Daughters-in-love

Over the years, Cheryl and I prayed for our kids’ spouses, and we are so happy that God answered our prayers and brought just the right men and women into our family as spouses and life partners for our children.

When Jeremy started school at Mississippi College, Jason had completed his freshman year. I was on staff there, and as I was reviewing the list of incoming freshmen, I was happy to see that the granddaughter of some friends was on that list. Her grandfather was the foreman of the very first team of volunteers who came and worked alongside us in the Tennessee Upper Volta Hunger Project. Over a five-year period we hosted 550 volunteers from Tennessee who all came to work with us for a minimum of 30 days. Many of them quit their jobs so they could come and serve as they were not able to take off from their work for a 30 day period.

This period of our lives was one of the most fruitful and yet one of the hardest. Through projects in the areas of agriculture, literacy, public health and water resource development the Lord led in the beginning of churches in 31 villages in our area of work.

Our friend Reg was retired, and he came out to work with us for the first four months of the project. He had a new crew every 30 days to build the sleeping quarters for the volunteers (concrete slabs with a tin roof with tiny spaces divided by woven elephant grass mats). He came back to Upper Volta the next two years during the dry season to continue to serve as the foreman of construction, and he brought his wife, Annette.  During these times of service alongside our family, Jason, Jeremy and Amanda called them Uncle Reg and Aunt Annette. Interestingly enough, I finished Mississippi College with their daughter, Ann, so we had more family connections.

When Ann and her husband, Charles, showed up at Mississippi College on move-in day, Cheryl and I made it a point to find them so we could meet their daughter, Kelli. We wanted to try to get Jason and Jeremy to meet Ann, Charles and Kelli because Kelli’s grandparents had been such important people in their lives. As one could imagine with 350 new students on campus along with their families, it was hard enough to find someone much less try to get people together for a meeting. We were not successful in trying to make the introductions and settled for the fact that we would have another opportunity to meet Kelli at another time.

We lived less than a block from the high school and only five minutes from the college campus, so we were accustomed to having kids in and out of the house every day. So it was not unusual when Jason told us that he was bringing a new friend to our home. Cheryl asked him her name, and he said Kelli. It did not cross our minds that this was the same Kelli that we were trying to get the boys to meet a few weeks before. It was only when we met Kelli that we made the connection with her mother and her grandparents.

When Jason and Kelli became interested in each other, Kimberly Magee was already a good friend of Kelli’s. Kelli asked Kimberly to go the tennis courts to watch Jason and some other guys play tennis because Kelli did not want to go there alone. It was at this tennis outing that Kimberly and Jeremy first met.

I will never forget Kimberly’s first visit to our home in Clinton. As stated earlier, kids were in and out of our house every day. However, early one evening I was sitting in my chair in the den and suddenly, a young lady was standing over me asking, “Is it OK for me to sit in your lap? I miss my daddy so much.” What could I say!? Kimberly stole my heart at that moment.

Kimberly and Jeremy became more interested in each other later in their freshman year, and they started dating. They broke up during their sophomore year, and in the spring semester Kimberly went to London in the study abroad program. Although she and Jeremy did not communicate during that semester, Kimberly and I continued to exchange emails. Soon afterwards they were dating once again, and I was happy.

The Lord called us back to overseas service, and we moved to Kandern, Germany in June, 1994. In the fall we started making Christmas plans for our family. Jason and Kelli, who were engaged by this time, and Jeremy were making plans to come to Kandern for the holidays. Cheryl and I decided to invite Kimberly, also. We wanted to share this time together with Kimberly also—even though she and Jeremy were not dating at the time of the invitation. By the time the holidays came, they were once again dating!

We had a memorable time together celebrating Christmas in a tiny German village called Kandern, traveling in Germany, France and Switzerland and having a great ski trip in the French Alps.

After another couple of years of dating Jeremy and Kimberly were married.

For many years I have been calling my daughters-in-law “daughters-in-love” because I fell in love with them early on.

This is a sad season for Cheryl and me. For a couple of years we had planned to celebrate the week of Thanksgiving with ALL of our family—there are 26 of us now. This took some planning and preparation to arrange the schedules of our busy kids and grandkids to have fun time together at Grey Wolfe Lodge. Unfortunately, that was all cancelled weeks ago. Our family celebrating Christmas together will be postponed as COVID-19 continues to reignite.

In my understanding of the Bible, God ordained two things: the church and the family. Since the beginning of time blood relatives have organized themselves into tribes, clans, and families. Families are the strength of a society. Everyone needs family, and if they don’t find it with their own blood relatives, then they will go elsewhere to love and be loved. I do not understand why people don’t spend more time celebrating family. It seems that we get busy and forget our priorities. I believe that it is not so much the quantity of time spent with family, but the quality of time with our loved ones that is most important.

Make the most of time with your family. You will never say that was wasted time.