Written by Jennifer Lee

A small-town girl meets a room full of strangers and breaks the awkward silence.

On the first day of the 2016 Xposure workshop, Eden Jordan greeted the room with a wide smile and said, “Hi, I’m Eden! Nice to meet you!”

“I think I’m accepting and outgoing because I grew up in the church and I understand better that it’s important to be accepting,” Jordan said.

To see Christians driving people out of Christianity more than the religion itself devastates her, she said. She wants people to see that God is all about love and there should be no discriminating.

In contrast to her brighter side, she also loves writing fictional, short, horror and gore stories. From supernatural demons to psychopaths, she enjoys creating characters with her mind.

She started writing when she was given a prompt at school: “You are walking down the hall and…” Ever since, Jordan can’t put her pencil down. Her dream is to publish a book of her short stories. She wants people to enjoy the work she puts her all into.

Jordan is also an actor at her school, Lewis County High School, where she played the main role as Prudence in “Juris Prudence.” It’s fun for her to become someone.

“It’s like Halloween,” she said. “You can dress up as anything you like.”

Her dream is to be a journalist, because she likes to write and it’s a good way to speak her mind in a thorough and concise way. She wants her voice to be heard.

Jordan was born and raised in an impoverished city, Vanceburg, Kentucky. Everyone is fond of each other there, but Jordan found that it isn’t as developed as the bigger cities, especially in terms of technology. She finds things that are normal to “big-city kids” exciting.

“How do I log off of the computer?” she said on her first day at Western Kentucky’s annual journalism workshop.

Not only is Vanceburg underdeveloped, but also has some of the rates of drug and alcohol abuse in the state of Kentucky.

“It’s so sad to see the best people go through so much that they turn to substance,” Jordan said, fighting back tears. “I know they’re good. … I know they are, but they don’t know any better.”

They were just raised in a place where that’s what everyone did, she explained.

Jordan is grateful to be raised around her amazing family, despite living in a broken city. She’s been protected from the drugs and her family has helped shaped her lifestyle.

Although there’s barely any hope to grow there, Jordan has passion for her dreams and she’s going to pursue them to matter what.

She aims to live by these words to help her keep going: “Always keep your head held high and smile because there are people who would kill to see you fail” and “Be somebody who makes everybody feel like somebody.”

Jordan said she wants everyone to feel wanted and not feel less than they really are.

For the younger kids struggling, Jordan said, “There are going to be times when life is really hard and that’s OK. Everybody goes through it, but you’ve just got to soldier on.”