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Show Notes
Today we have something special for you all. Since it is Valentine’s day today, we will be doing a three-part series on how the marriages within FGG Designs happened over the next three weeks. Today we begin with the couple who started it all, Kent and Willina, for without them there would be no us.
Kent and Willina
Both Kent and Willina were raised in Christian settings and just so happened, by God’s sovereign design, to start work at the same place on the very same day, on the 22nd of May 1956. Kent started working at the Press-Telegram after responding to an advert while Willina started working there as a summer job. Needless to say, these two lovebirds became very good friends, and by the 6th of August, they had their first date.
They were quick to start dating, but that dating period lasted a long time. During this time Kent enrolled in the Army and was sent to Monterey (Army Language School), which just happened to be 100 miles south of where Willina was studying at Stanford University. They were dating in total for about five and a half years before Kent asked Willina to marry him. However, after all this time Willina didn’t have peace about what to do. This lead her to indulge in reading all of the Psalms in search of comfort and consolation. Considering there are 150 chapters, it wasn’t until Psalm 143 she finally found peace after reading the words “Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto thee.”
Finally, after Willina said yes, they got married on the 2nd of June in 1962; shortly after, they moved to Germany due to Kent’s work in the Army. It was there that they grew a strong desire for Germans and had a desire to reach out to them. It is no surprise then that when they returned to the US and Kent saw an ad in the paper to host a German businessman, they jumped at the opportunity. However, the Lord had other plans, He sent them a Dutchman! This changed everything for them, especially when many other Dutch people were brought into their lives. This drove them to buy four, one-way tickets to Holland, taking their two sons (Jonathan and Joel) with them.
Coming Up
In next week’s episode, we’ll be looking at the lives of Jonathan and Lydia and seeing how the Lord brought them together in Holland, which all started with the Lord bringing Kent and Willina together and bringing them to The Netherlands in the way that only He can.
