Engagement Story, Part Two

So...

His thought of proposing on the soccer field was foiled by her soccer injury on Wednesday.  And with only one day of school left, what was Her Hero to do, to get that ring on her finger before graduation on Friday night?

On Wednesday night, he invited over a group of buddies to help him brainstorm, and by midnight, they had a plan.  It involved driving all over Kenosha County, filming in the darkness (even outside our own house at 2 a.m., we found out later), having to explain themselves to several policemen, and then a whole lot of editing work before 1:47 on Thursday.

But we didn't know that.

The phone call I received from Her Hero's mom (in which I learned of her injury for the first time) was not only to see if Blondechick was okay, but to make sure that she was still going to school for her last day, and to suggest that we show up in her Bible class at 1:47 p.m.  Papa Rooster should bring his camera, she urged.

Bible class? we wondered.  But it's the one class that all the seniors are in together, and it's held in a large auditorium, not a classroom, so we could see the potential.  Both PR and I had other plans for that time period, but we began rearranging our day.

The younger kids and I had a 10 a.m. performance of Robin Hood, our first school day show.  There were professional pictures afterward, and then a fundraiser at a nearby Wendy's which I had organized, so I needed to be there--with one eye on my watch.  And you know how those last ten minutes always go so much faster when you have to be somewhere?  I was eating salad as fast as I could and enjoying the conversation at our table, when suddenly I realized that the ten minutes I guessed I had left was more than passed, and if I didn't leave immediately, I might miss the whole thing.  So I had to stand up abruptly and say to my friends, "So sorry, but I've got to rush out or I'm going to miss seeing my daughter get engaged!"  I grabbed B16, who wanted to go too, and B6, because Her Hero's 6-year-old brother would be there, and left the other two to go home with friends.  "You can't just say something like that and LEAVE!" one of the moms at the table yelled good-naturedly at my retreating back....

We made it.  (Phew!)  In fact, we had to wait a little while to enter, as the teacher conducted class as usual.  Our cue was the lights going out.  At that moment, a video was projected onto the screen, as two of Her Hero's friends came to her seat to escort her, limping without her crutches, to a seat on the stage facing the screen.  Her Hero appeared on it, offering to take her on a tour of significant spots around Kenosha, where they had had special dates or events, including our front porch--the site of their first kiss--and the Kemper Center, where they had attended our church together and first prayed together.  It ended with him at her school, where they had first met, and showed him, in the video, opening the door of the auditorium where Bible class was held.  Then in real life he walked through that same door, and...

I'll let the pictures take it from there!

Her Hero's parents made sure everyone else got a ring, too!

She was thrilled with how he did it, in front of all their friends--it turned out that Plan C was probably the best!  They haven't set a date yet, but they are thinking about next summer.

* * * *

More pics to come, over the next few days...of Robin Hood, graduation and more.  It's been CRAZY.  It's been hectic.  But it's been so good and so exciting.  I keep thinking how great these days are and how thankful I am for it all...if I can only live through it!

We drove an hour yesterday to B12's and Chicklet8's Piano Guild judging, and they both got great scores! But I am so glad that's over.  Twice-weekly piano lessons and a lot more practice time than usual was not what I needed this month, though it was a huge accomplishment for them.

Now if I can just get make it through Blondechick's graduation party on Saturday, the rest of my YEAR should be smooth sailing by comparison!

Engagement Story, Part One

As if we needed to squeeze one more significant life-event into these two weeks--

we've had a final day of college for B20, a senior prom for BC18, finals, and her graduation from high school, plus dress rehearsals and performances of Robin Hood (no small event in the lives of our younger children), and all four grandparents here for graduation and the show--

Blondechick18 had to go and get herself engaged!

Actually, we knew it was coming.

People keep asking me how I feel, and the truth is, I've had nearly six months to work through a lot of emotions.   I think it was at Christmas time that Blondechick first broached the idea of getting married...THIS summer.

I was so overwhelmed that I wisely didn't say much at all, initially and to my credit!  I was very calm and I asked questions about what they were thinking and I didn't say much of what was going on in my brain. 

Not to my credit, the loudest voices in my head were not the ones asking, "Is this God's will?" or "Are they mature enough?"  No, the voices screaming in my head were, "How can we possibly plan a wedding for this summer when you're not even engaged yet?!" and "I'm sorry, but I do NOT have time to plan a wedding with everything else we've got going on this spring!"

Okay, got that confession off my chest.

Then my husband and I talked.  And talked.  And decided it would be good to invite the young man's parents out to dinner, so we could see how they felt about this plan.  (Oh dear, am I going to have to come up with a blog name for him, too?)

So we met and enjoyed getting to know them!  It is a delightful family that she will be marrying into.  We had a wonderful conversation about our young people, in which we all agreed that it was only the timing that we had concerns with.  We love him; they love her.  We see a lot of good things going on in their relationship.  They complement each other in their strengths and weaknesses.  Most importantly, it was clear that they are both fully committed to God and to following Him the rest of their lives.

We agreed that this summer was just too soon...but that we would be fine with them getting engaged then.

Then a month or two later, BC's young man invited Papa Rooster out to breakfast, and they had The Talk.  After receiving PR's blessing, he indicated that he might even propose before graduation, because he thought Blondechick would like that.

Then we heard nothing more for awhile, except for Blondechick's observation that he sure was working a lot of hours, but he was always broke.  He's a store manager working nearly full-time, as well as finishing out his first year of college at a local school; he's living at home to save money.  That's one thing we like about him--he's such a hard worker, and he's not a big spender. 

Then he invited Papa Rooster to breakfast again, the day of their prom.  He just wanted to give us a heads-up that he now had the ring, and it would be soon--before graduation, he hoped. 

He had the ring with him at the formal dinner, which was on a boat on Lake Geneva, but the moment never seemed right.  The weekend passed.

On Wednesday night, just as we were pulling into the driveway after dress rehearsal, my cell phone rang and it was the young man's mother.  "How is Blondechick?" she asked anxiously.  "Are they back from the hospital yet?"

Turns out she was injured at her soccer game that afternoon, in a head-on collision with the other team's goalie.  She may have had a slight concussion, but the bigger concern was her knee, which was what eventually ended her up in the ER for x-rays.  It was a bad sprain, and she would be on crutches for graduation and unable to play soccer for awhile.

Which blew his plan to propose on the soccer field at the game the next day!

In fact, would she even be at school the next day?

To be continued....

(Can't promise when.  We have 3 more performances and a strike party this weekend and grandparents to spend time with on Monday, then school to make up on Tuesday and a Piano Guild competition on Wednesday and a graduation party on Saturday.  But I'll try!)

Seven Quick Takes: It's All About the Snow

1) Pictures, don't you think?

Father Rooster's "Priust," half-buried.
("My dad is a priest, so he drives a Priust!")

Drifting around our front door

Same view, with the front sidewalk shoveled

Lake Michigan shoreline, 2 days before the blizzard

2)  I ventured out on Thursday to find most roads passable, but with huge drifts on either side in places.  It felt like driving through a canyon!  At the worst spots, it was down to only one lane plowed--a little hairy to navigate with oncoming traffic.

3)  Still, as high as the drifts are in places, I'm not that impressed.  When I was a kid in Ohio, in January of 1978, the Great Blizzard nearly buried our one-story house.  I remember looking out the windows--to the north and to the south--and seeing nothing but snow.

4)  I also remember a snowmobile arriving at our house to pick up my mother, an emergency room nurse, to take her to work!  She got in a little trailer behind, and then we watched as they zoomed off toward town, level with the tree branches in our front yard.

5)  It was days before our country road was dug out, and when they came, they came in a Caterpillar.  They pushed the snow up on the sides of the road in piles that were 14 feet high!  My brothers and I made slides down all sides of those piles.  Some twisted and turned, some were straight shots, some were steep, some more gradual; we gave them all descriptive names, like "The Twister."  Then we started tunneling and building snow caves. It was the most fun a kid could ever have in the snow!

6)  And it lasted for weeks.  On March 21, the first day of spring, we took a picture of us kids with a snowdrift that was still there from the January blizzard.  And it was about that long before we could use our regular gravel L-shaped driveway.  Whoever plowed it out--I think this was before Dad got a snowplow attachment for his yard tractor--just took the shortest distance straight across our front yard and out to the road.  Didn't hurt our yard at all; the snow was packed down firm.

7)  My younger kids are working on tunnels and snow caves too.  Bantam15 has earned a small fortune this winter in snow removal--and that's just for our driveway!  Blondechick is getting great driving experience this winter--a little hair-raising for Mom and Dad.  All grist for the memory mill....

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary each Friday!

Thankful--For Every, Every Minute

So I had a pretty bad medical scare here lately.

The day before my 45th birthday, I got the results of an echocardiogram that had been done to check out a heart murmur. I'd been told that the murmur was probably not significant, but still, if I'd never had an echo, I should, they said.

So I had the echo, or ultrasound of the heart, and sure enough, the murmur is insignificant. However (they said), we want you to come back in for a CT scan of your chest, because it appears that your aorta is mildly enlarged.

As I hung up the phone, concern began to gradually spread through my brain. I googled, I tried to recall from my life insurance underwriting days...I just knew this was not good. An enlarged aorta means, basically, that it's a weak vessel that could blow at any time. In other words, an aneurysm, which I always thought was what it was called when it blew, but I guess you can walk around with an aneurysm--or enlarged, weakened vessel--for years, too. Sort of a time bomb.

I woke up the next morning, on my birthday, with a page from the Lincoln Manual--the life insurance underwriter's bible--burned into my consciousness. "Enlarged Aorta" was the title, and there was a chart underneath. I couldn't "see" or recall everything on the chart entirely, but I remembered now, that it was a very bad page. The chart went from mildly enlarged to severely enlarged, and there was a section on those who'd been treated by surgery too--and most of the categories were either uninsurable (too great a risk) or very, very expensive to buy life insurance for. Although it seemed that the first category, mild enlargement, was surprisingly only a Table B (the minimum upcharge on a normal rate, without the nonsmoker discount).

It's interesting how my brain, in sleep, was able to pull back and look at my case so objectively! But it did nothing to reassure the waking me, who was having a birthday, for Pete's sake. I'd been thinking that 45 was probably about the halfway point for me, since longevity runs in my family--and suddenly, I was worrying that I may have hit my halfway point a long time ago. It was quite sobering, and I felt suddenly afraid. It was a hard day, my birthday.

I shared the news with only a few people, since the CT scan would be the more definitive report and I wouldn't know those results for a week or so. I was hoping and praying that the enlargement would be very mild, indeed.

But I had one week, then, of not knowing and trying not to imagine and fear the worst. I found myself thinking often of Annie Martin and John Fawcett, both friends of ours who died in the last two years; both were in their forties, and both left children and spouses behind. That was the hard part--the thoughts of leaving my children, wondering if I'd be there to see them married, cuddle grandchildren, visit them in their homes, turn 18. How many more years would Papa Rooster and I have together? Would I never become old and gray? How would he function as a single parent? As much as I look forward to being with Jesus, I realized that I fiercely love my life and all the people God has placed in it.

I also had weird guilty feelings, wondering if it was significant that it was my heart that was affected. Was there a failure of my heart, to love, to give to others? If I had been a kinder, gentler person, would this not have happened? Could yelling at my kids in anger have caused this? Should I bargain with God and promise to become a new, better person if only He'd take this away? I didn't let myself go down any of these mental tracks, but they did occur.

Finally, I evaluated my activities. Would I change anything? I might have to quit my part-time job, but other than that, I couldn't think of much to let go of. Maybe I would finally hire a house cleaner....

You can imagine, then, the relief that rushed through me when the doctor's assistant said, "We have the results of your scan, and your aorta looks completely normal--no enlargement at all."

I am praising God and rejoicing in the gift of LIFE! I can't believe how much we take it for granted, as Thornton Wilder tries to show us in his brilliant play "Our Town," one of those literary works I'm glad I had to write a paper on in high school. "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? Every, every minute?"

It's been three days since I got the good news. I thought it would shape me for the rest of my life, yet I am amazed at how my mind has moved on. I'll go for hours without recalling either the sense of dread or the relief that were so powerful just days ago; then I will remember and be surprised at how life goes on, evidently.

And I am so thankful that it does.

God Works, Part Two

Those two days of waiting-- for the rest of the story--were unintentional on my part, but they are a perfect representation of the two weeks we spent waiting and praying while the kids were away at camp! No cell phones were allowed, just good old-fashioned pencil and paper, and we only received one brief letter from each while they were gone.

Blondechick16 and Bantam14 returned from Honey Rock camp with hearts reawakened. Both spoke of "going way deeper" in their relationship with the Lord, and in their desire to live the Christian life in a more committed way. Blondechick said that she "got it" about her non-Christian boyfriend (meaning she now shared our concern). You can just imagine our joy, as parents!

Papa Rooster told me more about his talks with their counselors, on the day he arrived to pick them up. Both had many positive things to say, and both had the same suggestion for their continued spiritual growth: They need more Christian friends.

So our thoughts about sending them to the Christian school were confirmed. Yet when we brought the subject up again with Blondechick, she stuck to her position: She wanted to stay at the charter school, mainly because of her best friend.

The next day, the best friend said that actually, her mom had at one point wanted to send her to the Christian school, and she would ask to go there too! After that news and a tour of the high school, Blondechick became a lot more interested. Meanwhile, she also began a series of talks with her boyfriend in which they discussed her Christian faith in great depth.

After a couple more days of dialogue (and prayer on her parents' part), Blondechick sounded willing to be forced to transfer to the Christian high school, and within a day, she was owning the decision. The boyfriend was upset but quickly resigned himself. Her best friend isn't going to be able to go yet, but maybe second semester or next year.

We had to have placement testing and an interview before they were officially accepted, and for her writing sample, Blondechick wrote candidly about her transforming experience at camp. She and Bantam14 answered the principal's interview questions with surprising (to me) frankness and openness. It was clear that they are spiritually in a very good place!

Blondechick and her boyfriend decided they could still hang out and enjoy their good friendship until school starts, at least. They continue to talk about her faith in Christ. He came to church with her once before she went to camp, and he was visibly affected; he even said so. So who knows what seeds are being planted in this young man's heart and mind?

One thing that Blondechick thought she would have to give up if she went to the Christian high school was a musical production she already was cast in, through the Kenosha Unified School District's Fine Arts program. Actually, she was cast in two projects, but she knew she was going to have to back out of one (a one-act play) anyway. In the other, both she and her good friend from our church were cast as Doo-Wop Girls (a lead part) in Little Shop of Horrors, and it was a big disappointment to have to notify the director that she would no longer be in KUSD.

Imagine her delight, after she had resigned herself to giving up both opportunities, to learn from the director that even though she would be attending a private school, she could remain in the productions if she wished!

In so many ways, we have seen God working all things together for good, even in things that didn't immediately seem good, like the boyfriend and the doors closing to Africa. We have seen God "give back" what we had given up, like her role in the musical and Honey Rock instead of Africa. We have seen God give more than we could ask or imagine, like the life-changing experience that both kids had at camp. Praise Him!

God Works, Part One

I've been hinting at some educational rearrangements that might be in store...and now it's time to share a story of how God has worked in some amazing ways!

At the beginning of this summer, I met a couple, friends of mutual friends, who told me about their four kids' high school experiences, after being homeschooled through middle school. Their first two went to the public high school that Bantam18 goes to, "and they did fine. Only fine...they didn't really bloom spiritually until they went to Christian colleges." They decided to send their last two kids to a private Christian high school, "and they really bloomed in their faith during high school, while they were at that school."

That was how God awakened a desire in my heart, to see Blondechick16 "bloom" spiritually. She did "fine," and more than fine, at the charter school she attended last year. She stood up for her faith when she needed to, and she made a sweet Christian best friend. But among the rest of the student body, and it is a very small one, she didn't find other committed believers to be friends with. She tried several church youth groups, but didn't end up committing to one, and she only did one session with our Christian youth theater group last year. So, other than Sunday mornings, the year was spiritually a wasteland for her.

And it was beginning to show. The most disturbing thing was that at the end of the year, she developed a relationship with a non-Christian boy from her school that quickly became way too serious, in their own eyes at least.

Last summer, we had formed the idea that this summer, we would send Blondechick to Africa on a service mission that would give her some perspective beyond her own self-centered interests. Through Anglican connections, we knew of an orphanage in Rwanda that surely could use help with babies and toddlers, which she loves. We even knew people there in the same town. We had connections elsewhere in Africa too, if that didn't work out.

But when we began to knock on doors last spring, every one slammed shut. And we were grateful, because the Lord's answer was so clear! But what to do with Blondechick? We knew we couldn't let her just hang out with friends all summer. She looked, but couldn't find a job. We talked about sending her to an Anglo-Catholic conference for high school youth, with classes and lectures that sounded fascinating to us, but probably wouldn't have made a dent in Blondechick's psyche. And it was expensive, if you counted the airfare to get her to the East Coast.

In fact, for that amount of money, we could send both her AND Bantam14 (who also needed a better way to spend his time this summer) to Honey Rock, Wheaton College's Christian camp in the north woods of Wisconsin, for TWO WEEKS. And that's what we ended up doing.

A month or so before she left in late July, we planted the idea of maybe switching to the Christian high school for her last two years of high school, and unsurprisingly, she was adamantly against the idea. Her boyfriend and her best friend were both going back to Harborside--of course she was too!

The idea was mentioned a few more times before she left, and she was worried. But we weren't sure. Papa Rooster wasn't certain at all that it was the right thing to do. I was eager to make the decision and move on with the rest of my planning for fall, because we were also discussing sending Bantam14 there for a class or two, if Blondechick went. If she didn't, then I wasn't sure about driving him there and back every day. But every time I prayed, asking for closure, God said, "Wait till she gets back from Honey Rock."

...to be continued!

(A perfect place to leave everyone hanging, as I was for 7 or 8 weeks!)

Saying Goodbye to Grandma

My grandmother is dying.

We visited her while we were back home in Ohio. She’s in an assisted living facility, a pretty and cheerful place, but she doesn’t know it. She’s past knowing.

She didn’t know me. She had trouble remembering who I was the last time I saw her, so I wasn’t expecting her to remember me this time. But she’s not recognizing anyone now.

She’s delusional, maybe due to the all the meds she’s on for pain. We couldn’t tell what she was talking about—things that weren’t there. Nothing that made sense.

I held her hand. She’s lost so much weight—she’s only 80 pounds or so—that her hands are skeletal. So withered and bony.

I held her hand and thought of how these hands used to hold mine. We’d go for walks on the farm, and always she’d hold my hand. When I got older, she’d take me shopping sometimes, and she’d hold my hand when we crossed the parking lot, even when I got embarassingly old for it. But I never let go.

These hands had changed my diapers. They had baked cookies, prepared meals and wrapped gifts for me. They held me and helped me hold open a book on Grandma’s lap—Aesop’s Fables, children’s poetry books, Sesame Street picture books. They pointed out flowers and kittens and family heirlooms. They taught me to make pie crust and Rhubarb Dream Dessert.

Now these hands, this body, are slowly wasting away. Her 97-year-old heart is still beating strong, but she’s not eating enough to sustain herself. She has occasional bouts of scary coughing, maybe the beginning of pneumonia. It’s just a matter of time--a short time.

I took my children to see her. I debated a little at first: Should I leave them with the memories they had of her, before she was like this? But death is part of life, and we are so insulated from death, in our age of modern medicine. I think of the “birth and death room” that old houses used to have, and I think of the statement of a friend, who had lost a child, that “you can’t control birth and death.”

And we can’t control this death. We’d love to see her suffering end quickly. Both her children and half her four grandchildren—and their families—were there over the past weekend, and we discussed among ourselves: Do we leave, or do we wait? She’s very close, but she has such a strong heart…

Such a strong heart.

Farewell to Vinnie the Mini-Van

It was a beautiful, bright sunny morning as we sped along our way to the theater. Almost there. It was the second time, actually, that we had halted our way through a series of closely-placed stop signs. Earlier, just as we pulled in the parking lot, Bantam10 realized that he had left his Mayor's tailcoat at home, still on a hanger instead of folded and placed in his costume duffel bag.

So we had gone back for it, and now we were running late. The sun was very bright, and all these stop signs were annoying. But I braked carefully at the last one, and with the intersection clear, I began accelerating, my eyes on a group of teenagers in a field to my left, standing grouped around...something...what was it?

Just then--THWACK! Something collided with our car. I couldn't even see what it was! Then my car was free and I saw another full-size van ahead of me as I braked hard. It had come out of nowhere, from the right, and too late, I realized that the series of stops were not all four-way stops, as I had supposed. The sun must have been shining full on the windshield of the other van, making it seem part of the general glare.

But we were all okay: Bantam10, Chicklet6, Bantam4 and myself. Thank you, Lord!!

I got out and the passenger from the other car met me. "Are you okay? Anybody hurt? Are you sure?" Yes, we're fine--how about you? "We're fine too. Are you sure you're okay? Can I pray for you? You're a believer, aren't you?"

Shocked by these unexpected words, my first reaction was, "Yes, I am. Sure, let's pray!" But as soon as he began to speak, my mind began reeling with all that I needed to process and I said, "Wait. I'm sorry, but I need to check on my kids again." I was thinking that this could be pretty traumatic for them, if they're crying inside the van while I'm out here praying with a stranger!

They were cheerfully fine, although both B10 and Chicklet had hit their heads on their windows. The passenger's wife, the driver, joined us then, and she seemed fine too. She said that with the sun in her eyes, she hadn't seen me either! The police arrived, reports were written and both vehicles towed.

We took all our belongings out of Vinnie first, because we knew we wouldn't be repairing him. Fifteen years old, with 160,000 miles, rusty, and with a useless sliding side door...we had already decided that the next expensive repair he needed would be the last nail in his coffin. I began praying, before we moved last year, that we'd get at least another year out of him--and we did! And I've been praying recently that his repairs would be inexpensive, or else be the conclusive last straw--and this accident was pretty definitive, I'd say.

And it was falling apart. "Yeah, our van is ghetto now," our kids would explain to their friends, when we'd have to climb in through the front doors. Trim was missing from my door, and the wheel well was hugely dented from the time the nice policeman pushed us out of a snowdrift. One could call it an eyesore and I would not have taken offense.

But as I sat behind the wheel for the last time, my eyes searching for any personal effects we'd missed, it felt like leaving a home for the last time. I have lived in that van--so many hours since we bought it 13 years ago, when we had our first three little ones in car seats. It was a home away from home. I will miss it.

Tonight, we are a little achy-er. I think my shoulder will be quite stiff by morning, and my left knee is swollen where it hit the steering column. B10 had a slight headache which went away after he ate, so I'm not sure about him. Another theater parent, a nurse, checked on us all several times while we were at the shows today, and he said we all seem neurologically intact. He told me what to watch for and when to go the ER, and I am so grateful for his care and concern! I think we all are going to be fine, though. Thanks be to God!!

Love Story, cont'd, or, How Baptist Girl Ended Up Anglican, Part Three

Part One
Part Two

After we'd been visiting Rez for just a few weeks, Papa Rooster invited John Fawcett to come up to our apartment to lead a prayer meeting with us and the R’s, let’s call them—the couple we were praying about starting the church plant with. First, he made our old piano ring like it hadn't in years, as we sang worship choruses together. Then we began to pray. John, who had incredible gifts of healing, asked our friend, Mr. R, if he could pray for him, and then he began to pray, with insight that could only have come from the Lord, into a specific situation in our friend’s life that John could have had no earthly knowledge of. It was powerful.

While he was praying for Mr. R., I began shaking. This had never happened to me in prayer before nor has it happened since. I wasn’t cold, but I couldn’t control the shaking, and then John began to pray for me--again, with insight that only could have come from the Holy Spirit. At the time, I barely understood myself what he was praying, partly because it was in tongues—brand new to me--and partly because he kept using a Greek word that I was unfamiliar with. (Another story for another time....)

All I knew was that I was changed afterward--freed, lightened, unburdened in some way--and the sense of God's working was so powerful that one of my first questions, afterward, was, "Can you pray for nonbelievers like that too?" I thought that no one could encounter God in this way and not believe He was real, living and active in this world! (The answer, by the way, was, "Certainly, but they have to be open to Him to some degree.")

Looking back, this prayer time was such a landmark event for all four of us because none of us, in our evangelical churches, had ever really experienced the Holy Spirit working in such a powerful way. (Well, with the exception of PR, who was saved in a Pentecostal church at age 7.) It was mind-blowing and faith-building all at once, and totally changed our view of the third person of the Trinity: He's not an "it," but a Person with a unique ministry.

So after this prayer time, I was more eager to keep going to Rez, but worried about the situation with our friends and the L.A. church plant. Our friends were eager to visit Rez with us, but they didn't connect with it like we did. It was a big leap from Willow Creek’s “seeker sensitive” model to a liturgical service!

After a couple months of trying to attend both Willow Creek and Rez, we decided we would start going full-time to Rez, and inevitably, we decided we weren't going to L.A. anymore to plant a seeker-sensitive church. This rocked the rental house, but it led to many conversations about the seeker-sensitive model and its pros and cons, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit and its place in church. Interestingly, the R's ended up leaving Willow Creek as well, on their own journey through a couple of Vineyard churches and ultimately, wishing they lived close enough to attend Rez, or Light of Christ!

As we prayed afterwards about what the L.A. church plant sidetrack was all about, PR received a word from the Lord about it which has turned out be quite prophetic: “Ishmael.” Like Abraham, trying to make the promise come true, prematurely, he felt that there still was a church plant or “a new thing” to be birthed someday. (And fifteen years later, Light of Christ was born!)

So after 8 months of living in the rental house together—which was a time filled with fun, great worship and prayer times together, as well as tension, as living in community often is—we bought our first home in the summer of '92, a townhome in Warrenville, just minutes from Church of the Resurrection. I was expecting Blondechick in November.

And so began an era in our lives, which would last nearly seventeen years.

Love Story, cont'd, or, How Baptist Girl Ended Up Anglican, Part Two

Part One

So there we were, signing a lease with the other couple to move in together, the better to pray about and plan the church we would plant in Los Angeles. But just before we moved into the rental house, Papa Rooster (who was getting his MBA from the University of Chicago at that time) had a study session that was to change the course of our lives.

Restless and hoping a change of venue would help him focus, he decided to drive down to the Wheaton College library for the afternoon. And who should he encounter there, but his old concert choir buddy, John Fawcett? (The same friend who passed away last year.)

John warmly inquired how PR was doing, and PR decided not to hold anything back. He hated business school, he was depressed, and he was struggling spiritually. Then John spoke the words that he spoke to so many in his lifetime: “Let me pray for you.” As PR tells it, he figured John would go home and pray for him sometime when he thought of it; instead, John led him into his office and proceeded to lay hands on him and pray aloud for him with such insight, PR knew he was speaking God’s own words.

Fast forward a couple of hours, when PR returned to our apartment. I was making dinner, I remember, and within moments of his return home, I noticed such a change that I had to ask him, “What happened to you today?” It was as if a dark, brooding cloud had lifted from him. He seemed once again like the happy, thoughtful PR of college days! He told me about John praying for him, and he concluded, “We’ve got to go visit this church that John is going to. It sounds like what we were looking for back in college!”

Ironically, we were moving into a rental house near Willow Creek so we could stop driving 45 minutes to church…and now here we were, checking out a church that was 45 minutes away! For awhile we attended Willow Creek on Sunday mornings and Church of the Resurrection on Wednesday nights, and then PR wanted to start attending Willow Creek on Saturday nights so we could go to Rez on Sunday mornings, too. He did that a few times, but I was torn. That was a huge part of my weekend to spend in church, it seemed, with a ten-month-old, and when I was still working part-time. (I was a life insurance underwriter--another story, for another time!) Plus, we were committed to starting a Willow Creek-style church plant with this other couple, so we weren't really going to switch over to this Episcopal church. Surely not. Especially not one that far away!

But I was attracted in spite of my objections. The Wednesday night services, which were just a simple liturgy with a teaching and then an opportunity to receive prayer, were so real and sweet. There was no pretense, just a “come as you are” invitation. There was an attitude of “I’m broken, you’re broken, let’s pray for each other” that was so refreshing and honest. People praised God openly, wept openly—no one tried to keep up outward appearances at those prayer services.

Plus, as a new parent, the practicality of a small church was dawning on me. I wanted to get to know other moms, meet with them regularly, and meet a few families with teenage daughters who babysat! At the mega-church, with four services, we could be there for two or three hours every weekend and never see anyone that we knew, besides the couple we lived with. And I really liked the people I was meeting at Church of the Resurrection--they were just so honest and real.

Then we held a little prayer meeting, in our home, that we now look back on as a landmark event.

Love Story, cont'd, or, How the Baptist Girl Ended Up Married to an Anglican Priest

Awhile back, a commenter asked if I would ever continue the love story, especially to explain how I went from being Baptist to becoming Anglican! I thought it was a great idea, and I am finally getting back to it.

So! I believe we left off the love story here, with Papa Rooster and I getting married in a December wedding at the Baptist church I grew up in.

It was our final semester at Wheaton College, and Papa Rooster and I were looking for a new church. We had been attending a Bible church that was close to campus, but the previous semester, PR had taken a Church History class and for a paper, he had researched a fascinating period in American church history: the charismatic revival in the Episcopal church in the 1970’s.

In his research, he had found references to a “three streams, one river” concept which referred to three worship styles—charismatic, evangelical and liturgical—blending together to create a balanced whole. He recognized that this phrase described a church he and his parents had occasionally attended when he was in high school, though it was an hour away: St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Darien, CT (in the days when Fr Terry Fullam was rector; the story of the renewal there is documented in Miracle in Darien). Those services had been as ideal as he could imagine: evangelical teaching, with Spirit-filled worship and spontaneous prayer, in a liturgical structure which contained and shaped the other two.

So we began to try different churches every Sunday, searching for something similar. We tried Episcopal churches, Assembly of God churches, even a Vineyard. But nothing really had that balance.

(Little did we know that just a few years after we graduated, Fr. William Beasley would come to tiny Church of the Resurrection --just barely in existence when we were at Wheaton--and begin to shape it into a wonderful example of a “three streams, one river” church. And it continues to be, to this day!)

We graduated, moved to Des Plaines (another Chicago suburb), and had started trying to plug in at a community church, when, back at Wheaton at a reunion for recent grads, we struck up a conversation with another couple that we had known only by sight in our Wheaton days. Incredibly, we discovered that we lived just blocks away from one another! And so began a friendship that lasts to this day.

These new friends immediately asked us to consider being part of the small group that they were forming. The catch? We had to attend their church, giant Willow Creek Community Church. So we became regulars at this mega-church in its heyday, sitting under Bill Hybels, Lee Strobel and other phenomenal teachers.

Willow Creek was spawning daughter churches left and right at that time (’88-early ’91), and we and the other couple discerned that we were being called by God to start a Willow Creek-style church plant out in Los Angeles. We decided to rent a house together, near the church, so that we could pray and worship and strategize more about this.

And there I shall leave you, holding your sides and laughing at our youthful naivete--please, feel free!--till Part Two.

End of Year Musings

Wow!!

All I can say, looking back at 2008, is, "What a wild ride!"

A year ago, watching a real estate market stopped dead in its tracks, we were waiting a few more weeks to put our house back on the market--for the second time.

We were getting our kids up at 5:45 a.m. every Sunday morning to drive to Wisconsin for church.

Papa Rooster was spending Wednesday evenings with the core team and staying overnight with Our Hero and Mrs. A.

I was washing walls constantly and realizing that yes, we do need to strip the wallpaper in the dining room before we put the house back on the market. Even if it did mean another few days off of homeschooling....

We had so many questions: Would we ever sell our house? Should we step out in faith and buy something in Wisconsin even if our house wasn't sold yet? Should we commit to ten weeks of rehearsals for the next children's theater production? Where will we be in two months? In a year?

And a year later, here we are!

In mid-April, we found an amazing house for a fabulous price, and it seemed clear that we should step forward and make an offer. Three weeks later, the day before we closed on the new house, we accepted an offer on the old one! And four weeks, 9 Oliver performances and one hardwood floor installation later, we moved in.

It was a busy summer of unpacking and checking out our schooling options for the fall. Our two oldest took a summer school class at the local public high school as a trial run, and that experience led us to search for a better option for Blondechick. By God's grace, she ended up at a tiny new charter school that she now loves (despite her initial insistence that we were ruining her life by not sending her to Huge Local High!).

The remainder of the brood were happy to be homeschooled, though hesitant about finding friends in the local homeschool group. But God provided, and through co-op enrichment classes and homeschool gym classes at Carthage College, the Bantams made some good friends which we are so grateful for. And they live nearby!

Our little church plant has grown slowly but solidly, and Papa Rooster and I love the friendships we have with the folks there. Our worship together is a joy, and our small size has so many delights.

Papa Rooster's "day job" has been stressful, with his industry (they provide health care-related data to the government and other businesses) affected by the economy, like all the rest. But we are so grateful for his job and how it provides for our family. And when so many are laying off workers, his company actually hired a man from our church! So now PR has a companion on his 2-hour round-trip commute, and another good friend in his workplace.

A year ago, how could we ever have guessed?

So what does the New Year hold?

Undoubtedly, more than we can ever guess! But at least we know (probably?!) where we'll be living. What a wonderful feeling!

And we know of two big things that seem to be on God's agenda for 2009.

One is a more concerted effort to make our little church known in the community. We are celebrating our 2-year anniversary on Epiphany Sunday, if you can believe it! But we haven't really "launched," as some church planters call it, and in the coming year, we'll be discussing when and how we're going to do that.

The other thing is the starting of a new chapter of our Christian children's theater organization in Kenosha! So far, our family is the connection point for this new venture, and I am helping lay the groundwork. I anticipate that I may be asked to interview for the part-time, work-at-home job of "area coordinator," so I have been praying about whether I should. I am feeling a nudge to go ahead if asked, but I have all kinds of questions for the Lord about how He's going to help me keep all the balls in the air!

But our 2008 experience, like so many other years, has taught me to trust in His answers. They don't always look like the ones I would provide, or in the timing I would pick. But our new house, our new community, the high schools, the homeschool group, and especially our church, are all such wonderful, delightful provisions and places to serve. Better than I could have imagined, and worth the wait!

Now to him who is able to do
immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine,
according to his power that is at work within us,
to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus
throughout all generations, for ever and ever!
Amen.

~Ephesians 3:20

Love Story, The Last Part

Part the First
Part the Second
Part the Third
Part the Fourth
Part the Fifth
Part the Sixth

So. After all the showers were over, the classes ended, the final final taken, there we all were—me, Papa Rooster, our 8 attendants and a couple car-loads of friends from Wheaton who traveled home for Christmas break via my small town in Ohio, bless their hearts. Eirik’s parents from New York, my mom’s parents and sister from California and other relatives also descended upon us for the big event.

The rehearsal went smoothly, and then we went to a local restaurant for the rehearsal dinner. A highlight there was a slideshow of photos of PR, as well as an old Super-8 film reel of me as a two year old trying to gather plastic Easter eggs into a little basket…with my progress impeded at frequent intervals by a loving cat who kept rubbing up against me and knocking me over. She even slunk through my legs once, as the camera began to jiggle with the operator’s laughter. Unable to get around the cat to reach an egg, I gently lifted the cat by its tail and set it down elsewhere. The cat returned, and again I patiently lifted it by its tail…and again…with my father valiantly trying not to shake the camera as he recorded. He failed, which was as funny as my performance!

Saturday, December 20 dawned crisp and clear. Everyone made it to the church on time for pictures.

There are the dear bridesmaids from my Bible study, plus my roommate and maid of honor, the lovely Filipina in back. Next to her is the Baptist pastor who married us, and to the right of PR is the Wheaton prof who gave the sermon. To the right of him is PR's brother and best man, and next to him? Why, it's "Our Hero," the ubiquitous Mr. A! The other two guys are a roommate and friend of PR's.

PR’s landlord, who had exerted his talents as a gourmet chef for our “Up the Tower” party, played the little Baptist church’s organ like it had never been played before (with the possible exception of my Texas aunt) and two of PR’s brother's band members played trumpets along with the organ for “Trumpet Voluntary,” which I believe I processed down the aisle to. I’m not sure, because the whole wedding was a blur to me. I kept wishing I could be in it and watch it from the pews at the same time!

My dad gave me away, which would have been an emotional moment if I had been watching myself, but as it was, it was just quick. The only thing that seemed to be in real time was when PR sang to me a song we had picked out from a wedding collection (called “Wedding Song,” I believe, or some such original title). He has a beautiful voice and as he sang he faced me and held my hands, and his eyes were so full of love that my own filled up with tears. Then I heard his voice falter just a little and I knew I better pull it together and quick! I did, although I had to purposefully avoid looking at the bridesmaid, right in my line of vision, who was also tearing up profusely.

About singing at your own wedding. For the record, PR in his capacity as “Father” Rooster, strongly discourages it. I know if he were doing our wedding over again, it’s the first thing he would delete. (“I am Papa Rooster, and I approve this message.”)

We had several great soloists besides PR, though. Did I mention that our senior year, PR was Student Government President? Well, his VP and good friend sang The Lord’s Prayer, nailing the high note on the last “forever”--to our relief and amusement, because he kidded us for months with how he might make that high note sound. (I’m not sure we had ever heard him do it right!)

And PR’s brother and best man, who was majoring in voice at Wheaton and playing in a band on the side, wrote an original composition which he sang as part of the pre-service music. It was a beautiful mixture of reflection and hope--a song we still treasure.

But the highlight of the service, for many, was the prank. (C’mon, with all those college friends there—you know we had one!) PR and I didn’t really get the joke until later, but as soon as the minister intoned, “You may kiss the bride,” the four groomsmen all pulled scorecards out of the back of their tux jackets and held them up, then quickly put them away before we knew what had happened! Except this guy...

...who proudly displayed his "8.5" long enough for the photographer to catch it.

In the blink of an eye, it seemed, it was over. PR and I went up the aisle, followed by our attendants, and we formed a receiving line. After greeting and congratulating us, attendees gathered in the Fellowship Hall for punch, nuts, mints, and—after we arrived and cut it—wedding cake.

(I had never been to a sit-down dinner reception in my life, so we didn’t even consider one. If the Fellowship Hall was good enough for every other First Baptist bride....)

We tossed the bouquet and the garter, and I barely got to taste my own wedding cake before it was time to leave for our honeymoon, in the AMC Hornet that I was driving that year at college, my parents' extra car, beautifully and lovingly decorated by our friends. We had to stop by my house for scissors to cut off the dragging tin cans before driving 2.5 hours away to Cincinnati, Ohio, the honeymoon capital of the Midwest the most charming city within easy driving distance.

We often wish had hung around for the potluck dinner the church provided for our out-of-town family and friends; we hadn't realized how quickly the time would go. But we had a romantic dinner at the Westin Hotel instead, where we stayed the first two nights on a package deal, then one night at a cheaper hotel, then two nights at the medieval-themed Drawbridge Hotel and Convention Center, home of the Oldenburg Brewery, just across the Ohio River in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky. One of the sweet memories I have of that segment of our trip was having the romantically-lit indoor pool to ourselves on Christmas Eve! (And we returned to the Drawbridge/Oldenburg site many years later, compliments of PR's business travels, for a mini-vacation and loved it again; I am sorry to discover that it is now defunct.)

We returned to my parents' home on Christmas Day, and what a pile of presents we had to open--our wedding gifts! It was on that return journey that we started reading The Lord of the Rings aloud to each other. After a few days with my family, we drove to New York for some time with his parents and brother, then back to Ohio to pick up our gifts, then on to Wheaton...and PR finished reading The Return of the King to me as I unpacked our belongings into our new apartment in married student housing!

And here ends the story of our courtship, engagement and wedding. The Love Story continues to this day...nearly 22 years and many ups and downs later.

But wait--there's one more picture!


Can you imagine what my parents must have been feeling on this day?? One child married off AND graduated!!! The relief...it must have been immense.

Love Story, Part the Fifth

Part the First
Part the Second
Part the Third
Part the Fourth

Now that we were engaged...

...we needed to settle on a wedding date. We had over a year to go before graduation, and neither of us wanted to wait that long. Plus it seemed to us that it would be so many changes, all at once, if we waited till after graduation to get married. What about getting married in December? we wondered. After our wedding, we'd still have our friends around, a familiar environment and schedule, and less stress than we'd have once we both started our first jobs.

Our parents agreed with our logic, and a December 20 date was set. That was the Saturday right after finals week, and it was a perfect semester for me, since I was student-teaching and would have no finals: I could leave school a week early, in fact. Papa Rooster and some of our wedding party might have to take a Friday final and then hit the road for Ohio--about 6 hours away--to barely make it in time for the rehearsal, but it would all work out. (And it did. That semester, the last finals were on Thursday afternoon.)

That summer was an interesting one. My first few weeks at home were a blur of dresses, photographers, florists, cakes, napkins and invitations. Decisions were made, my mother was left in charge, and I was off to Europe to work at an international conference for itinerant evangelists called Amsterdam 86. The conference was put on by the Billy Graham Association, and since Wheaton was Billy's alma mater and home of the Billy Graham Center, Wheaton students had been recruited to work as stewards at the conference, with room and board provided if we paid our own airfare.

Several girlfriends and I were going over early to meet another gal, whose dad was stationed in Frankfurt, to travel on a German railpass in a big loop around Germany, making several short "legs" of the journey out into France, Switzerland and Austria.

First, we landed in Amsterdam, where who else but Papa Rooster happened to be?


His sophomore year roommate was the chairman of a Wheaton College ministry called YHM, or Youth Hostel Ministry, which sent students to help out at Christian youth hostels all over Europe. The chairman, who traveled all over Europe to meet with the stationary as well as the traveling teams, got to select a traveling partner, and since PR was a known quantity as a roommate--and a good guy--the chairman asked him to be his traveling partner.

So they were in Amsterdam, visiting the teams at the Christian youth hostels there when I arrived--in the morning, but the middle of the night for me, and I was seriously dragging. We had only a few hours together before my friends and I were leaving on a train bound to my uncle's home in Germany (he was stationed at an Air Force base near the border between Holland and Germany). We stowed our suitcases at one of the hostels, bought some lunch, and sat on a bench by one of the canals. The main thing I remember through my jet-lagged fog was trying to decide if I liked the mustache he had grown (you can barely see it in the picture, but it filled in). His hair was shorter and blonder from all the sun, and he looked so different--so Aryan! His big blue eyes looked even bigger and bluer with shorter, blonder hair.

All too soon it was time for a goodbye kiss and catching the train--the first of many I would take in the next 10 days. We got to rendezvous once more in that time, at a Swiss chalet in the Alps on Lake Interlaken. Talk about romantic! I know all the YHM traveling teams and my own three traveling partners were there, but all I remember are walks and talks with PR in that gorgeous setting. (And swimming, for a few minutes anyway, in the icy cold lake--an unforgettable experience.)

Here was another unforgettable experience:


That was my favorite photo from my trip to Europe, taken in Austria. I read so many horse stories growing up, that sitting astride a unicorn seemed a dream come true! Had to work it in.

My girlfriends and I finished our tour...

(Here we are at the infamous Hofbrauhaus in Munich. Don't think we even tried the beer, but I'm open to correction. [Ladies?])

...and ended up in Amsterdam to work at the conference. I was assigned to the conference room that Joni Eareckson Tada’s sessions were in, so I got to meet both her and her husband Ken. (On the last day, she gave me a freshly-signed print of one of her paintings, which I still display.) It was also the room that the Japanese contingent of evangelists met in. I couldn't understand a word of their sessions, of course, but on the last day, they began speaking in unison and I knew immediately that it was the Lord’s Prayer. It gave me goosebumps to pray along with them, transcending the language barrier!

Then my European adventure was over—and so was PR’s. We were on the same flight back to his parents' home in New York...



...and the surprise of our lives!

(I just realized that that white blouse was part of my steward's uniform. I bet I didn't have anything any fresher!)

Stay tuned for Part Six!

Love Story, Part Four

Part the First
Part the Second
Part the Third

A week before finals, on a Friday night, I had a stomach ache. I met PR for a little studying before we went out, but the stomach ache got worse and worse. It was unlike any pain I'd ever had. We decided I'd better go to the campus infirmary, but there was hardly anyone on duty and they suggested I go to the emergency room. The pain was so intense that I agreed.

Papa Rooster borrowed a car from his landlord and drove me there. He stayed with me as medical professional after medical professional talked to me, trying to diagnose the problem. By this time, I had a new pain across the tops of my shoulders that I kept mentioning. Finally a nurse said, "That's referred pain! You may be bleeding internally!"

She was right. An ultrasound revealed that I had a ruptured ovarian cyst, and I needed emergency surgery--that was the topic of PR's first phone conversation with my parents! (I talked to them too, but for some reason he did also.) I had an initial laparoscopy, but a C-section-type incision was needed to repair the cyst, and I was kept in the hospital for several days afterward.

I don't know about the visitor's policy, but it seems like PR never left my side. He was there, with a little stuffed dog, when I was coming out of the anesthesia and could barely talk or lift a hand to open the present. He was there for so much of the next two days that I began to worry about his finals! He told me that one prof had told him he didn't need to take the final; he'd just give him the grade he was getting without it. "The same kind of thing happened to me and my wife, when we were dating, and it really accelerated our relationship," the elderly, eminent, compassionate professor told PR.

And that's exactly what this hospitalization did for us. PR felt he had come pretty close to losing me, if it weren't for one smart nurse and modern surgery, and he was filled with a love that was more possessive and protective than he had ever felt before. I observed how much PR sacrificed to stay with me at the hospital, sensed how deep his feelings were for me--and my heart responded. It wasn't long after that that we began to talk about getting married.

(My parents drove out from Ohio to take me straight home, while PR and my friends all had final exams. I took one of my finals over Christmas break on the honor system, another in January when we returned for the second semester, was forgiven one--the professor gave me the grade I was getting--and the due date on one final, a paper, was extended. PR managed to pass all his despite the big distraction.)

After spending Christmas break with his parents and brother in New York, PR flew to Ohio to meet my family and drive with us out to Illinois for the second semester of our junior year. In March, we both drove to New York to spend Spring Break with his family. In April, we were seriously talking about engagement, and I figured he would talk to my dad when we went there for Easter break. Call us old-fashioned, but neither of us thought for a moment about getting engaged without my father's blessing!

So I was not the least bit suspicious when on Thursday before Palm Sunday, he told me he had plans to go into Chicago on Friday night with a friend. They were leaving around 4 to go to dinner and a late-night jazz club, he said, and they wouldn't be back till really late. He'd sleep in on Saturday and call me when he woke up.

Late Saturday morning he called to suggest that we meet at the dining hall for lunch, where he told me all about his late, late night in Chicago, with many details about the jazz club and a fitness club in a downtown hotel that they went to afterwards with a friend of his friend. An old man chain-smoking cigars in the sauna was one of the more memorable details, I recall.

On Sunday morning, we went to an early Palm Sunday service, which meant we had about a half hour to kill before the dining hall opened for lunch. PR suggested we walk on the front lawn of Blanchard Hall, one of the most picturesque sites on campus, in view of "the Tower" which is used as one of the college's logos. Eventually he steered us to the stairway and porch at the bottom of the Tower, where we stopped and looked out at the view. It was a gorgeous morning.

"I have a confession to make," he announced, and my fellow Wheaties and Pledge-signers will laugh when they hear this, but my first thought was: He broke the Pledge while he was in Chicago on Friday night. (It seems like everyone did at least once.) I said nothing, however; I just turned blue eyes upon him and waited.

"I wasn't in Chicago on Friday night," he admitted.

That didn't compute.

"Actually, Jon and I drove to Ohio on Friday night, so that I could talk to your dad."

This information didn't sink in either.

He sank down on one knee, at the foot of the Tower which couples climb to ring bells and announce engagements, and asked, "Dear, will you marry me?"

My brain still seemed to be frozen with too many questions, like my laptop when I hit too many buttons in a row. But that query took priority above other tasks--and I was able to answer enthusiastically, "Yes!"

We kissed and he gave me a ring, which he had purchased over the phone from his jeweler uncle. It was a "starter ring" by anyone's standards, but I thought it was beautiful in its very petiteness. I loved the way the band fit together with the stone. I couldn't wait to wear both!

However, even an engagement ring couldn't quite unfreeze my brain. It was stuck, the little icon spinning madly, trying to replace one "truth" with another truth. "Okay...so...tell me...what happened? All that stuff that you told me about--the guy with the cigar--you made up all of that?"

"Yes! I'm so sorry...but I figured it was the only way to surprise you. Actually we drove straight to Ohio. On the way, we had trouble with the muffler of Jon's Volvo station wagon, so when we got there, about 10:00, the first thing we did was pull up in to the carport so we could see to wire the muffler part that was loose into place. Your dad helped us. What a great way start, I thought.

"We went inside and your mom served us some cake. Then Jon and your mom played Score Four in the kitchen, and your dad and I went into the living room."

"Did you close the pocket doors?" I asked, trying to imagine it all.

"Yes," he chuckled. "We talked...and then we left around midnight. We got back just before six on Saturday morning, so when you met me for lunch, I had only had a few hours of sleep. Oh, and your mom sent you a piece of cake--it's still in Jon's car."

That was what unfroze the spinning little icon in my brain's computer. Suddenly all programs shifted into normal again as my brain accepted the new reality. The muffler, the pocket doors, Score Four...these were convincing details, but if there was a piece of cake, here in Illinois, from my mother--that clinched it.

We headed eagerly to the dining hall to show my ring to all our friends and announce the news!

Stay tuned for Part Five....

Love Story Part Two--And as Promised, My Most Embarrassing Moment

Part One

So we're both back on campus at the beginning of our junior year. Papa Rooster has decided No More Girls for him. I am determined to play the field and get to know all the boys I couldn't while I was tied up with Mr. Pre-Law. There is a square dance on campus on Saturday night.

I should mention that at Wheaton in the 80's and before, dancing on campus was not allowed. Unless it was performance dancing like ballet or folk dancing like square dancing--the only official exceptions. So this was as close to a "dance" dance as we got without breaking The Pledge that we had all signed, agreeing to abide by the campus rules.

My girlfriend and I decide to coordinate a group date. "Let's ask PR and Mr. A to get a group of guys together," my friend suggested. "They know everybody." By now they were no longer freshman class president and veep, of course. As a junior, PR was now VP of the Student Body and a BMOC (Big Man on Campus). Mr. A's foray into campus politics was a distant freshman memory, but they were still close--roommates, in fact, in a very cool off-campus house. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

"Let's ask PR and Mr. A," my friend suggested.

"Great idea," I responded eagerly. "But I don't know them that well--will you ask them?"

She agreed, we separated, I went to CPO to check my mailbox--and ran right into PR. So I decided to go ahead and pose the question myself.

"Hey, what are you and Mr. A doing on Saturday night? Deb and I want to get a group of junior guys and girls together to go to the square dance. Are you going?"

He told me he wished they could go with us, but they had tickets to Second City's comedy show in downtown Chicago. Disappointed, I didn't think much more about our conversation, but the encounter was full of meaning to him. Hey, he thought, she must not be dating Mr. Pre-Law anymore....

Sunday afternoon, the day after the square dance, I was in my Williston dorm room relaxing with my two roommates when the phone rang. It was for me. "Hi, this is ____," the male voice began.

I couldn't think who ____ could be. I knew several _____s back home in Ohio, but at that moment I could only think of one guy with that name on campus, and I was a little surprised he was calling me. True, we had just gone to a movie together, but it hadn't been a date; we had just ended up walking in late together. We had talked for a little while afterward, but I hadn't picked up on any signs of interest. Still, that must be who this was?

The male voice cut across my mental gropings. "I was just wondering if you'd like to meet me at the Stupe tonight." The Stupe was the campus ice cream/coffee/sandwich shop where many a first date took place.

"Oh! Sure!" I responded.

"About 7 all right?"

"Okay," I agreed. (But WHO was I meeting??)

"So how was the square dance? Did you get a group together?"

(How does he know about the square dance? I never mentioned the square dance....)

"Oh, it was fine! Yeah...a group...We ended up going with my brother and some of his friends. They were all freshman, but we had a fun time."

"Oh, you have a brother who's a freshman? My brother is a freshman this year too!"

(No, he isn't! You told me your brother was still in high school. Who IS this??) "Oh, really?"

I decided to float a trial balloon. "So, are you all moved out of McManis yet?" (McManis was a guy's dorm on campus.)

There was a pause. Now the male voice sounded confused. "Nooooo," it said slowly, "I'm living off campus this semester."

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" I apologized. (What do I say now? Better be honest.)

"I'm sorry, but who is this again?" I asked, wincing and hoping it carried through in my voice.

On the other end, Papa Rooster says he let his head fall back and hit the wall. What a ditz, he thought. She's as bad as all the others!

"This is _____ ______," he said patiently. "Who did you think it was?"

"Oh!" I exclaimed. (Papa Rooster! Oh, my! He just asked me out! I was so flattered. Why didn't I think of him before? I guess because we had barely ever spoken. And now what does he think of me?)

I responded with the full name of the other boy with the same first name. "I just went to a movie with him last weekend," I babbled, "but I've never heard his voice on the phone before...or yours, either...."

"Well, do you still want to go to the Stupe with me?" PR asked, with something like--incredulity?--in his voice.

"Oh, yes!" I responded eagerly. "Even more so!"

That was what saved me. "Even more so!"

He liked that.

Stay tuned for Part the Third...

October Love Stories

Mary at Owlhaven, inspired by my friend Megan at Fried Okra, is telling the story of how she and her husband met and fell in love--in installments. She's encouraging others to join her, and Jenni at One Thing is doing so, hilariously--which totally inspired me to join in. I've thought about telling this tale before...so it's time!

Part the First

Papa Rooster and I think that the first time we met was at church. We were both freshmen at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, and it was one of the first weekends we were there. Wheaton Bible Church had advertised a Sunday School class for college students that sounded really great--and was--and many of us were checking it out. I have a vague memory of meeting PR and his group of friends in the doughnut line in a basement Sunday School room.

It seemed like I always knew who he was, though, because his picture was plastered all over campus for the first few weeks we were there. I'm serious! He was running for freshman class president, and the running mate he picked was none other than Mr. A--the same fellow with whom he is now in a ministry partnership at our church! Who'da thunk it back in 1983??

Anyway, he and Mr. A were a sharp pair. PR had grown up in New York, near the city, and had a certain East Coast polish to him--I would later learn that he had played lead roles in musicals in high school and had considered going into theater at Wheaton, but he changed his goal to getting involved in Student Government and becoming freshman class president. Mr. A was a farm boy from Nebraska--a full Swede (while PR is half Norwegian). He was a character by anyone's measure, full of colorful exclamations like "Shoot the dog" and "Holy buckets!" He was smart, funny and likable; PR was serious, confident and outgoing. They were a great team, and they looked so cute in the picture on their campaign posters--a Miami Vice pose in the Edman chapel doorway, their hair parted in the middle and feathered back in the 80's style. ("That's when I had hair to part," PR always says when he sees that picture.)

And just for your viewing pleasure, what have we here??


(I know the guy on the left looks like he could be one of our children, so I better say that Papa Rooster is the one with the tie!)

Meanwhile, PR knew who I was from a picture too, although I had no idea of that fact.

Every fall Wheaton put out a publication with all the freshman's pictures in it called "Who's New" (also referred to in the guys' dorms as "Who's Next").


PR, like all the freshmen guys on his floor--and most of the sophomores too--had put in his time with Who's New and had picked out two girls he really wanted to ask out. Yep, I was one.

(Can you pick me out?)

(Hint: I'm not in the second row. And I look like I could be one of my children.)

(Answer: I'm in the center of the top row.)

However, a smart sophomore guy beat him to it and managed to tie me up for the next 18 months! That gave Papa Rooster plenty of time to take out all the girls that caught his fancy, but none seemed quite right for him. By the time he ended up his sophomore year, he was done with Wheaton girls.

It took me most of sophomore year to lose the lawyer, a really great guy that didn't dump easily, though I kept trying and changing my mind. (He is our attorney to this day. Estate planning needs, anyone?) That summer, back home in Ohio, I hung out with an overly self-confident local boy studying to be a doctor--but only because I was in love with his baby blue MG Midget convertible. And he liked to take me out to nice places for dinner, too.

It was a superficial relationship that was memorable for the one great quote I got out of it. Back at my house at the end of our third or fourth date, he noticed my salutatorian's trophy on the shelf. (In those days there was only one per graduating class.) (Just sayin'.)

"Wow," he said. "When I first asked you out, I thought you were just an attractive girl. Then I was pleasantly surprised to discover you were a good conversationalist and fun to be with. And now I find out you're smart, too! I got more than I bargained for!"

I had no idea how to BEGIN to take that. It was about the cockiest, most insulting series of compliments I'd ever received!

But I sure enjoyed the rides...


Only Baby Blue was much more dreamy.

So. Fall of our junior year. Papa Rooster was So Done with Wheaton girls, and I couldn't wait to date all the cutest, humblest guys I knew at Wheaton. Enter God.

Okay--that's a bit dramatic. But it was a strange circumstance that led to our first contact--and my most embarrassing moment EVER.

Stay tuned for Part Two!