Christen (Pine ’07) Routh has been tithing since childhood when her parents directed her to set aside 50 cents of her $5 allowance.
It’s a practice her husband, Jim MA ’03, happily adopted when he and Christen married in 2011, and today, five children later, the Rouths continue to give to Franciscan University and other aposto – lates in a way they have seen return to them.
“In our experience, it’s amazing to see what God does when you give,” Christen says.
Jim, director of Counseling at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia and a part-time police officer in Yardley Borough, Pennsylvania, compares it to the parable of the loaves and fish.
“If you just give what you have and let it be blessed by God, it comes back to you in droves. We don’t give to get, but when we give from the heart, it always comes back to us,” he explains.
For example, when Christen took a significant pay cut to slow down her accounting career so she could reduce her travel and have more time at home with the children, the couple received several unexpected windfalls.
“We kind of put out into the deep, and Jesus just showed up,” Christen says.
First, she learned of a position with a full-time salary that would allow her to work remotely. Then, while preparing their tax return the year after they adopted twin boys from the foster-care system, the Rouths discovered they were eligible for a tax credit.
Christen, who is now an executive assistant and pre-licensed psychotherapist, says she observed similar instances of God’s provision in the lives of her parents, Barry and Regina Pine. She remembers particularly a time when her father took a large pay cut.
“But it all worked out,” she explains. “Watching them remain committed to their tithe, there was no question I was going to do that, too.”
Jim’s own parents were generous givers, but he doesn’t know that they necessarily tithed.
“It’s something I came to believe in more strongly in marrying into the Pine family,” he says.
Christen says she and Jim still marvel at how they ended up where they are now considering they didn’t have everything worked out and all their college loans paid off when they had their first child.
“On paper, I couldn’t explain it,” she says. “If I gave you my tax return and showed you my life, you’d say, ‘Really?’”
In addition to Franciscan, the Rouths give to their local parish, Christen’s brother’s Dominican order (Father Gregory Pine, OP ’10), and others. However, Franciscan remains at the top of their list as indicated by their membership in the President’s Circle for donors who give $10,000 or more annually.
“We believe in the mission of the University,” Jim says, adding that he and Christen hope to send their own children—three girls who are now 13, 11, and 8, and the twins, who are 4—to Franciscan one day. “I think the beauty of Franciscan can’t really be described,” he says. “You have to experience it. There’s something that happens on ‘the hill’ that you can’t put to words. It’s the Holy Spirit moving, God being present, and the Spirit of God being alive and well.”
Christen agrees, adding that although Franciscan prepared her well academically for her first career in accounting, she appreciates that it gives young adults a place to explore their faith and ask questions, knowing their fellow students will help them get back up and get in a right relationship with God if they fall.
“It’s the human formation that happens outside the classroom that is significant,” she says.
