33 Years

June 25, 1977

Today is my parents' anniversary. They first met when they were 17 years old. Actually, scratch that, they first met when they were babies. I'm not sure of the exact details of that very first meeting over 50 years ago, but I know that my mom's parents started a church in the Indianapolis area and my dad's parents lived close to Indianapolis and I think the church my dad's parents went to, sent money to my mom's parents to help with their church. Anyway, at some point when they were both around 6 months old, my mom and her family had a meal with my dad and his family. I don't think there are any pictures around to verify this, just stories from both sets of grandparents.

But back to those 2 17 year olds. (They're only a month apart in age.) My mom's parents ended up going to Sao Paulo, Brazil as missionaries and lived there for about 30 years, coming home every few years for a break and to visit churches that helped them out financially. They were coming back to the States and making their way around the country to various churches, one of which was the church where my dad and his family went. I think the story goes that the boys in the youth group would check out the "Missionary Wall" at the church and look at the missionary's family picture to find cute girls. (Typical teenage boys.) My dad saw my mom's family picture and immediately staked his claim on her, telling the rest of the youth group she was his and they weren't allowed to talk to her.

The first night that my mom's family was in town, my dad's mom sent my dad over to the pastor's home with dinner for everyone. My dad was introduced to my mom in the living room of the pastor's home. During that same meeting my dad invited my mom to attend a youth social (that he had set-up, solely for the purpose of having a place to invite my mom). My mom's parents said she could go, but her brother (who was a couple of years younger) would have to come with them. haha So the next evening, my dad picked up my mom and her brother and they went to play volleyball with the youth group.

I think there were a variety of activities "planned" that week in order for my dad to spend as much time with my mom as he could. Towards the end of the week, they were finally allowed to go places without a chaperone, though I think my dad and my uncle became pretty good friends that week too. My parents exchanged addresses and promised to write to each other.

As it turns out, my mom was also writing to another guy at the time. It seems like I remember at one point during her correspondance with both guys, the other guy sent a dumb letter and my dad sent a really sweet letter at the same time, so she dumped the other guy and focused exclusively on my dad. Good thing he's a good writer!

That fall, my mom was enrolled in a California high school for her senior year (all of her grandparents lived out there so she lived with them during this time). As it turns out, she ended up qualifying for early graduation in December (which no one at all understands, if you knew her school record from her years of schooling in Brazil, she maybe had 9 full years of school under her belt before reaching her senior year. But my mom is smart, so her lack of school years didn't really matter.) During all of this time, my parents were corresponding and had talked many times about getting married. My dad sent my mom a silver, heart-shaped locket as a graduation present (which, incidentally, I wore when I got married).

After my dad graduated from high school, both of my parents decided to go to college in Dallas. There was a small seminary there that my mom's dad was familiar with and he was living in Brazil at the time so he wanted her somewhere he could trust. My dad decided he would go there with her, though he had no intention of being a pastor or anything in the ministry. His plan was to be an accountant. He just pushed it to the back burner for the moment in order to spend time with my mom. At Christmas that year, my parents both went to California where my mom's parents were back in the States for a visit. My dad had bought an engagement ring and ended up proposing to my mom in a parking lot of a grocery store. My grandparents had given their permission for them to get married, but told them they wanted them to wait until they were done with school.

After a couple of months, my mom started writing to her parents begging them to let her go ahead and get married. (They were back in Brazil again by this time.) Finally, one day she got the letter saying she could go ahead and get married. My mom was so excited that she accidentally hit her head on a chair and busted her head open. lol She still has a scar on the bridge of her nose where it happened. (I don't think she needed any stitches...) The sad part about that was that her parents weren't going to be at her wedding. They had just been in the States and weren't going to be able to come back again for the wedding because it was too expensive.

My parents got married at a church in Kentucky where my mom's sister and brother-in-law lived. That brother-in-law gave her away and a pastor my parents knew, performed the ceremony.

As an aside, my mom had always wanted to marry a pastor. She said she used to pray that she would someday (she was crazy. I'm just sayin'.) When my parents got engaged, my dad had not surrendered to preach, so she just figured that was not in God's will for her to be a pastor's wife. 2 months after their engagement and 4 months before their wedding, my dad surrendered to preach. He had been feeling called for awhile, but he wasn't sure if he was pressuring himself because of what my mom had said before or because of some *family pressure but after praying about it for a long time, he realized it was God and not anyone else calling him to the pastorate.

*When my dad's parents had been married for 4 years and still didn't have any kids (they wanted them, God just hadn't given them any yet), a lady in their church told them they needed to have kids. His parents told her they wanted kids, it just hadn't happened yet. So she said she would pray for them to have kids. She told them later that God told her they would have a baby, it would be a boy, and he would be a preacher. My dad grew up hearing that story (though not necessarally feeling pressured by his parents, just the story) and that just compounded his mixed feelings over whether God was calling him, or an old family story was calling him.

After my dad finished his degree (and I was 1 year old, born to them 18 months after their wedding), my parents moved to Indiana where my dad pastored the church he grew up in. Incidentally, the living room where they first met as 17 year olds, was the living room where they raised 5 kids. And one of the women in the church was the woman who had told my grandparents their baby would be a boy and he would be a pastor. I don't think she expected he would one day be her pastor.

June 17, 2010