Narrative Summary
Interview with Annee Wagner by Chelsea Jones
On November 5th, I met with a woman named Annee Wagner. I really wanted to
interview someone who claimed themself as a Messianic Jew, so Lora helped me meet with her
to set up the interview. Annee is a 55 year old woman from Stockton, Missouri, and she had
quite an interesting story for me.
She and her husband traveled throughout the United States living in many of the states.
She spent much of her younger life as a hippie and has hitchhiked through every state except
Hawaii, has been to every province in Canada, and has been as far south as La Paz on the Baja
side of Mexico.
I began asking her questions about her religion and her beliefs, and found out that she
wasn’t raised a Messianic Jew. Her only religious influence as a child was from her grandmother
who was Jewish and introduced her to Judaism, but her grandmother passed away when Annee
was maybe 9 years old. Annee’s parents weren’t religious themselves. She has always
considered herself Jewish because of her religious roots there from her grandmother. When she
began seeking her religious roots and finding the Creator, she started with Judaism. As she was
searching, she met a woman named Jennifer who showed her towards Christianity. She hasn’t
ever claimed herself Christian, but she found a group of people who held Jewish values like the
Sabbath and food laws, a group of Messianic Jews. She said there’s a large community of
Messianic Jews in Southwest Missouri, something that she didn’t find coincidence. Interestingly,
she said that personally regarding the New Testament she agreed more with Christians than
Messianic Jews, but regarding the Old Testament, she agreed more with Messianic Jews than
Christians. When I asked her if she felt that she personally had closer ties as a Messianic Jew to
Christianity or to Judaism, she said she felt she was pretty evenly distributed, but that it was
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deliberate. She quoted that a house divided against itself can’t stand, so she believes that
everyone needs to come together and get rid of the labels. She hasn’t ever considered changing
her religion, it’s part of her and her core values and beliefs. Over time, she has progressed from
her Creator being an afterthought to now being a part of her everyday life. When I asked her
what changed in her life from her to not really focus on her religion to it now being an everyday
thing, she told me that her husband had been murdered. I was curious if she had ever questioned
her faith, and she said that once she grabbed hold of it, there was never a question. That Yahweh,
her Creator, has spent a lot of time convincing her that she has no reason to doubt Him. She said
that having a relationship with her creator saved her life.
I asked her about her experience with her religion as a woman, and she talked about how
she felt that a hierarchy was set up by Yahweh that men are the head of the house, and some
people find that oppressing. But to her, she felt like it was a blessing. She felt as if He put her in
the position of a woman in a man’s world because He knew that she could handle it. That she
was meant to stay underneath and not be prideful or arrogant. That it was a blessing because He
had that much confidence in her to be a woman, and that guys have it easy so He almost flattered
her making her a woman because she knew she could handle it.
I asked her if she had ever had a “Hug from God,” and she said that she had so I asked
about her favorite one. And she told me about a time where she was really struggling with coping
with her husband’s death, and she just cried out in the night calling for her Creator, upset about
all of the things that she had said or done wrong in the past, like that it was her fault for her
husband’s death. But one night she broke down and cried and kept apologizing for how she
treated her husband, and He just hugged her. She said she felt Him hug her and her being warm
and comfortable, the pain wasn’t as bad, she didn’t feel alone, and that there was a yellow light
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in the room. Since then, she picked up her Bible and hasn’t put it down. This led me to my next
question about her favorite story, which ended up being my favorite part of our interview. She
said that of the things she learned, she felt it was most important that she understand how death
works. That it’s not a matter of when you die, but how you die. She talked about some different
verses, saying that our days are numbered from the womb. So she feels as if maybe if her and her
husband had lived better lives, then he would have died in a hospital bed surrounded by people
who loved and cared about him, instead of being murdered by people whose only concern was
disposing the body. She reiterated that she feels it’s important that people try and live their lives
not concerned about when they will die, but how things will be when they die. About this time,
her son (and ride) walked in and he was ready to go, so I asked her if she had anything else that
she would like to share, and she said no so we finished the interview. I feel like I learned a lot
about her that day, and some interesting things on how I would view life and death. She was a
very interesting woman from Ozark, and an inspiration at that.
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