5 years deep.

I spent a lot of time in my last post talking about what marriage isn't. Today, let's talk about what marriage is.

On August 20, 2005, two of my favorite people in the history of ever got married. It was too early by every conceivable standard. They were too young, they were too poor, and Rach still had another year of school left. Yet as they walked down the aisle that day, they stepped out in the faith that if God had brought them that far, He would be faithful to carry them through. 

Now 5 years deep into marriage, they're starting a new adventure together: adopting a child! 

Their story is best told in their own words, and their words will give you a better picture of their hearts than my outside observations ever could:

Don't they look like movie stars?

Dear Loved Ones,

We come to the end of summer having been married for five wonderful years. It’s hard to believe that so much time has lapsed since we stepped over the threshold of our tiny first apartment that, ironically, sits only a few houses down from where we now live. And yet so much has happened in these few short years that it hardly seems possible.

Our time together has seen us go from part time jobs mowing lawns (Chris) and running a rock climbing wall (Rachael) to being the Call Center Coordinator for Undergraduate Admissions at Indiana Wesleyan University (Rachael) and The Director of Coffees at Alliance World Coffees (Chris). During this time, though, our primary calling and love has been our collaborative work at Exit 59 Church, where we share the role of lead site pastors. We have watched a moderately small and vibrant, young congregation grow into two separate church sites that focus onteaching the Word of God, raising up and equipping people to carry our God’s call on their lives, and seeing healing in the lives of the lost and broken. It has been a joy to watch God in our midst as He brings us together into maturity and builds His church.

We have had many adventures in the past few years as well, finding ourselves traveling in Central America twice (Costa Rica and Panama) as well as spending some time supporting missionaries in Northern Ireland, where our good friends have planted a church to reach those who, through the troubled times there, have left religion and God behind. Our hearts were stirred watching the real church (God’s beloved people) open their hearts and homes to strangers and invest into their lives. Our travels have taught us what an amazingly small perspective we sometimes have of what is truly at work around the world, and we are truly appreciative of the hospitality shared with us as well as the time spent in rest.

Roughly two years ago last spring we bought a house, as I alluded earlier, just down the street from where we first lived. We have spent what extra time we have sanding floors, putting in new windows and carefully rewiring each room. It has been a great learning experience for both our skills as craftsman and our skills in communication. We are just now putting the finishing touches on the house, but despite the unfinished nature of our place it has always been to us a home.

In all of this we have grown to love the place we’re in and the people that surround us in community, as they have helped us to mature in many ways. As we grow, we’ve found a heart for starting a family and having children--but more specifically have felt a call on our lives to welcome a child into our life by way of adoption. We feel privileged and humbled to be a part of shaping someone’s life in such a profound way and bringing hope to an orphan, which we find is at the heart of God in His Word. Simply put, if not for adoption as sons and daughters of God, we would be without hope, so it seems fitting to participate in something innate to our lives as believers.

After seeking wise counsel and doing some practical fact finding, we decided to work with an agency based out of Indianapolis by the name of Kids First, which is not only an adoption agency but is committed to social development in the countries it works with. We have just begun the process of filing paper work and going through a series of home studies, but it is possible that we could be traveling for the first time by late January. After praying and researching, we decided that Ethiopia, Africa was the right fit for us. Chris has begun to do some work with coffee farmers in Ethiopia to promote better working conditions and learned through a documentary of the immense need there. Rachael also felt stirred bythe great need, as there are over 2 million orphaned children there.

This process could take as few as 8 months or up to 14 months, so it has been both overwhelming and exciting to find that we will probably be parents sometime in the coming year. In this time we are asking that you would be in prayer for us. There are so many things involved in this process and we want to follow God’s heart as He prepares us. We feel the weight of responsibility for life in new ways already and have much to learn before we enter into parenthood, and we feel strongly at the same time that God has everything we need in order to be a source of wisdom, hope, and deep love for this child.   

. . .

We love you all and are very excited to enter into this new journey with your support. You represent wonderful things in both of our lives and we are better because of you. 


Happy anniversary, my dear, dear friends!