"Loving Well"

Dear Friends,

Today we depart England and go back to Maryland. Something I will look forward to when we get back is posting some of the photos of our last 27 days here and our good-byes to the people we love! I praise God for His faithfulness and all that He has done in our lives. He has taught so much and richly blessed us.

This last week I met with my 1-2-1 partner and we prayed for her time in Italy as an exchange student for the entirety of next year. My advice to her was to be faithful to God in the place He has put you, love the people He puts in you life well. Don't hold back because you "know" you will be moving. Invest in the people and trust God in the journey. There will be pain in the offering, but it will be worth it. I am certainly happy that I have grown to love so many people here in England.

With my love,

Lauren

"Roll"

Jillian hasn't quite figured out how to do a somersault, but she understands it involves some sort of "rolling".

The Wedding

This last Monday, our friends Jen and Mike got married! It was an absolutely beautiful ceremony and celebration. We traveled to London for the wedding. The ceremony was held at Jen's home church and it was followed by a lunch reception in a "quintessential" English garden at a friend's home. In the evening, we went to our church in Cambridge for a buffet dinner and "cakes". It was a fun-filled day and one we will never forget. It meant so much to us that we were able to be witnesses to the beginning of our dear friends' marriage.


Just pronounced husband and wife....the happy bride and groom!




Jillian looked so beautiful in this dress that Jen and Mike gave to her for the occasion of their wedding.








In the garden, the photographer captured sweet photos of Jillian hugging and kissing Jen and Mike!

Jen's American Wedding Shower

My friend Jen is getting married to a USA Navy Man in May and then moving to America! I wanted to do something to say "good-bye" and to celebrate their upcoming wedding and marriage and decided to throw a shower (American-style). :-)

Jen wearing one of her shower's gift, a new apron!

Jen has lots of people who love her LOTS and LOTS! :-)

Everyone made a dish from their "home" (there are lots of us who are foreigners) and shared it at the shower. I am compiling a recipe book for Jen with everyone's recipe and a photo of them holding their yummy dish.

Jen, her sister, Ruth, and her mom making some American chocolate chip cookies while the rest of us worked on recipes for "how to have fun in the US"; "how to stay in touch with friends when far away" and "how to have a happy marriage".

Here Susan is presenting her groups "recipe to stay close to to friends when far away". I know Jen will be missed by many of her friends when she moves to the US when Mike, but I am so excited for the adventure that awaits them!

The Will and a Promise

Because we are living in a University town, Brad and I have gotten to know several couples who have already gotten or are very soon getting married. On a couple of occasions we have even been asked, "what is your advice on marriage?".

Our first "favorite" advice to share is passed down from our former college pastor John Herring... "A couple who prays together, stays together!". Nearly every night Brad and I pray together. The act of us praying together mends our broken hearts when we have had a disagreement, so that we can begin the road of reconciliation. And on many other evenings it knits our hearts closer as we come to the Lord in joyful praise for His faithfulness, as well as pray for those who God has placed in our life.

Our second word of advice is marriage takes WORK! It is the most rewarding "work" you will ever do, but as with ALL things worth pursuing, it comes with its challenges. There may even be times that your marriage will feel like its more work than its worth, but remember the PROMISE you have made to one another! It is an act of submitting your will to the LORD and choosing to stay dedicated to the one to whom you made a promise.

I realize this is much easier said than done, but Ravi Zacharias in his book, I Isaac, take thee, Rebekah says it really well. I hope you enjoy some of the excerpts I have selected from his chapter "The Will to Do":

"We see it clearly. Love is a command, not just a feeling. Somehow, in the romantic world of music and theater we have made love to be what it is not. We have so mixed it with beauty and charm and sensuality and contact that we have robbed it of its higher call of cherishing and nurturing. Watch two young people in a passionate embrace- it may be love, but it may also be nothing more than passion. Watch two elderly people walking hand in hand with evident concern for each other, and you are closer to seeing love in that relationship that in the youthful embrace....

The will is the disposition of the mind that will choose a path and bind itself with love, even if pain is mixed with the choice. In the West, particularly, we have become so resistant to pain that at the slightest hint of it, we prepare to flee by some shortcut or some solution that masks the discomfort.

When your will is committed to God, He carries you when all else seems spent, to rescue what you had invested by your dedication...'The playwright Thornton Wilder said it well: 'I didn't marry you because you were perfect. I didn't even marry you because I loved you. I married you because you gave me a promise. That promise made up for your faults. And the promise I gave you made up for mine. Two imperfect people got married and it was the promise that made the marriage. And when our children were growing up, it wasn't a house that protected them; it wasn't our love that protected them- it was that promise."'

"Risking Everything"

On this Mother's Day I celebrate the marriage and "adventure of life" I share with the man who has given me the gift of becoming a mother!

Marriage means handing over your whole self- your body, your soul, your happiness, your future- to the keeping of one whom you love, but who is, and remains, greatly a stranger. This tremendous act of faith is something that can unlock in each lover powers of compassion, endurance, generosity, joy, passion, fidelity and hope that no one guessed were there. That is why the confidence of young lovers is not arrogant or foolish but an expression of a basic fact about human nature: the fact that the greatest of human gifts are set to work only when people are prepared to risk everything.

When we discovered that we were pregnant just a month and 8 days after getting married, I thought Brad's dream of going to graduate school could no longer become a reality for us. It was a priority for our family that I stay at home when we had children. We knew all too well how precious our time is with our children, especially when they are still at home.

But I remember thinking, this isn't going to work, "what are we going to do?". The first few months of my pregnancy I was in extreme distress because of all the unknowns of our future. But God was so faithful to us, clearly showing us the way. Brad found out about his acceptance to the NIH/ Cambridge program on his birthday, which was a HUGE answer to our prayers. We rejoiced that 1) it was a four to five year program, opposed to the traditional 7 to 9 years it can take in US programs; 2) they provided healthcare for our entire family; 3) we were going to share the adventure of a life-time living in Washington D.C. and England!

Little did we know how incredible our experience would be. Our time here in England has been something we will always cherish. When we first moved here, I was deeply depressed, and thought to myself "I don't belong here!" I didn't like being a "foreigner" and I certainly wasn't accustomed to the stereotypical "coldness" that those in Cambridge show to "strangers".

But just as God transformed my "despise" into an incredible love, so God transformed those cold relationships into some of the most meaningful relationships of my life. As I write this, I am weeping, not because of the eloquence of my words, but because there are no words to describe my thankfulness for this time. God's blessing to us has been great.

Our adventure continues, in 9 days we will return back to the States. Please pray for us as we cling to the Lord who has given us the love we have for one another, as well as to one another, as we begin another season of our lives.

Happy Mother's Day and thank you Darling!



This was taken of the two of us this last week when we attended a formal hall at St. John's with our friends Ed and Beth.

Faith is nearly 7 months old!

These are pictures from March and April of Little Faith! :)
Included are pictures from her dedication weekend, where her eye looks "sad" from the infection. Otherwise, she is full of smiles and ready for lots of cuddles! :-)

She is a very verbal baby too. She is making lots of different sounds, including "Dada" this week! She is a great roller too! Everytime we put her on her tummy, she rolls right back over to her back (she isn't interested in crawling yet).

We also have tried introducing solids, but I think she is a little put off by us putting anything in her mouth besides paci and mommy because of the long period of time we had to give her antibiotics. I am planning on continuiing to exclusively breastfeed her until we get back to the States to help with the transition.

Jillian is enjoying being a big sister to Faith more and more. I feel very blessed to have two sweet girls!