Dan McVey spent 21 years in Ghana as a cross-cultural worker and has continued 16 more years serving and teaching in the USA, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Dan’s educational background is in Biblical Studies (BA), Intercultural Studies (MA), and Islamic Studies (MA), along with full certification in ESL. Dan devotes himself to sharing the message of beloved community wherever the winds of God take him.

A week before we spoke over the phone, I provided a list of questions he should consider answering or discussing. Questions about personal identity, questions about spiritual development, and where the two ideas overlap. He chose to begin addressing family tradition and cultural background’s impact on him:

Dan: 

“Family tradition is primarily from my father’s side and it’s interesting because, throughout my childhood, from my own observation, I would have said my mother and my mother’s family might have more influence on me – in terms of spiritual development and spiritual understanding, but really, as I’ve grown older and analyzed it, it’s probably more my father’s side of the family. He sort of laid the genetic code if you will. Both families lived in a little remote valley in the mountains of southwestern Virginia. It’s interesting that my great grandfather on my dad’s side and my great grandfather on my mom’s side were close friends. What was significant about that, it was the late 19th century, early 20th century, and the history that goes with their lives such as lumbering work and the literal cutting out existence out of the sides of these mountains, and the fact that these two great grandfathers teamed up and started the church in the community, you know this wilderness valley, where there would have been no church before, and this started somewhere in the late 1800s.”

Me:

“Do you know where your family is originally from?”

Dan: 

“Yeah on the two different family sides, we can trace all the way back to England, some mixture of German lines, and Scotland lines as well.”

He continued to explain the central part that religion played within his historical family.

“They were not satisfied with any of the other churches that were in those valleys, but there weren’t many, organized denominations in those mountain communities. But they wanted this church to be very independent. They didn’t want to be beholding to the denominational structures. Eventually it became a Baptist church, and actually the church still exists and is affiliated with the missionary Baptists. It’s just interesting, the whole idea of these pioneering families and how religion became a very central part of both of the families, however not all of the descendants were very religious.”

Then Dan began to explore the lineage of spiritual development, and how he found himself being singled out amongst the rest of his siblings and cousins.

Dan: 

“Through my dad’s mother there was this very strong religious element in her life and amongst her grandchildren. I guess, now that I look back at it, I’m the one who sort of took up that mantle, the family spiritual legacy. She saw that in me when I was a small child, and she would take me aside and talk to me about the bible and things. Now, she was a Baptist by this time, and the church had become Baptist, even my parents were members of the Church of Christ, and that had come through my mother’s family. So dad converted to the church of Christ so he could marry my mother, and I mean it’s just that plain and simple.”

Me:

“We have that in common. My dad was raised Baptist, and he converted to the Church of Christ when he married my mom. We were raised Church of Christ and my mom’s side of the family all attended the same congregation.”

Dan spent a few minutes remembering how unique his relationship was to his grandmother, Marie, and his last visit to Virginia.

Dan: 

“It’s interesting within the family, me having been a minister for some years and then a missionary for a long time, the family still looks to me for religious concerns. Even extended family members will say, “Oh you’re Marie’s grandson, we all know you,” when I go visit her church – this has been twenty years ago since my grandmother has passed away – and the people at the church welcome me and talked about my grandmother as if she had just died the previous week. So it’s just been an amazing thing as I reflect on it, I realize the combination of genetics, the combination of opportunity and relationship, and the converging lines of what it means to be human. You know we’re part of this much bigger thing, these much bigger threads of history and family and things that we think we choose sometimes, rather choose us.”

Me:

“That kind of paints an interesting picture for identity, how family and land and choices and lineage comes about.”

Dan: 

“Everybody has their story, individually, and then when we come together in partnerships, whether it be marriage or other types of partnership as human beings, and we begin new stories. Our stories branch out and they get new branches, literally just like trees. I really think of family in a much broader sense than just the genetic heritage – not just the actual family line – but family as something we are born into, but we can also literally create out of nothing. We can create family by coming together with people we love, people we’re connected to. In this sense, I think my understanding of family has really broadened. At the same time, I am trying to appreciate the rootedness of family, you know, in terms of the legacy and heritages that we receive (when we’re able to be aware of those things). I’ve been led to a much deeper appreciation of family, chosen and not chosen.”

Me:

“That brings to mind a few things. A shared story can really help people explain to themselves who they are or where they come from. That identity can also give someone a sense of resiliency. It also can be encouraging for people who have to build their own story, those who maybe don’t feel like they have a shared story that was passed down to them.”

It’s amazing how important particular family stories feel to people like Dan, people who have a sense of a shared family story. He shared stories with deep American ties to Revolutionary war generals, descendants who were friends with George Washington, being distant cousins to Patrick Henry, and being related to one of the first Puritans who traveled to the Americas on the Mayflower.

As we concluded our interview, Dan spoke about conflicts that arose in his family when he started to question things about his faith. He began preaching when he was 13 years of age, he would champion bible curriculum in his Bible Bowl program, and he began realizing, in regards to scripture, some things didn’t make sense to him. That sort of inquisitive, questioning perspective put him at odds with one of his uncles once his mom passed away, something to the tune of “Your mom would be rolling in her grave if she knew the way you were thinking.” Of course, Dan’s mom always knew who he was, and she never worried one bit about his thinking.

Family comes in many shapes and sizes. It comes with stories both whole and incomplete. We all become who we are through a series of personal decisions, and decisions made long before we arrive. And to Dan, the factors that influenced his development of personal identity, continue to broaden and shape who he is everyday.