You can feel it in the air. It’s palpable when you’re in the mix of people, outdoors, interacting. At the beach. In parks. At celebrations.
Our God-designed, image-bearing, relational selves are reawakening after a long draught of imposed isolation and it is enlivening. Literally. Statistically, this past year-and-a-half has taken a toll on us far beyond the scope of the virus itself. In fact, the collateral damage seemingly far outpaces the Covid damage, when mental health, relational breakdowns, abuses of all kinds (from spousal and child abuse to substances and addictions), financial ruin, academic setbacks, emerging addictions related to technology, etc., are tallied.
Prayerfully, the worst is behind us and we can begin rebuilding with hopefully more wisdom and awareness of what really counts.
We’ve delighted in connecting with many dear friends over the past month since our Kauai reunion.
The wedding of Robert and Abbey Kovacs was one of the highlights. Robert’s grandparents were at our wedding, and his mother (and her five siblings) were raised at family camp. His parents brought their family of six to family camp and eventually Robert became one of our “hall of fame” program staff. Humility and hard work would describe Robert’s spiritual journey well and he was a bar-setter on staff. It was joyous news when he announced to us that he had met Abbey, a young woman with a heart for the Lord and for him. So it was our joy to celebrate their nuptials on May 27 in a beautiful mountain town outside of Chico, California. They are now settled in St. Louis, Missouri, pursuing a ministry internship.
In a world in which so much isn’t going very well, it is beyond exhilarating to witness something so good.
All praise is His!!
The happy couple stands with another happy couple.
Robert’s grandparents, Joy and Allan Hildebrandt, are to the left of Robert, and his parents, Andrea and Cameron Kovacs, are to their left. More siblings on the right. Such a fun reunion of beloved friends for decades.
Following the wedding, we spent a day in Oakland with the Garcias to celebrate Kari’s birthday and had a few lively “Farkle” matches. We love sinking a little more deeply into their life in Oakland each time we visit. Seeing the mural Brandon helped paint over spring break was also a treat. A local Oakland artist, Fernando “the Beast,” invited Brandon to join him on this project which protects empty wall space from being tagged by gangs, and Brandon’s love for art found great satisfaction getting to be involved in this.
A lively game of “Farkle” brings smiles . . . at least for the photo. :)
Brandon spent three full days of his spring break working on this mural with Fernando, a local Oakland artist, and loved every minute of it.
From Oakland, we flew to DC to get our car, which we had driven down at the beginning of May for the IBC conference, prior to Kauai. We got to experience the incredible—if not also freaky—phenomenon of the 17-year-cicada cycle. They are loud. They are creepy. They are prolific.
But they’re also miraculous. Creator God never ceases to amaze us.
This photo of the cicadas was taken at the base of a tree in the Johnson’s front year. Yikes!!
Papa is always “up” for getting “down” on the floor with the Littles
We didn’t stay long at the Johnsons, but did have time to play a few games, read a few books, take a few walks (while trying to avoid crunching cicadas under our feet), and eat a few meals—and then we headed out.
On our drive home, we had the privilege of stopping at the home of Reuben and Mary Stolztfus, a delightful Christian Amish couple we had met in Kona. They have been working with YWAM’s food service at University of the Nations the past couple of years and had heard us teach on relationships at Living Stones Church back in February. They asked us to consider doing a conference for “their people” in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to speak about this very important subject, and invited us to stop by their home in Bird-in-Hand if we were ever in the area. This trip north provided the perfect opportunity. We had great fellowship over lunch, in their home, talking about the challenges that face the Amish community, especially in their area, and are in the formative stages of seeing if we might be able to serve them in some way over the next couple of years.
We are thrilled at the thought of that happening. Pray with us that the details will come together should this be God’s will.
Reuben and Mary Stoltzfus extended typical Amish hospitality to us. What an honor!!
Continuing north, we had a brief visit with our “salt of the earth” friends, Bill and Jo-Anne Shore. How we love any time with them!! Their devotion to the Lord and to each other is inspiring.
Everyone should be so fortunate to have Bill and Jo-Anne Shore in their lives!!
The following weeks were full of people-beauty and nature-beauty. We spend as much time as we can outside, drinking in the beauty of creation and breathing the fresh air. We spent an afternoon and evening in Plymouth with my cousin’s son and daughter-in-law, Jamie and Brittany, who also partner with us doing sound for our H.I.M. marriage conferences. It was great to catch up with them.
The rhododendrons are show stopping in our area . . .
. . .as are the peonies. Is there a sweeter flower?
Jamie and Brittany hosted us for dinner in Plymouth and we loved catching up with them.
We four women have been getting together for over a quarter of a century now. Mom to Mom brought us together in 1995, and friendship has kept us together since. This was a birthday celebration for Patty.
Besides all the fun with friends, we’ve done a ton of counseling (still largely by Zoom). We were honored to partner with Hope Christian Church in Winchester, Massachusetts, for a marriage conference June 11–12. We’ve long appreciated the gospel-centricity of this vital church and are so very thankful for their commitment to the integrity of scripture. The conference was “sold out” and we were delighted to have in attendance many people we’ve known for years and who are very dear to us. We felt it was a very powerful weekend, and that sense was affirmed by this email we received from one of the leaders of the church:
“I just wanted to say how blessed we were personally by the content of the sessions but also the incredible manner in which you taught together. I know this wasn’t your first rodeo but I still feel compelled to praise God for you both. Like most ministries, yours is not to know exactly how God uses you in ALL the lives of those in attendance at your conferences, but I want to thank you for the impact you had even on a couple who will shortly celebrate their 40th together. We could have used some of your teaching in past years, but we still learned so much or were simply reminded of the beauty and elegance of God’s design for marriage which can so easily be taken for granted. What an amazing God we have! And how challenging it is to take something perfectly designed for Eden and live it out as two fallen individuals. I for one am leaning more into how to “love” my wife even better. Equally, I am quite sure everyone in attendance is being at least a little more present to how to live out a Christian marriage well!”
All praise is His!!
Joel and Melissa Jocelyn are dear Haitian friends we’ve journeyed with for years now. We were delighted that they came to the conference!
Steve and Merri Brown, family pastor at Hope, arranged the weekend and were very pleased with it.
More celebrations have filled these days, including a number of graduation parties!! We celebrated with the Pomphretts and the Ploskers on the 13th; two families with whom we’ve had decades of relationships. How very encouraging to see these now high school graduates with their hearts set on honoring Christ with their lives.
The Pomphrett family on the far right, the Martis family in the middle . . . so thankful for friends who span decades.
We headed back to California on June 17th for a business meeting as the justification for celebrating Micah’s 5th birthday. :) We love to combine business and pleasure! And that we did.
It’s so hard to believe that Micah’s birth day, June 19th, 2016, happened at the start of our last summer of running family camps at CBS (which was unbeknownst to us at that point). As hard as it was not to be on the pier as family camp 1 arrived that summer, one of our principles we’ve tried to live by is “Add 10 years to today and look back, asking the question ‘What will I most regret missing?’” How thankful I am that I chose to be with Kari and Gabe to welcome this precious 10#8oz boy into the world!
And now he’s 5. All boy, full of energy, eager to discover and examine everything, tough and tender—we celebrated him with thankful hearts for his life.
Tucked into the weekend was an event for New City Church (NCC), which we were so thrilled to be able to support in person! The “pop-up popcorn give-away” was well-trafficked and some great conversations were had. We loved meeting “their people” whom we’ve been hearing about. God is clearly doing some very exciting things already through NCC.
We managed a beach day at Alameda Bay on a very hot summer day, June 18.
A trip to the Oakland Zoo was another very fun activity.
Micah was exuberant about every bit of his celebration, from morning ’til night.
The “NCC Pop-up Popcorn Giveaway” exposed new people to this new church plant.
Our business meeting was in Granite Bay, where we met up with some church leaders to discuss upcoming potential partnerships. The highlight was spending the morning at “Breakaway,” Bayside Church’s vacation Bible school (on steroids). Leslie Johnston is the director of the incredibly high-energy, extremely well-done program that reaches thousands of kids on all the Bayside campuses. We were very impressed with this gospel-centered outreach.
Leslie, Carol, and RJ Johnston hosted our visit to Breakaway.
We were back home in time to welcome longtime friends, the Hazlebecks, to Boston. Our history together began at CBS family camps over 20 years ago and has spread to our partnership in Kauai. Adding to our bondedness is our common love for the Boston Red Sox, so it was an easy “Yes” to their invitation to join them for a Sox-Yankees game at Fenway. Such die-hard fans they are, Baby David (not quite 3 months old) attended his first Red Sox game, wearing not just a custom-design Sox onesie, but also noise canceling headphones for protection.
We had a blast to be at the middle game of a 3-game sweep.
We had the Hazlebecks to our home for dinner the next night and then spent all day with them on the 29th, eating lobster rolls and playing on beaches. What fun to share our love for this beautiful area with such dear friends.
It was a great night for baseball at Fenway Park!!
The Hazlebeck crew flew all the way from California to visit this iconic park, which hosts their favorite team. This is a post-game photo and our smiles indicate the score.
Dinner at our home, celebrating our friendship.
Lobster rolls on at Good Harbor Beach on a very beach-worthy day (95 degrees). The water was truly refreshing.
The parade of beloved friends continued with a dinner out with Matt and Christen Buman, who Paul married 18 years ago. They were in town from Arizona and we were so blessed to get to catch up with them. Their hearts for the Lord, for each other, for their kids, and for their call are strong and fruit-producing.
Matt and Christen Buman honored us with a three-hour reconnecting-over-dinner evening.
And then there are friends who span over 4 decades. Helen (Belden) Challener served at CBS in 1978 and 1980 and we’ve been “chosen sisters” ever since. I was in her and Bill’s wedding in 1982 and through many years, job changes, raising children, and the thick and thin of life, our friendship has just grown stronger and deeper. So when the invitation came to visit them in their Glenville, NY, home this past weekend, after a long 20 months of not seeing one another, we eagerly accepted and spent three delightful days with them. Rain hampered some plans, but not our spirits, and we made the most of our time together. We did manage a few hikes between rain drops, as well as a few visits to thrift stores, yard sales, rose gardens, and friends. Great meals and lots of talking filled in the blanks and we left Saturday night with hearts full of joy and gratitude. There’s nothing like friends who know you well and still love you.
Our 5-mile hike with Bill and Helen along the Mohawk River was so much fun.
Home in time for the 4th of July, ours was low-key due to the rainy weather, but we did manage to head up to Gloucester on July 5 for their incredible fireworks display.
We aren’t very good at selfies, especially when trying to time it with an exploding pyrotechnic, but you get the idea!!
Judging by the number of people crowding the streets along Gloucester Harbor, it was palpably evident that people just want to celebrate. We’re all pretty tired and weary of bad news, negative narratives, shaming, hypocrisy, manipulative agendas, confusion, mistrust, fear mongering, blaming, and amplification of evil. Obviously it’s true that much is broken. That’s the reality of sin and the ongoing work of the enemy who “prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Peter 5:7).
But our hope has never been nor should ever be in government or humanity. Our hope is in Jesus. He is the only true, sustainable solution to what ails all of us.
I love G. K. Chesterton’s response to “What’s the problem in the world?”
“I am,” he claimed.
Wouldn’t we all be a bit closer to living in harmony if we would claim Chesterton’s response and do our part to be a part of the solution?
May God help us to that end so we can doing more celebrating than crying.
Nature celebrates His glory every day.
Don’t miss it!!