Romantic Stories

Today's the day to celebrate romance! I don't know why the 14th of February, exactly, but I'm not complaining! It's a good thing to celebrate.

We have several friends who have such nice romantic stories, I thought I'd share them briefly on here. Our friends the Ronnings, met in prison in Atlanta, Georgia! Now that's a shocking place for missionaries to meet their spouse, but that's the story. Both of them were at an anti-abortion demonstration, and got arrested. They spent a couple of weeks in prison before they were released, and the guards let the men and women in both groups have exercise together each day. One thing led to another, and today they have 4 children and have spent years having missionary adventures in South Africa. Sweet!

The Penley's story was special too. One of the ways Sharon knew Frank was the guy for her, was that he threatened to put her in the lake (or river?) if she did something (I forget what.) She DID something (I forget what.) He didn't throw her in immediately, as they had a church service, but HE DID KEEP HIS WORD. He waited til after church, then carried her out (screaming, I believe) into the water. She was impressed with a fun guy, a crazy kind of guy, who kept his word! One thing led to another, and today they are church planters near Altlanta, with 4 really masculine boys, and 1 feminine little girl who had one of our boys wrapped around her little fingers last time we visited. She has an electric car :-) Maybe a future romance story there.

Dion and Johanneke had and have a romantic story. They met on the Doulos. He's from South Africa, she's from Holland, and they had a ship-board romance as they floated around the world, ministering with OM in different ports that the Doulos visited. One thing led to another, and today they have three kids, some of our kids' best friends, and they're distributors of No Greater Joy materials, which leads to a seriously mushy, wonderful marriage.

And then there's our own romance. It'll be rough to keep that one so short, because I love all the little details. I remember one night when we were living for a short time in Kenya. The electricity went out, so the whole family gathered on our bed with 2 candles nearby, and Paul and I told our kids every juicy detail of our romance. It's a precious memory.

We met one day in South Berwick, Maine (that's why our dog's name is Berwick-in memory of that happy occasion :-). Paul preached in Seacoast Christian School where I was teaching. He asked me to eat out with him, and one thing led to another, for sure. Today we have four children, have traveled to 4 or 5 continents together (depends if you count the Philipines as going to Asia) preaching to people about Jesus and enjoying ourselves. One of my goals for marriage was to laugh a lot, and we do.

Got Milk?

It never fails, I get a lot of comments when I buy a week's worth of milk for our family. We're pretty big milk drinkers, and so I buy a lot at once, and freeze it so that I'm not running to the store every single day.
Until today, the most memorable comment was a lady who looked startled at my 40 or so liters of milk, and asked, "What are you going to do with that? You're not going to drink it are you? It's poison!"

I got under conviction after that one. Not about the milk, of course, but about how this woman could be so ardent about something like the "poison" of milk, and I wasn't that ardent to walk up to total strangers and tell "You're not going to indulge in THAT sin are you? It's poison!"

Today there was another chat at the milk bar. (You can get a deal if you bring your own containers and get them filled, which makes it more obvious when I come with my 3 big bags of plastic stuff.) A man came up and asked, "Are these all yours?" or something like that. We got talking about whether milk is good for you or not, and he told me he had cancer of the tongue, but that he had beaten it. He used to smoke, he said, and someone told him eating KFC could cause cancer.

Phew! I wanted to witness to him so bad. When someone tells you they've had a near brush with death, you want to help make sure he's ready for the next life, and if you know the answers, you want to help.

I don't rememeber my exact words, but I was able to share with him, which felt funny because he was quite a bit older then me, and a man, and so forth, but it went well. He agreed with me! He said Jesus could take away fear of death, but it was special. It was as though he was reminding himself for the first time in a long time. I don't know, but, as always, Cherish's story was a help as I shared about that.

We parted a few minutes after our jugs were filled. I think he bought 4 liters which is, of course, terribly important to the story :-)