It was just a little more than four years ago here in Fort Collins when we were here for another wedding...Caleb and Haley's! Now here they are, with Charlie, coming to Austin and Hayley's wedding in the same city. I love that!
We've been "doing weddings" for a long time with Dan and Laura! They were both in our wedding, and we in theirs. Plus, we've been to each other's kids' weddings and now two Ellenwood weddings. That's some deep love!
It's beautiful to see parents with their children on the day of a wedding; but it's even sweeter to see the new in-laws loving and connecting with each other. They are family now!
This just cracked me up, seeing our Caleb and Claire hanging out with their "Uncle" Dan after the ceremony! They've been doing this their whole lives, and will probably continue to for many more years to come. They love him!
What was even funnier was literally turning around and seeing "Uncle" Dave with Noah and Jill! I love that we all share our kids, loving on them in many different kinds of ways, and over long periods of their lives.
With it being just two days away from Father's Day, it seemed appropriate to get these three together on this happy day. A dad with his son, times two!
One very loving element to Austin and Hayley's wedding was the JV contingency that lovingly came to celebrate.
This amazing bunch of people are: current JV staff, former JV staff, JV Kids, kids of former JV staff, JV A-team members, JV board members and spouses of JV Kids! That group represents an incredible amount of love right there!
And these two besties? They've been loving each other for twenty years, and will continue to the rest of their lives, I'm sure!
Brian and Aleisha, who serve with us in leadership of JV, have been in the States for four months and still have two months to go. It was SO good to see them!!
This sweet little trio made me giggle!
This is Caleb with the kids of Nate, a former JV staff, who was an important person in the lives of Caleb, Noah and Jacob. How I loved seeing the next generation of young men, hanging out with Caleb in the parking lot, collecting balloons after the bride and groom had driven away!
Leah is another former JV staff who now lives in Iowa, but came for the wedding. She was not only JV staff, but an intern many, many years ago; she remembers Claire when she was just a tiny little girl!
Laura and I have been doing life together for 34 years now, first with ministry in Germany, and then beginning the work of Josiah Venture together with our husbands. I love her a lot!
And these two...there's a lot of love between them after having grown up together for twenty years. I know they're looking forward to many, many more years of serving the Lord together and doing life with each other's families.
And finally, friends from Wisconsin that we love a lot too! They were in Mel and Amy's church before they came out with us to JV twenty years ago. Now they're serving with JV on our "A-team", people who pour into our staff in a variety of ways. We are so thankful for and love Paul and Barb, and glad we now know them and get to do life with them too!
The occasion of Austin and Hayley's wedding brought such richness and love to all of our lives these past few days.
I have a feeling more of that will happen around Austin and Hayley as they begin their life journey together - they're the kind of people that bring out love when you're around them!
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