When one has had the privilege of putting in around eighty years of wear and tear on these bones, there are many milestones that have passed by. Most of my (Kent) milestones of my younger years were spread out between California, Colorado, and Washington State, living in (+/-) fourteen places and attending nine different grade schools. Whereas, Willina lived in the same place up to enrolling in the university. We are confident that both of our experiences were just what we needed to form us into the individuals that the Lord desired. In all my moving around, my mother was regularly seeking out a church for us to attend, giving me a wide variety of exposures along the way. And, once again, Willina had the privilege of growing up in a very stable Bible teaching environment. Yet, milestones have little significance if not measured by their spiritual dimension.

Born and Born Again

Our physical births have to be listed as very important milestones and our spiritual births were definitely special milestones for us. Willina saw hers first, at the age of five, once again having the privilege of being raised in a good biblical environment. I was twelve when the Lord brought this milestone into focus, purely through the Lord’s grace. Such things as graduation from high school and college, while gaining drivers licenses, although important, fade in importance to our meeting and marrying and having children.

We consider the day we met as very significant. It was on that day that we both started working, for the same newspaper and in the same office, which ultimately led to our getting married, which resulted in the birth of our two precious sons. How can anybody believe in evolution when we understand procreation.

Moved and Moved Again

Another special event was when we hosted a Dutch businessman in our home for a few days. That ultimately resulted in our moving to Holland for 30 years of ministry, where our two sons added two very special daughters-in-love to our family, which ultimately resulted in six bi-lingual grandchildren (two born in Holland, three born in the USA, and one adopted.)

Every day is adding one more milestone to our 55+ years of marriage. We have several friends who have superseded us, but we are regularly reminded that this is getting more unusual for this time in our history.

As we have been considering the significance of various things in our lives, we keep coming back to the fact that all of the various milestones that we have experienced mean little or nothing when leaving out the spiritual dimension.

We have kept this post short, but if you would like to hear our extended version, you will just have to come over for some coffee. 😀