Making Marriage Memories

The older we get the more we love the little town we call “home away from home.” In my twenties I was excited to get out into the world and explore, make a way for myself. Hometowns are just humdrum. But now in my forties, I like having memories and the romance of our sweet little hometown called Niceville.

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Life for the Wilds in the United States runs a lot like our life in the jungle, just in a different location. Mike and I start our mornings together and that, of course, involves coffee on a back porch. The porch here overlooks a little bayou where we saw a pod of dolphins swimming this morning, whereas the porch in the jungle looks out to the beautiful Misty Mountain and the singing of jungle birds.

Mike is still translating in the mornings, but it is done in the quiet, climate controlled office at our sending church. I am still running the Wild schoolhouse. We still walk in the afternoons; but instead of making laps on the airstrip, we make our way down Bayshore Drive to a nearby park.

The other day as we were making our way to the park, we reminisced. This park is the very same park where Mike asked me to marry him over 21 years ago! I had just moved back after graduating from college, my hair was in a ponytail because I had been unpacking all day, and we were sitting at the park eating ice cream sundaes. Mike said, “You will never guess what I did today?” He went on to show me the ring that he bought and ask me if I would be his wife.

Proposals in our culture can come with a lot of fanfare. Ours didn’t, and 21 years later it doesn’t matter a bit that my hair was in a ponytail because he chose me, and he has kept on choosing me for 21 years! It all happened on Bayshore Drive, and here we are some 21 years later back on that same bayou with four practically grown boys and over a decade of jungle-living memories to look back on. Lord willing we will make many more!