This week the Oshman family celebrated three major milestones.
#1) On March 6, Mark and I celebrated 14 years of marriage. Woot! God gets all the glory for this. We had nothing in our favor when we got married: I was 20 and he was 23, I hadn't yet completed my bachelors degree, we were both in school, we had no money, and we both came from long lines of divorce. We overheard family members saying at our reception, "They'll never make it." It's true--we have family members who are that tacky. Thank you, Lord, they were wrong. May we fully rely on You all of our days.
Here we are enjoying celebratory lemonades while in Florida last week for a major interview (see milestone #3 below).
#2) On February 28 we celebrated our third Gotcha Day with Rebekah. She has been our daughter for three years! Again, God gets the glory for this. As I read from David Platt last week, we adopt because we have been adopted. Adoptive parenting is a blessed journey and I highly recommend it.
Here's our family plus a grandma and a grandpa eating at a local Thai restaurant in honor of Gotcha Day.
#3) The third milestone happened on Thursday when Mark and I were appointed as missionaries with Pioneers International. We are blessed to be members of this outstanding mission, which "mobilizes teams to glorify God among unreached peoples by initiating church-planting movements in partnerships with local churches." If the Lord allows, our family will be moving soon to do just that in the Czech Republic.
Here's Pioneers President Steve Richardson describing his childhood in Indonesia, as well as the current heart of the mission. If you haven't already, I highly recommend watching "Never the Same; 50 years since the Peace Child" on www.pioneers.org. it'll make you sob.
Matthew 19:26 says, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." This is true of our marriage, adoption, ministry, and all things. May God grant us many more anniversaries, many more Gotcha Days, and many more years with Pioneers.