Oh, wow! Where did the years go? Seventy-seven!

I took this picture early one rainy morning last summer when we had the TFC chapel at a Virginia steam show. You are talking to our son Jeff on the phone.

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I remember when we dreamed of growing old together – and here we are.

When we met in 1961 we knew very little about each other. You were new to our neighborhood. I didn’t even know how to spell your name. On our first date, I wrote in my diary that I had a date with Kervin Hi. 🙂

By the time we married in 1963, I knew that you would be my rock. The one who would keep me balanced when I was worried or about to make a silly decision.

We barely had two nickels to rub together, so renting a house for $55.00 a month fit our budget.

You dreamed of driving a big rig and I dreamed of being a mother. We thought four children would be nice. Maybe two boys and two girls.

Sometime during the year of 1965 we began dreaming about buying or building our own house. One day you came home from work with a great idea for buying land for our dream house.

“I wonder if your parents would be interested in selling a one-acre plot off the woodlot?” I loved that idea.

Long story short – my parents were delighted to sell it to us, for several reasons: we would live close to them (about a quarter mile); Daddy was planning a new milking parlor (so the money would be nice); and the woodlot had become a briary, tangled mess after they had sold some trees to a logger several years earlier. They liked the idea of seeing a house in the woods with a nice yard. Family and friends thought the briary mess looked like a huge undertaking.

By January 1, 1966, we fulfilled half of our “children dream” when Diane was born (Jeff was eighteen months old) and you had recently begun your dream of driving a big rig when you were hired by Myer’s Metered Gas (Ferrellgas today). You retired from there forty years later.

It was fifty-one years ago that we began construction on our house and in late 1967 moved in with half of our dream family. What fun to have our own place.

Sometime in the late ’60s there was an event that changed our lives – we were introduced to the ministry of Transport For Christ. I loved what the ministry did for you in expanding your faith and challenging you to share it in the workplace. Even now we sometimes hear from drivers of that era who tell you that your deep, calm faith was an encouragement to them as you talked in restaurants or over the CB.

Our dream of two boys and two girls was filled during the summer of 1974 when Deb was born. Jere was almost five by then. Jeff would soon turn ten, and Diane was eight-and-a-half.

1974 was a painful year for me because my mother had died suddenly that March. It almost felt like our dreams were put on hold. I missed her incredibly and was sad that she would not see our new baby or watch our children grow up.

However, that also became a year when we determined that Mom would not want us to be discouraged, but to keep serving God with joy – in the way she lived and taught us.

We could never have dreamed back then – in 1974 – how Transport For Christ would affect our lives and challenge and fulfill our ministry dreams.

We could never have dreamed that because of TFC we would eventually travel through every state in the lower forty-eight – going to conferences and delivering chapels – and five Canadian provinces.

We could never have dreamed that we would travel to Phoenix, Arizona, where I was asked to teach a five-morning Bible study at our Annual Church Conference or that I would be challenged to teach a variety of Lady’s Bible studies throughout the years.

We could never have dreamed that we would spend a week (for three summers) teaching Bible school to First Nations children on the island of Pikangikum in Northwestern Ontario. With a team of sixteen from church. I love flying in mission planes.

We could never, ever, have dreamed back then that by the time we had grown old together, we would climb a pyramid in Mexico, travel in a dugout canoe in a southern jungle of Colombia, walk with grizzly bears in Katmai, Alaska, step into the water where our Church of the Brethren ancestors were baptized in Schwartzenau, Germany, walk on the Swiss Alps, or see “The Big Five” in South Africa!

I’m grateful that God has allowed us to grow old together.

I love doing life with you.

Let’s keep dreaming. Who knows what else God will allow us to do.

I love you!