A City Life For Me

I, Andrea, take thee Ben, to be my wedded husband.   As the Church is in her relationship to Christ, so will I be to you. I will joyfully give you my life, and in confidence submit myself to your leadership, as to the Lord. I will live for you - loving you, obeying you, learning from you. I will always strengthen, help, comfort, and encourage you. Therefore, Ben, throughout my life, for better, for worse... for richer, for poorer... in sickness and in health... at home or abroad... I pledge you my life, as a loving, faithful, and obedient wife,  to have and to hold from this day forward, 'til death do us part. Happy {ten} year anniversary, Ben.  I still do.  

Something that we have been working toward for a while is Ben’s Ordination.  We knew that it would need to happen before we could start the church in the Bronx.  But how do you study for ordination while you’re traveling full time through 44 states over three years with five kids? Where do you find quiet when everyone is living in one hotel room space?  The Lord provided for that need when our family separated for the month of July this year.  The kids and I stayed with my parents in Colorado and Ben took some meetings in California on his own.  He spent a couple of weeks living in the library on university campuses.  I remember calling him one day during that time.  He said, “Except for the librarian, you’re the only person who has talked to me all day.  And the silence is  wonderful.”  {I was a little jealous!} Ben had to write a paper on the major doctrines of our faith, backing each statement up with Scripture.  He proofed th...

Today everyone is posting about how grateful they are for their fathers. And while I am certainly thankful for my father, and now my “bonus” dad – my father-in-law – today I wanted to talk about a different father. Someone that I could not do without – the father of my kiddos. I don’t talk about Ben very much here on the blog. The kiddos pretty much get the spotlight. But today is Father’s Day, and I didn’t think I could let it slip by without bragging on the awesome dad that my kids have. Especially since I am missing him today, and Father’s Day is incomplete without him. When we were dating, Ben asked me how many children I wanted to have. My reply was, “Eight.” I’m not sure what made that number come out of my mouth…I always hated babysitting and as a teenager was adamant that I didn’t want to have any snotty nosed kids. Maybe I was trying to scare Ben away, or see how serious he was about our relationship. But as it became clear that we were going to get married, we “decided” that...

I have written before about the "other side" of deputation.  It's not just all a great vacation as you travel across the country!  And since my next post will likely have some pictures from Niagara Falls (it's been on my bucket list for a while, and it's en route to our next stop), I wanted to go on record again saying it's not all a walk in the park.    Today I am thankful that we have been in one place for four days at this beginning of our big deputation trip out west.  We were never able to book a meeting for last night, so we ended up staying at the same church for a Sunday and a Wednesday.  It seems a little counter-productive to getting into as many churches as possible.  But God knew we would need a "home base" for a few days - even at the beginning.  (I anticipate reaching a point in this trip where I want to just "park" and set down a few roots rather than constantly being on the move).   This is how our days have gone s...

We just started a new unit in school on Mountains and Oceans.  Our lesson for Tuesday was about volcanos.  We were able to do the project and build an erupting volcano.  The kids loved it!  After the initial experiment, Ben decided to try round 2.  This time he screwed the lid on our bottle hoping for a bigger explosion.  I was grateful his version failed, since I was in the line of fire!       I bought terra cotta colored clay so it would look better without being painted.  Elaine was not so thrilled with the color of her hands though!     

The Lord gave us a unique opportunity this week.  My dad secured a job for him and Ben to do a roof on a church in Eugene, Oregon.  Now, going from New York City to Oregon is a long way.  And this roof is the biggest that my dad has ever done (and he has done quite a few ).  And Ben hasn’t really ever roofed before.  And they were going to do it in just a week. That’s all great – but what was I going to do by myself, with four kids, for a week?!?  Have a nervous breakdown, probably!  But the roofing job was paying enough that we could afford to fly the whole family to Denver.  The kids and I would stay with my mom while Dad and Ben continued on to Oregon.  This is a double blessing – a good job, and a trip “back home.”  I have been wanting to see my grandparents again, and to introduce the twins to them, but I didn’t know when it would ever be possible.  How could we afford four plane tickets?  And two or three days in the ca...

Last week we decided to take a mini-vacation to Pittsfield, MA where Ben's folks live.  I had already planned to come and attend the Garden Tour with Mom Hamilton, but Ben came along too and we extended the trip by two days.  It has been fun and relaxing!  We enjoyed a day at the lake {but not the sunburns that followed}, the Garden Tour, napping, a washing machine {!}, playing outside in the wading pool, eating on the deck, lunch with friends, and celebrating Ben's 28th birthday with his family.  I'll write more on the other events later, but I wanted to share some pictures from Ben's birthday! When we woke up there was a birthday banner hanging over the doorway.  It was a tradition when Ben was growing up.  This was his first birthday home in a while, so Mom pulled it out again!   The kids and I gave him an Orioles Chris Davis t-shirt.  We didn't make him wait until cake and ice cream time to give it...we let him enjoy wearing it...