At the beginning of this month, Eric and I had the great privilege of heading west to San Diego to celebrate the marriage of these dear friends:
Jon Bonker was one of the best men in our wedding (Eric had two. So did Jon. So did Brian).
Katie and the best men
He is like a brother to Eric and I am SO grateful to God for his faithful provision of this man who sharpens my husband and encourages him towards grace and godliness.
Up until now, Jon has been our only teammate for South Asia. He had been there already for two years this past summer, when this wonderful young lady contacted MTW about joining the work there and eventually got in touch with Jon. That was August. I’ve had the amazing privilege of getting to know this amazing woman of God over the last several months via phone, and “watching” these two fall in love (as much as you can watch two people in Asia and California from Florida). Seeing the Lord work in their relationship these last 5 months and bring them to their wedding day on January 7th was such a blessing to me, reminding me in many ways of God’s provision and grace and kindness to his children. Besides the obvious blessing that they are to each other (if you could only see the in-love-ness of these two!), I am grateful beyond words for the provision of Katie in my life. Not only has the Lord used her to encourage and bless and challenge me in the few short months since we became friends, but I am over the moon that the Lord has provided another woman for our team, a friend and sister to labor with when we are on the mission field. What a tremendous gift!
So here’s our new team picture (we’ve grown by 33%!):
The other incredible blessing of the wedding was being with so many dear friends from college:
The wonderful Bonker family:
Me and my only best man:
It was such fun to be in a wedding together again!
All the goofy guys doing their thing to the car:
Krisha also posted on their blog with some great photos and some amazing marriage quotes to chew on. You can see those here.
You can also see a slideshow of really great photos from the wedding here.
Eric and I stayed in San Diego for an extra day and a half to have some much-needed time together. We had an absolutely fabulous time. We enjoyed old-town San Diego, riding the trolleys around to see the city and harbor, some great food, and sunset over the pacific from the cliffs.
We watched the sun go from this:
to this:
to this:
Absolutely glorious!
We are so grateful to have been able to celebrate our dear friends’ marriage, be with several other dear friends, and also celebrate our own with some special time with just the two of us. God is so good. We are also incredibly thankful to our friends Greg and Christie who stayed here with the girls and loved on them so well while we were gone. Kimberly and Danny also helped out by caring for them during the daytime a few of the days. We are so blessed and grateful, because we really could not have gotten away without their sweet service to us. What a gift this was!
So thankful!
In August, on our way home to FL, we spent a few days with our dear friends Timothy and Stacy at their family’s lakehouse. Oh my goodness, it was a precious time!
A highlight, and a first for the girls, was going out in a boat
And another incredibly fun first was going tubing behind the boat:
(Noa loved having the control to say, “go faster” with a simple thumbs up)
We also had a great time swimming in the lake and the pool:
and the hottub:
We LOVED the time to just relax and enjoy our friendship with this precious family. We are always so blessed by their love for us and our kids, and so thankful for all they did to make it such a refreshing and fun time for us.
We love you, Timothy and Stacy and Ava-Grace (who was with us at the lake in-utero and now is in her mommy and daddy’s arms!), and are so grateful for our special weekend at the lake with you guys!
On one of several trips between VA and PA this summer, we met up with Greg and Christie, some of our close friends from seminary, in Washington D.C. where they were living for the summer. It was such a special evening together!
They treated us to Ethiopian food. It was our first experience and we loved it (well, we adults did… the kids thought it was a little spicy).
Then, we saw some of the sites. The girls were most excited to see “President Obama’s house!”
I don’t think it was as exciting as they anticipated…
it was more fun just being with our special friends
Our fun day also included navigating the streets of DC desperate for gas, and a late-night ice-cream run. We’re so grateful for such amazing friends and special memories shared. And of course that the girls finally got to see D.C.
(G&C, next year we’ll make a whole day of it, ok??) 
One of the best experiences of my life was living in SHILOH my junior and senior years of college. For some reason it was popular to name houses at JMU, so several of my friends and I found a huge house, named it Shiloh, and called it home.
We named it Shiloh because it means “peace” and lots of cool things happened there in the Old Testament. Our house verse was:
The LORD continued to appear at Shiloh, and there he revealed himself to Samuel through his word. I Samuel 3:20-21
We had another house verse, Judges 21:20-23 (you’ll have to look it up yourself), but when Eric started learning to translate hebrew in the Bible last year, we discovered it didn’t have the romantic/hilarious/seven-brides-for-seven-brothers connotation we thought it did when we were in college.
ANYWAY, all that to say, living in Shiloh with 11 other amazing women was one of those life experiences I will be forever grateful for. What a sweet time it was!
Since I gratuated 6 years ago, we’ve had 2 reunions (not including weddings and other informal get-togethers here and there) where almost everyone made it. I love that when we get together we revert back to life in Shiloh, eating out favorite girly (snacky) foods, spending hours on end talking about the most random things, and laughing hysterically for much of the time.
This year an idea for a baby shower for several expextant Shiloh mamas turned into a shower and a generous housemate flew me and Glo up to Virginia so we wouldn’t miss it.
sittin' around yacking... what we always do!
And don’t you think it’s fun that my roomie the first year in Shiloh, became my sister-in-law the next year??
Benjamin and Glo - real life cousins and shiloh cousins - on our way to VA
And my second year living there my little sister was my roomie! I love that I get to see her at just about every reunion I go to.
Sweet Jacky boy, the other resident Shiloh baby at the reunion. SO FUN to see my Janner as a Mama.
The showering part of the reunion. I was so blessed to be included with these other expectant mommies. Shiloh has 6 new babies this year!
(Ok, so I took a lot of photos of the babies, who, by the way, were a huge reminder that we’re not in college anymore. But still, SO special to have them there!)
Glo and her favorite part of the reunion: Big Baker Bass
I am missing a bunch of pictures, but you get the idea. It was awesome! I’m so glad I got to be a Shiloh girl. Since I don’t have a group picture from this reunion, here an oldie from the last one…
*Also, last time I heard, Shiloh conitnues to be home to awesome girls at JMU, who I’m sure, also love being Shiloh girls. Hopefully it will still be there in 2024 when the first batch of the next generation go to JMU. I can see Noa, Phoebe, and Trinity now…
My FAVORITE thing about Seminary life so far has been the people God has brought into our lives through RTS. There aren’t words to describe how blessed we’ve been by the community around us here.
One special group of friends is our “Family Night” group. Early on after classes started, Eric and 6 other guys started weekly Bible study together. The guys he met with have become some of his closest friends, and I am always so encouraged by the way these guys pour into my husband and really “sharpen” him as a believer, husband, father, and student. These relationships are so unique because these guys spend most of their time together in classes and studies, and the closeness God has given them is such a gift.
About halfway through our first year, some of the wives and I started meeting weekly too. Our time is usually spent encouraging and sharing and praying for each other, and it is always a highlight of my week. I will never forget that the first time we started meeting was right after Eric and I began seriously praying about adopting, and so these were some of the very first people who began walking with us in prayer through this journey. I am SO grateful for their companionship and sisterhood through this season and (I am confident) for years to come.
One thing we do with these couples is “Family Night”. A few times a month we get together to share a meal. Sometimes we play games, other times we just talk, but we always have a GREAT time together. These precious people have really become family to us.
Gloria was born only a few weeks after seminary classes started, and these sweet friends (who barely knew us at the time) rallied to provide delicious meals and support us in that transition. Our girls have been the only kids in the group so far, and I am always SO blessed by how these dear friends have loved and cared for our girls and supported us in parenting. It has been such a picture to me of what the body of Christ looks like. Now, our group is expecting a few more precious kiddos, and I can’t wait to get to love on our friends’ kids as they have loved on ours.
Our new “family” is definitely one of my favorite things about seminary.
enjoy a few family photos:
"Family Night" at our house.
a rainy Fourth of July at the beach
a fun day for a shuttle launch... with no shuttle launch.
The guys still have to study, even at fun get-togethers. But if you have to study, this is the way to do it, I guess.
We've even had a wedding! I am SO glad Greg married Christie so we could be friends
These friends love our kids so well!
Click here and here to read about other people who have helped make seminary so great!
Continue reading about My favorite thing about Seminary: Our New Family
