will sputter and shout until they get away with what they’ve done or they too are charged for their part in knowingly and willingly aiding and abetting the crimes of Trump.
The thought of Trump all on his own, realizing that what he feared all along is true and that nobody really likes him, makes me smile sardonically. The thought of him actually getting his comeuppance and paying for his crimes makes me chortle with anticipation. So bring on the indictment cakes! I’m getting hungry.
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