Romance

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" height=120 BGCOLOR="#FFCCFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="0443f781egdyul.gif"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#009900" FACE="Arial" ><B>Proclaim His Praise in the Islands - the Hallowells</B></FONT> <B> </B><B>|    </B><B> </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Proclaim His Praise in the Islands the "><U><B>Home</B></U></A></div> <div>                                                   </div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" height=360 BGCOLOR="#CCFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> Romance</div> <bR> <div> It was, incredibly, our 17th anniversary on August 6, 2005.  </div> <bR> <div> I say "incredibly" because the years have really gone quickly.  We don't feel like we have been married long.  It is still too much fun.</div> <bR> <div> I say "incredibly" because I (Jay) continue to be amazed at how wonderful a person Amor is and how much she loves me.  We enjoy being a team in life and ministry.  She makes me stronger and I hope I do the same for her.</div> <bR> <div> I say "incredibly" because we are stunned by how good God is.  And how much he has blessed us with life partners.</div> <bR> <div> We always hoped to get married, but waited until we were sure that it was God's will.  We joked at our wedding that we had been single a combined 65 years, so we were retiring from singleness and getting married.  It is always worth waiting to be sure that God is in it.  It is worth doing it right the first time!</div> <bR> <div> I continue to be amazed at what a loving, talented, believing person Amor is.  She continues to be beautiful inside and out.  I am impressed how she continues to grow as a person.  Her spiritual gifts of mentoring, caring, serving, and teaching are a thrill to watch and encourage and nurture.  She was worth waiting for and is worth taking the time to be with.</div> <bR> <div> Our favorite nickname for ourselves is the "mutual admiration society".  Bedtime is our favorite time for that.  There is nothing like being noticed at the end of the day and being affirmed for the things we did, which we thought no one else noticed.  We like being together.  It is great to divide the load and serve together.</div> <bR> <div> Ours was an Intervarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF) relationship, from serving on staff together in IVCF-Philippines.  Maybe I'll get the story of how I came from Kansas to Manila for seminary study in 1983 up on the web site someday.  How I had the privilege as a fulltime seminary student of living with the IVCF-PH staff guys and serving IVCF in my spare time and summers in campus work and camps.  </div> <bR> <div> It was an incredible time in my life and in the Philippines.  I arrived in 1983, in June.  Ninoy Aquino was assassinated that August.  The EDSA or People Power Revolution to overthrow President/Dictator Ferninand Marcos was in February 1986.  I graduated from ATS in March.  </div> <bR> <div> But, after Amor returned in mid-1985 from a year of theological study in Singapore, our friendship began to develop.  Keys in that development were: </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b7014000990000.gif" HEIGHT="21" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">an IVCF camp in Bicol </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b7014000990000.gif" HEIGHT="21" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">a cell group with fellow IVCF staff workers, and </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b7014000990000.gif" HEIGHT="21" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">a variety of other IVCF staff activities.  </div> <bR> <div> Our friendship developed slowly.  We worked hard communicating clearly about our lives, as well as our relationship.  We kept our expectations at the friendship level, largely because of the uncertainities in our lives.  I knew that I needed to move to Denver in July 1986.  I knew that the tests of time and distance would clarify the status of our relationship.  I, especially, needed it, because I had to sort out various personal and family issues relating to cross-cultural relationships.</div> <bR> <div> And it did.  Surprisingly, to me, my feelings for Amor grew while I was in Denver.  This was in spite of making some close female friends among my fellow students at Denver Seminary.  They were and are wonderful, talented, dedicated friends.  But, they were not Amor.  So, in June, 1987 I emptied my meager bank account to buy a plane ticket to go the Philippines to see Amor and to see what God was leading us to do.  This was hard as a seminary student.  I knew that I would not have money for my tuition in Denver Seminary in Sept. 1987.  But, sensing God was in it, I made the trip.  My goal was to resolve the future.  But, it became clear to both of us that God was calling us together.  In July 1987, in the midst of a typhoon at a friends' house in Legaspi City, Albay (thank you Ferdie and Doray!), we got engaged.  </div> <bR> <div> More time and distance followed as I returned to Denver to finish seminary.  I knew I needed a job or jobs right away.  So, FDFC, my church, took me on part-time as Outreach Coordinator.  And, UPS hired me.  I had the interview for the job at UPS one afternoon.  That evening the personnel guy at UPS called me and asked me to report for work at 2 or 3 am the next morning.  That year finishing seminary while working two part-time jobs was a full one.  I wouldn't want to do it again.  But, it still counts as the richest period of my life financially.  I graduated from Denver Seminary in June 1988 without any debt (and, except for a car and some books, also asset free!).   Thank you Lord for your provision.  Besides finishing seminary and working, I coordinated a telephone evangelism crusade at our church where we mobilized members to call almost 20,000 people in the area around our church. </div> <bR> <div> I continued working to save enough to get Amor her plane ticket and for the wedding, which following Filipino custom, the groom pays for.  God answered so many prayers!  In the meantime Amor was serving as an IVCF staff worker and applying for a visa to come to the USA to get married.  That is another whole series of stories.  Anyway, she arrived 18 days before our wedding on August 6, 1988.  (It took that long for her visa to be granted.)  Planning the wedding that late, finding an apartment, etc. is another whole series of stories.  Amor had a job at Little Friends Preschool even before she arrived.  It was weird to begin married life going to bed at 7 or 8 pm, so I could work at UPS at 2 or 3 am.  But, Amor hung in with me.  </div> <bR> <div> Just to keep life interesting, we began applying to OMF as a couple, a process that took months.  In June 1989 we resigned from our jobs to go to OMF's candidate course in Robesonia, PA.  We were accepted.  We spent some time in deputation and left Denver on Jan. 1, 2000.  We reached IHQ in SQ on Jan. 5, 1990 for Orientation Course, what OMF considers to be our official start.  Just writing this I feel tired again.  We were exhausted at OC.  But, somehow God provided and got us through.  By March 1990 we were settling into our little up-and-down two bedroom apartment in Batangas City where I began full-time Tagalog study.</div> <bR> <div> We both wanted and expected children.  When they did not come, we went to doctors and discovered both of us have infertility issues.  We did as much treatment with doctors as we felt comfortable with, leaving it in God's hands.  We prayed for a child, over and over again.  We pursued adoption at a time that foreignors could not adopt Filipino children unless they returned to their own country and worked through approved and expensive agencies.  God called us to the Philippines, so that answered that.  Our contentment and joy comes, not from each other or from children, but from God himself through Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirity, and the body of Christ.  We have usually been busy doing what God has called us to do.  Yes, we would have liked, we think, to have had children.  But, God seems to have called us to serve in other ways without children of our own.  Blessed be the name of the Lord! </div> <bR> <div> We have lived in too many places since then.  Missionary life is unstable.  But, perhaps because of that, our relationship grew stronger.  Where Amor and I are together, we are home!  It is a wonderful thing.  We are enjoying the stability of our apartment at BSOP.  Lord willing, by the time our next Home Assignment is due, in April or May 2006, we will have been nearly 4 years in the same living arrangement.  Our previous record as a couple was two years.  This counts as stability for us!  And, BSOP is giving signs that we can leave our things there while on HA and then return to the apartment.  This, if it indeed works out, will be a wonderful blessing.  It will make HA so much easier, though of course it will be a huge change.  We wonder where we will get to live in Denver...</div> <bR> <div> Anyway, we still like each other and like being married to each other.  We believe that our marriage makes both of us stronger in the Lord and more effective in ministry.   We know that God calls different couples together in different ways.  But, we believe that our example of patience in singleness, being careful to seek God's will, in learning to communicate, and encouragement, in spite of cultural differences, and serving together are one good model among other good models of what Christian marriage can and should be.  It is great!</div> <bR> <bR> <div> by Jay Hallowell</div> <div> First draft: April 1, 2005</div> <div> Last update: August 20, 2005</div> <div> --------------------------------- end of Hallowell content ----------------------------------------------</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>