A Dream: How I Met Eileen and Married Eileen

It was way back in the last century, I was working with a bunch of folks to start a church, in Eureka, CA. We were meeting in a grange hall with only around 30 people.

The men noticed that there was a large, I think double-wide, mobile home parked right next to the hall and someone suggested that we move our worship services to the mobile home so that the services would “feel” more vibrant, because of the close quarters than rattling around in the hall.

So, we did.

I noticed that no one ever sat in the front row, so my plan was to put the front row seats right up close to where I was leading the music, with my guitar, and then move them to the back if the place filled up. Then there would be seats in the back row and folks would be “forced” to sit in the front row (because they were trapped at that time).

The plan was going spectacularly well on our first, or second, Sunday, when suddenly during one of the songs, the place filled up. I was thinking about how cool the plan was going to work when four visitors came in, looked around and the only open chairs next to one another were in the front row. They looked a little bit confused, no doubt wondering why we were crammed into such a tiny space when there was a perfectly good and empty building right next door and proceeded to make their way to the front.

Did I mention that the front row was really close to me? It was literally “spitting” distance, probably less than a foot and my guitar was between us. A fact that did not escape my attention.

At the time we were singing a version of Psalm 100 that I had learned back in the garage days of CEF, the precursor to Christ Church here in Moscow. It was a pretty rousing version, with a lot of clapping and stomping. Not all that dignified, but then read the psalm and see if you think it was meant to be dignified and soulless.

I was thinking, “How can I move away from these ladies (did I mention that they were four ladies?)?” While Eileen, who was one of them, was thinking, “Wow, this guy can really play the guitar.” I couldn’t read her mind, she told me later.

It turned out that the four ladies all worked together with one of the members of our church. Their church, which Eileen had been visiting, had closed down and our member had suggested that they check out our church. The other women were Pentecostal and we weren’t, so they left, but for some reason, Eileen stayed. I don’t know if it was because our worship was less exuberant than what the other women were looking for and that pleased Eileen, or maybe it was “that guy’s guitar playing.”

At the time, Eileen wasn’t a Christian yet. She had just gone through a nasty divorce and was really hurting. She came to every event we had, dinners, Bible studies, church services, etc. I noticed over time that she was very studious, devouring huge chunks of Scripture. And asking questions about everything she read. One day I noticed that her questions had been changing. At first, she said, “What do you Christians think about X?” Then she said, “What do Christians think about X?” Finally, “What do we think about X?” Huh, I thought to myself. The sun has come up in Eileen. So, one day I asked her about it, and she hadn’t noticed the change either, except that she wasn’t as stressed at work and she was a lot more joyful than she had been before.

One day, she asked about baptism, so we all trooped off to a local river and baptized her. Later, she said that none of this was like the catholic church where she had grown up. She even noticed that I had muscles, something that priests certainly didn’t have. Later she said that scared her a little bit to realize that I was human—and a man.

At this point, there was nothing romantic between us at all. I noticed that she wasn’t hard on the eyes, but she was a new believer and had just gone through a very hard time. I was in ministry mode, not “I want to get married” mode. At the same time, she was growing like a weed in the Lord. Devouring huge hunks of Scripture and doing what they said. She had a really soft heart and wanted to serve the Lord with gladness even when things God required were hard. And because of her new faith, she asked hard questions of those of us who had been Christians for a long time. Watching her grow and change was pretty great.

After a year or so, following a number of events that decimated the church, the men in the church thought it was time to suggest that I look for other work and that they and their families find other churches. Our church just wasn’t going to make it. About then, I receive a letter from Johnson Controls World Services asking if I would be interested in taking a position with them as the chaplain to the unaccompanied adults on Kwajalein, in the Marshall Islands. That’s another story, but it is very cool, how they recruited me and how they even knew about me. But I digress.

It took a few months to make my way to Kwaj and in the meantime, I visited the other churches in town with the folks and gave them my opinion about which ones I thought would suit them best. I didn’t want to leave my friends (flock) in the lurch and untended. When it was time to go, they threw me a party, and off I went. I still had no intentions toward Eileen, nor she toward me.

I went to Kwaj in January of 1991 (I think). In September, or thereabouts, it occurred to me that I needed to get married. There were a few single and Christian women on Kwaj but no one jumped out at me as being someone I wanted to marry, so I began thinking about women back in the States. Eileen almost immediately sprang to mind. We had been keeping in touch via mail, as I had with almost everyone in the church, and I knew that she had continued to grow in the Lord and was still flourishing, even without me. How cool is that?

So, I decided to send her a letter telling her how impressed I was with her and her walk with the Lord. It turned out to be much longer than I had intended, but it didn’t say anything about courting or dating, or marriage. It was simply a long letter telling her what I thought about her. Looking back, it was either the dumbest thing I’d ever done or the most ingenious. When she got it, she freaked and ran over to some friends’ house to find out what it meant. As I recall, they told her to calm down and that it was just me telling her what I thought about her. And I thought good things.

Then, she wrote back and thanked me for my thoughts and for telling her what I thought about her.

I don’t think, at that point, that I had really thought about marrying her. So, after a couple of weeks, I changed my mind, or made up my mind, and asked if I could call her.

On the island, there were only 4 lines back to the states, so you had to call the switchboard and be put on a waiting list to call the states. There was also a five-hour time difference. So, to make an appointment, it had to be very nebulous and tentative. I don’t recall, how we got in contact, but I remember that when we did actually talk, I asked her if she wanted to go on an adventure with me. She said, “Sure! Wait, what does that mean?” I said, “Well, we’d have to get married first. So, would you like to marry me?” She said she’d have to think about it. I said, “Of course, take all the time you need. And if you have any questions, feel free to ask.”

What happened next is kind of fuzzy. I don’t remember that she had any questions then. But somewhere in there, she said, “Yes.” We began working through, a workbook called, Before You Say “I Do,” by Norman Wright. I did a chapter, while she did a chapter, we copied them, and sent them to one another. Then we got on the phone and talked about our answers. The cool/strange thing was how often it looked like she had waited to get my answers and then copied them in her book and sent them on to me. In fact, she sweetly asked me about doing this with her answers.

I think we started this sometime in the fall, made plans to marry in May and I flew back to the states and we were married on May 1, 1993. We drove around the western states for six weeks and then I moved her out to Kwaj. We lived there for six months until my contract with Johnson Controls expired. The book helped us get all the general information things out of the way and the six weeks driving around helped us to get a foundation for the nitty-gritty of our life together. So, instead of dating, we got married and then we dated. It was different, but a lot of fun. And we spent six weeks on vacation and six months on a central pacific island. It was like a dream.

That’s my story about how I met and married Eileen. Pretty simple really.