See, the Invisible God

Receiving Father’s Day greetings from Cherith and the missions team in Turks/Caicos early this morning via their website.

Having Malachi back home for Father’s Day after his trip to Ohio for a music festival.

A special Father’s Day message from Pastor Wayde.

Powerful time with a prayer partner after the service–”with God all things are possible!”

Malachi treated us to dinner at Damon’s.

A nice afternoon together playing scrabble, eating watermelon…

Talking to Bill’s Dad on the phone.

Spending the day with the man of my prayers. “My beloved is mine and I am his.” Song of Solomon 2:16

When he was 14, our son wanted to tour with the Young Continentals. The trip would cost about $4,000. We were able to provide the deposit, so he prayed and wrote letters asking people to help him raise the rest of the support he would need.

As the starting date of the trip approached, he had raised about half of the money he needed. We were really touched by the number of people who contributed donations. Many of the people who donated $25, $30, or $50, were not our closest friends, but still they gave, and we are grateful for their generosity.

Malachi’s grandpa and a sweet aunt donated the rest of the money. We were really happy to be able to watch a couple of the evangelistic concerts that were held near our town. And it meant a lot to us to see how much Malachi had learned and grown through this trip.

The following summer, he prepared to go on another missions trip, this time to Bolivia, with his youth group. This trip was about half of the cost of the YC tour, and Malachi again raised about half of the money through missions dinners, a car wash, and writing letters requesting support. Again, his grandpa and aunt helped him cover the rest of the cost. Our entire family’s hearts became endeared to this country through the trip.

This summer it’s Cherith’s turn to embark on a missions trip with her youth group. The cost is about $1,300. Like Malachi, she has worked at missions dinners where the students serve dinner to members of the congregation who provide donations to be shared among approximately 50 team members. She has also been praying and writing letters to request support.

Circumstances have changed, though, and we were wondering how all of the money was going to be raised since Malachi raised about half of the cost of his trips through projects and letters to raise support. This time Bill has not had any overtime hours, so we just in the nick of time were able to provide the deposit. Grandpa has experienced some medical problems that require all of his resources. These resources that we had always counted on to help make high school missions experiences possible for our kids were not available. We wondered how we were going to come up with the other half of the support that would most likely be needed.

Amazingly, Cherith has raised about $150 more than she needs (which can stay in her account for next year’s trip) without any extra help. Through the letters she wrote several months ago and the missions dinners, all of the money has been provided. Her aunt would have helped cover the rest of the travel cost, but since the money has been raised, she instead took her shopping for all of the personal supplies she would need for the trip: Shoes to hold up during the rainy season, specific clothes for the sports camp and school assemblies…an extra blessing to us!

God provides just what we need, just in time.

“Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all you lands!
Serve the LORD with gladness;
Come before his presence with singing.
Know that the LORD, he is God;
It is he who has made us, and not we ourselves;
We are his people and the sheep of his pasture.
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving,
And into his courts with praise.
Be thankful to him, and bless his name.
For the Lord is good;
His mercy is everlasting,
And his truth endures to all generations.”
Psalms 100

“Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.” James 5:19-20

We are facing so many things–medically, financially, spiritually, educationally–it can be overwhelming at times.

We find great comfort and encouragement in 1 Peter 5:7, “Cast all your cares upon Him for He cares for you.”

Cast all your cares upon Him for He cares for you…1 Peter 5:7

Cast all your cares upon Him for He cares for you…1 Peter 5:7

“Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away.” Song of Solomon 8:7

That was the scripture that our marriage ceremony was based upon, and it has proven to be so true to our lives due to God’s wonderful grace.

A couple of our songs were:

Love Song by Love Song

Great Is Thy Faithfulness

I was so happy I didn’t even notice that the sound man for the rehearsal forgot to rewind the tape from our rehearsal, so the sound man who did the ceremony just hit play, so that the recessional music was played as I was walking down the aisle instead of “Here Comes the Bride.” If my sister-in-law  hand’t told me at the reception it happened, I wouldn’t have known until I saw the tape. Bill edited the video to correct the mistake, but I still treasure the original version–wrong music and all.

What songs were sung at your wedding?

Since we wanted to get married in May, and that’s a busy time for teachers, we chose Memorial Day weekend. It gave us an extra day to get away for the weekend at Peek’n Peak resort in Clymer, NY. No skiing for us in May (or any other time of year), but it’s a beautiful place without snow, too. The hotel looks like a castle, so I really felt like a queen for the weekend.
In July we took a longer honeymoon in Toronto. The touristy thing I remember most was walking what seemed like miles in hot sticky weather between the exhibits at the Toronto Zoo, which was at the time and may still be, the third largest zoo in the world. We must have spent the rest of the time gazing at each other.
The Friday before the wedding my students had to spell my new, long, Polish last name with lots of vowels on their spelling test. Everyone got it right!

I was dipping my French fries in Bill’s vanilla ice cream cone one evening in July 1988 when he asked, “Will you marry me in September?”

We didn’t wait until September, though. He reconsidered and asked if I’d be willing to set the date in May, which thrilled me because I always wanted to get married in May. More about that tomorrow…

Feel free to share your engagement memories.

I guess in our efforts to finish up all of the school work and documentation for the kids’ homeschooling (one freshman in high school and one senior), I have been distracted about Marriage Month.

I always wanted to get married in May. It’s my favorite month. After our long, bone chilling cold Erie winters, May, while not tropical, was refreshingly warm and colorful.

Now that Wedding Week is here and most of our school paperwork filed with our evaluator, I’m beginning to think more and more about how Bill and I met and our life together.

We usually sat on the same side of church. I can still see him standing there in his denim jacket and jeans. I know that “tall, dark, and handsome“ is a cliché, but he really was, and is.

We kept finding ourselves in the same locations. When our church started small groups, we lived in the same zip code area. Since we were about the same age, we were in the same Sunday School class and young adult fellowship. His daughter was in my four-year-old Rainbows group on Wednesday nights. (We didn’t know it for a long time, but our parents lived two blocks away from each other.)

I had pretty much stopped working on getting my MRS degree, so when he asked me to a concert, I wasn’t thinking that it was anything more than a friend looking for another friend to spend some time with. I had papers to correct and school functions all the time, though, and it didn’t occur to me to rearrange my schedule so that I could go. This happened a couple of more times. I’m really glad I was free to accept his invitation the third time because he told me later that if I had declined that time, he had decided not to ask me out anymore.

Looking back, I really treasure that time we had starting out as good friends.

Mother’s Day Will Never Be the Same

Or

The Greatest Gifts Can Come From Those We Don’t Even Know

Mother’s Day will never be the same since 1997. It was a beautiful, sunny day. We had gone to church in the morning. These services had been bittersweet since losing Bill’s mom two and a half years earlier. Our time together had been too short, her loss so sudden, but our memories very precious. Tears on Mother’s Day were not new.

Later we celebrated with my mom in the afternoon, and had enjoyed a relaxing hour or two after tucking our two youngest children into bed.

Around 10:00 PM the phone rang. Who could it be at this hour on Mother’s Day?

It was the Transplant Department at Allegheny General Hospital calling to say they had a kidney for Bill.

It was not a perfect match, but acceptable. Did he want it?

“No,” I thought at first. If the very good match—as good as a donation from a family member—had failed, why would he want to take the risk of trying a match that was just acceptable? How could we go on if he suffered rejection again?

I was surprised when Bill said, “Yes,” and then let the transplant coordinator know that we’d be there as soon as possible.

I didn’t argue with him, though. I was not the one that had to endure dialysis three times a week for the past three years. If he wanted to try again for a transplant, I was not going to discourage him.

We had to move quickly. Our bags were pretty well packed. Just a few things to add, then wake up the kids and drop them off at Grandpa’s house—or did Aunt Patty come to our house? I can’t remember that.

Soon we were on the road, traveling the long, dull route down I-79 from Erie to Pittsburgh, PA. Lots of time to think—especially about the mom who had just said good-bye to her 12-year-old daughter, and in her grief and sudden loss, had made a choice on Mother’s Day to give the gift of life to us and several others through organ donation.

We have become good friends with Stephanie Tinker’s family, and will be forever grateful to her parents,Tom and Amy, and her brother Michael, for the gift they gave us twelve years ago today, before we knew them.

This reminds me of the time when we “were without Christ…strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). While we were still strangers and sinners, Christ died on the cross for us and gave us the gift of forgiveness and eternal life.

Sometimes the greatest gifts come from those that we don’t even know…