The Intern and the Village Missions Daughter
I don’t cry at weddings-guys just don’t do that sort of thing. But as I sat with Carole in the Evergreen Community Church, a church served by Village Missions in beautiful Redland, Oregon, tears began to flow down my cheeks as I learned more of this remarkable couple who stood before the congregation to exchange vows. 
Consider, Travis, the groom. Travis grew up in a godly Christian home, a farm family in eastern Washington. In High School Travis became convinced that God was leading him to some type of vocational Christian ministry. Acting upon that conviction, he applied and was accepted at Moody Bible Institute. God soon directed him into pastoral ministry and then, more specifically, into rural ministry.
I met Travis when he was in his junior year and John James and I were representing Village Missions at the annual Missions Conference. Travis was interested in learning more about Village Missions. The chair of the Pastoral Department, Dr. John Koessler, highly recommended him. We had just changed our policy about accepting single young men. Believing that God was leading him to Village Missions, Travis applied and we accepted him. We assigned him to serve an internship of one year with Village Missionaries Tony and Kathy Pinkham, serving in Kettle Falls, WA.
Consider now Jennifer, the bride. She is the daughter of Village Missionaries Steve and Lisa Rief. She felt from an early age that God wanted her to be the wife of a Village Missionary. But where was he? In High school she patiently waited upon God. Each year at staff conference at Cannon Beach, as I addressed the teens and challenged them to become Village Missionaries, she would be one of the teen girls that would say, “But we have to have a husband that wants to be a Village Missionary!”
Jennifer attended Ecola Bible School and still she waited. Even at Ecola, none of the guys wanted to be a pastor. Feeling that being a pastor’s wife was what God called her to be, she waited. There was even a rock on the beach and Jennifer would go there, sitting on the rock, reading her Bible and praying. Jennifer’s rock was not the rock she sat upon but the Rock of her salvation. She cast herself upon that Rock, believing that if He had called her to that role then He would provide for her. Would He?
Tony and Kathy Pinkham arrived at Cannon Beach in June 2008 for what would be our last staff conference for at least some time. Travis stayed behind in Kettle Falls. But as Kathy renewed ties with the Rief family at staff conference, and specifically Jennifer, she thought of Travis. She mentioned Travis to Jennifer and he soon began to e-mail her. They continued e-mailing and then met in person last September.
Now this young couple was standing in front of the congregation entering into the marriage covenant, led in the ceremony by Jennifer’s dad, Steve. Their kiss, after Steve pronounced them husband and wife, was their first kiss. They had waited until that time.
It was a holy moment and tears ran down my cheeks. Holy, because it was before the body of Christ, faithfully ministered to by Village Missionaries over the years, and specifically by Jennifer’s parents, Steve and Lisa, since 1995. Holy, because godly parents had raised them both in homes where Christ was preeminent. Holy, because both were obeying God’s call to serve as Village Missionaries. Holy, because both had waited upon God with trust and perseverance. Holy, because we in the congregation powerfully glimpsed how much God cares about our individual lives, how much He cares about His church, how much He cares about marriage as the picture of His church, and yes, how much He cares about calling young couples to the great task of keeping country churches alive.
July 9th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Congratulations. Here is a present from our wedding July 7, 1973
I love you,
Not for what you are
But for what I am
When I am with you.
I love you,
Not onlyfor
What you have made of yourself
But for what you are making of me.
I love you
For the part of me
That you bringout.
I Love you,
For putting your hand into my heaped up hearat
And for bringing into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked quite far enough to find.
I love you
Because, you are helping me to build
Of the lumbert of my life, not a tavern
But a temple,
Out of the works of my every day
Not a reproach, but a song.
I Love you , becasuse\
YOu have done more than any creed could have done
To make me Good
And more than any fate could have done
To make me happy
You have done all this
Without a word
Without a touch
Without a sign
You have done this
By being yourseslf
Perhaps , that is what
Being a FRIEND means, After all.
Roy Croft.
Don’t know of your parents were around, in the 50′s and 60′s.
My Mom’s babysister is Margaret Peterson. Love, Prayers and Joy.
July 18th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
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