For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.
Ephesians 5:31-32
Along with all the day-to-day things happening in life and ministry, September brought our 9th wedding anniversary. We are thankful to have shared so much of our life together, and we don’t take for granted the peace God has helped establish in our home. To celebrate, we prepared a candlelight dinner for our family and shared the story of our relationship with our kids.
Both of us were raised in Christian, homeschooling families, and were deeply touched by the stories of missionaries and martyrs that our parents read to us as children. We both felt the Lord calling us to be missionaries at young ages. When we met as teenagers we were fast friends and after a few years we started intentionally dating. Since we were already close friends, it seemed only natural that things would “work out” between us; but as we prayed about the future, sought the Lord, and had direct conversations about our callings as individuals, any doubt that this could be a mistake disappeared. Our callings aligned, our yoke was equal, and each of us had heard from the Lord that this was His will. And here, after 13 years of friendship, 9 years of marriage, and even 5 children, we are still in the hands of our Lord.
All we can do is praise Him for His leading in our lives, and His love that has covered a multitude of youthful blunders. We live with daily conviction of God’s calling on our roles: to be a loving and caring leader as husband and father, to be honoring and trustworthy as wife and mother. When we look back at “our story”, we see that it is only a small part of God’s huge story for the world and for His glory. But even the smallest parts of God’s story are beautiful and worth praising Him for.
Praise God for
- Our 9 years of peaceful marriage.
- Our 5 children.
- Noelle’s mother, 3 nieces and a friend arriving safely to visit us.
- The great progress in the Discipleship school, both in the students and in the new site construction.
Please pray
- For the health and well-being of our visitors while they are with us.
- For our visitors to be a light and a blessing in our community.
- For the salvation and healing of our neighbor who was beaten to near death for stealing.
- For the finishing touches on the new school site to be completed for the Grand Opening ceremony in two weeks.
