Wedding Invitation--Our Daughter and Tommy!

A few weeks ago we received a very, very special wedding invitation--from our own daughter Rose and her fiance Tommy.

 

It's hard to believe. At last we have a daughter getting married. 

June 15th is the big day! Before that, there is a bridal shower on April 10th, at our old church, High Plains Fellowship. Hannah is excitedly looking forward to that. Oh, and so am I! Danny is looking forward to traveling down with us and getting to see Sam and sisters and friends again.

I feel so blessed to know Rose has a good mother-in-law, besides a good husband-to-be.  She has been such a good friend to me. Today we were texting back and forth a little about our mother-of-the-bride or mother-of-the-groom dresses.  

I was thinking recently how it almost seems as if the past thirty years have slipped suddenly away since I first went to Ukraine and then got married and started having babies--one after another. Life was so full and so busy and so exhausting. 

But it was so fulfilling, with never a dull moment.

No end of adventure when you got Jonathan and Anna together with a bunch of littles!

Two weeks ago, our pastor at Lakota Chapel asked Jonathan to talk about Ukraine, and give our opinion about what is happening there today. So Jonathan did, and I shared a true story about one of the young students we knew in Ukraine who is still serving God today. It was the story Dima himself told at the IHC convention last year--how he used to hate the woman in Lithuania who took his father away from his mother in Ukraine, how he hated his father and his little half-brother. But then Jesus came into his life with all His glorious love, and all the anger and hatred melted away. When the war came and Dima's family needed a place to escape, it was the used-to-be-hated little brother who messaged Dima, "Send your family to us. We will find places for them!" 

It made me so happy to unpack a nesting doll and use it again, to talk about our beloved Ukraine again. 

Writing my books of stories from my journals and newsletters and life brings back a lot of memories.  I don't know what the future holds, but I am grateful for the blessings the Lord has given us. Jonathan and I plan to fly to Arizona again in a week and a half, for doctor appointment, and cancer treatments. I am so grateful we have happy events like a bridal shower and later a wedding to look forward to after that!