Feature by Jennifer Blazis "I always wanted dreadlocks," Annika said.

Back to Table of Contents | Back to Main Index Previous Features | Send mail to The Voice Life experiences enable couple to reach pagans Annika plays the penny whistle and Dan accompanies on the bouzouki. -Daniel Stent, photo The slight tinkle of Annika Ryan's hair announced her arrival from down the hall. She carried two swirly ceramic cups of water and said, "We found them at Goodwill.' "Aren't they rad?" her husband, Dan, said. "Dude, you can find some of the coolest stuff at Goodwill!" He flipped a tangled lock over his shoulder as he shifted in his wicker chair. Dan gets giddy when he talks about the huge, black barrel that is the crowning achievement of his musical instrument collection. After all, he made it. But his creative abilities stretch beyond making musical instruments. He sews, writes and sings. For one of the couple's three wedding ceremonies, he sewed Annika a medieval-style, yellow gown and wrote a drama to go with it in which he was her prince and she his princess. But Annika has her own talents as well. As she took off her misshapen wool slippers and shoved her feet into a pair of red boots, she explained, "Yeah, I crocheted the slippers out of a bunch of scraps I found." She snickered. "I had, like, no idea what I was doing, but I just sorta figured it out." Annika said she crochets during church. "It helps me concentrate because I'm not looking all over the place, noticing what people are wearing and getting all distracted." She wrapped her crocheted scarf around her neck and flung her blond locks over her shoulder. Dan and Annika Ryan scream the word color. They both wear bright clothing and wear their hair in dreadlocks. "I always wanted dreadlocks," Annika said. "It wasn't until after I met him that I actually got them, though." She started hers in 1999, while Dan started his in 1995. "Pagans consider us one of them because of our clothes. Clothing breaks the barrier," Annika said. "We look like one of them. Fundamentally, we're different, but they don't see that at first." The Ryans have been invited to Rainbow gatherings, and Dan has befriended a man who owns a pagan shop. Dan even convinced his friend to sell Bibles in his shop. "Yeah, I walked into his shop one day, saying, 'Hey, you pagan people!' And he just said, 'Hello, my Christian friend,' and rushed me over to this shelf where he was proudly displaying these Bibles, and said, 'See?'" Their experience with pagans has put them in a unique position to reach people that most Christians never approach. They've experienced and known the mindset of these groups for their entire lives. Dan has lived on "the other side" in his "pre-chrispy," or pre-Christian, hippie days. "When I talk to pagans, after a while, my head starts to get fuzzy, and I can feel their confusion," Annika said. "You've gotta ask them some tough questions and bring them back to the real world -- make them question what they believe." "'Just love your life and love people' doesn't work with Rainbows and pagans," she said. "[With that ap-proach], they just think you fit in because that's what they're all about; they've gotta be challenged to think." The Ryans' favorite cafŽ is a regular spot for homosexuals and pagans. "It has this cool cellar with couches and stuff, and it's really comfortable," Dan said. "I sometimes go there and sit for hours and read my Bible. It's amazing the things that will happen when I read my Bible in public. Like one time, at a cafŽ in Santa Cruz, this girl just came up to me and asked if she could sit there, and she just burst into tears. "She said she had been running away from God and kept seeing me reading my Bible and it, like, convicted her. So she recommitted her life. It was totally cool." The Ryans have pasts as different as the beads in their hair. Annika grew up in Germany in a Christian home. Dan grew up in California, and didn't become a Christian until an adult. As a Christian in Germany, Annika had to battle with a different mindset. "Germans consider themselves very intellectual," she said. "In my church, I was ridiculed for believing in creation and for doing evangelism. They just thought I was trying to be super-spiritual. To be Christian was to dress a certain way and act a certain way and attend church on Sunday. Every Christian I knew wore Levi's 501 jeans and listened to Amy Grant. "Then one day, I went to a meeting by a group called Jesus Freaks. The people totally loved God, and I was like, 'That's what I want.'" At first, she tried the Goth look but discovered she was too happy for that. Then she tried to dye her hair blue and rejected that style when her hair turned pinkish-gray. Eventually she realized the hippie style fit her. "I also learned that I had freedom in Christ to be what I liked to be," she said. "The clothing was just an expression of that." Like the Jesus Freaks, she used her clothing style to shock people so they would take Christianity seriously. And they would know that Christianity wasn't about the exterior but the heart. Dan enjoyed his share of partying, drinking and drugs when he lived in California. He was a modern-day hippie; he looked the part and acted the part. "I just decided to get a Bible one day, saying to myself, 'I don't have one; might as well,'" he said. "I had always thought of myself as a Christian, you know, saying 'Oh, I love Jesus; I'm a Christian,' and [yet] continuing to get drunk all the time. "Then I read the Bible and was like, 'Whoa, I'm a sinner!' I was completely taken by surprise by who Jesus really is. I committed my life to Him and just spent like a year reading the Bible." Annika moved to Seattle, Wash., from Germany. A mutual friend gave Annika Dan's e-mail address. She e-mailed him in December of 1998. They began a close friendship and spent hours on the phone. In May of 1999, Dan met Annika. They hit it off. Three weeks later, Annika moved back to Germany, but they communicated with letters, phone calls and e-mails. Dan flew to Germany in December, 1999, to be with Annika again. He stayed for a month and asked her parents for permission to marry her. Her parents granted their permission. Dan and Annika returned to the United States together and stayed in California. Four days after they returned, they became engaged. In April of 2000, they had their first wedding in their pastor's living room; Annika wanted her married name on her passport for their wedding trip to Ireland. In June, they had their Renaissance wedding, and they married again in Germany in July. Afterward, they embarked on their honeymoon in Ireland. After they returned to the United States, they lived in California and Florida. The moves came with a price. "We had to sacrifice a lot of our possessions," Dan said. "We had to leave friends behind." Annika nodded in agreement, sipping water from her cup. "Even if God's leading you, it can be very stressful at times," she said. "Sometimes you wonder if it was really God's will. But then again, a lot of times where God wants you to go and where you want to go line up." Eventually they moved to Portland, where they lived in their van for two-and-a-half months until they were able to get a trailer and later a basement apartment. Dan played his bagpipes on the streets of downtown Portland and collected money in a music case. Annika translated letters online at the library for hours to bring in change. "God is awesome, just awesome," Dan said. "[There were times] we had no idea where we were gonna live or work. It was so impossible.... We had no idea where God was gonna lead us. He eventually led us to Multnomah." Back to Table of Contents | Back to Main Index Previous Features | Top Of Page Send mail to The Voice| Journalism department website © 2002 The Voice. 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