We wanted children but were having
no success at getting pregnant. I was having my doubts about whether we should
even have any as our marriage was struggling. It was my fault.
We had a great first year. We were
always together. We shared the ministry as much as possible. The only tough
part was that I was always seated on the platform Sunday morning and usually
read the Scripture, I felt like I was just there for show. Pastors belonged on
the platform. Della often worked in the nursery, increasing her longing for
children.
We were together Sunday night and
Wednesday at prayer meeting. We both went to the youth group on Friday nights.
She was great with the girls and used her gift of hospitality and helps to fill
in wherever needed. Be shared that ministry together.
In the first few months my only
night at the church without her was for board meetings. They were every other
week. We were not together on Tuesday nights, but we were both at church for
Christian Service Brigade and Pioneer Girls.
As I got more and more involved
the ministry, I was at work later and later and my excuses were not making
sense to her. What could I possibility be doing? I was at the church. I was
really at another meeting. There kept being more and there were more kinds than
I believed existed or should exist in any church. I began to start the work
assigned from those meetings before going home or I had individual meetings
with people following. They may not all have been necessary, but I was trying
to prove myself worthy. I was there on “trial” and wanted to stay. Becoming a
workaholic was how I was going to prove I belonged.
The conflict became very clear at
our two summer teen camps and then later that summer at Estes Park, Colorado for
an international youth conference called LIFE. At both locations I dug into
ministry and operated like she wasn’t there. That did not set well at all. I
was in charge at teen camp and there was no excuse. LIFE was partially another
matter.
We had a pile of people from the
district make the trip to Colorado – a full bus. Della and I were counselors
with no other responsibility. We should have been able to be together a great
deal. The camp was very large. Over 3000 kids met in that beautiful setting. It
was second LIFE conference which they were having every five-years. I began the
week upset because all counselors were simply assigned a group of strangers and
not with the kids they brought. I wanted to use the time to get to know some of
my guys. I let everyone who looked somewhat official know I thought the
structure was wrong. It made no sense. The campers assigned to me all knew each
other. I was the stranger. It was like breaking into prison. I didn’t belong.
A side note: Years later when
I was directing the public meetings at another LIFE conference, a youth pastor
came up to me and said, “I am a youth pastor today because of you.” I looked at
him like he was an alien. “Where do we know each other from?” I was in a camper
in your room at LIFE 1965. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I had
complained the whole week about being with those guys and here God slapped me
in the face to say, “You have no idea what I can do.” True!
The main meeting building was near
the bottom of the mountain. I was placed in a lodge somewhat near the gathering
point. Della had a group near the top was wearing out going back and forth and
wanted me to walk her back to he cabin every night. She did not want to return
to the area during the day. The distance was too great. I did not make
remaining down hill with me easy. I was off hooking up with someone else too
often. We had a difficult time even finding one another at times. We were also
assigned different eating areas. She was often alone.
While the program was very good, it
was terrible for individual church connections. Our kids were spread all over
the place. There was neither rhyme nor reason to the rooming assignments, from
my point of view. I listened to their reasons for the structure and it never
made sense. I was not enamored with the new international youth director and
began right then and there to want his job. I knew I could do better.
The result was that we had to work
to see each other and it was still our first year of marriage. I was trying to
find ways to build a district unity, but doing a bad job of building marriage
unity. A tension developed.
I will never forget the big fight we had later that fall when
she announced that she was going home to her mother and I responded, “If you do
that, you will ruin my ministry.” I can’t believe how stupid I was. How angry I
was. I was not thinking of her needs. It was all about me.
Over the next couple of weeks we
worked out a truce. I agreed to be tested to see if there was a reason why we
could not have children. We both were checked out. It was my problem. My sperm
count way so low that chance of having a child was under 0-10%. Shortly there
after, we began the paper work for adoption. We both loved that idea.
Any reasonable person would
counsel a couple like us not to have children when the marriage seems to be in
trouble. I guess we just weren’t reasonable. We pushed ahead and got the room
ready for our first child.
Lois went home for the summer. She
already had plans to live even closer to the school with several girls from the
church for the next year. It would be just the two of us again. Della had her
part time job, but was it enough? I was becoming more and more of a workaholic.
Would we survive?
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