Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!!!

My parents have a long history together. It started in 1st grade. Okay, so they don’t remember each other from then, but here it is in black and white--solid proof! Mom is the one in-between the teacher and the sign-holder and Dad is the dark-haired one behind her on the left.

Dad’s family left for the mission field the next year, but throughout his life as the family returned in the summer for furloughs, Dad and Mom had mutual friends.

Their first date was when they were twelve and thirteen or so. A Christian camp they were at had a banquet and then a fireside party. Dad was too shy to ask her to the banquet, but at the banquet he asked her to the fireside (after all, her date hadn’t specifically asked her to the fireside, had he?). The next day word had it that her original date would be waiting around a corner somewhere for Dad…

After a year of Bible seminary, Dad began his own painting business, and after Mom returned from Bible college, they began dating and Mom even worked for Dad. A few years later Dad asked her to marry him and she said yes (as if you didn’t figure that one out, lol). Dad’s parents happened to be in town on furlough at the time. They were headed back to Central America in one month, and they told Dad and Mom that they would be unable to come back for a wedding, so perhaps they should consider having the ceremony right away.

At first Mom decided there was no way she could plan a wedding in four weeks. Two weeks went by and she realized that it was more important to have Dad’s parents at the wedding then to have the perfect wedding. Their wedding was planned in two weeks! So the mother of the bride was wearing pink and the mother of the groom was wearing a clashing red? Who cares, it was a beautiful wedding! :-D

But even more beautiful are the years that have followed that. Thirty-three years of marriage, twenty-nine years of parenting, twenty-five years of home schooling, five years of grandparenting… What a privilege to have parents so dedicated to each other, to their family, and most of all, to their God.

Thank you Mom and Dad.