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Ten years – Ten years ago today, I made a promise to someone special. I promised that no matter what life threw at us I would be true to her, and nothing would part us until we left this earth. It’s hard to believe that it has been ten years since that day. When I woke up this morning I knew I wanted to write something about it, but I didn’t know what. My first thought was that it didn’t really seem like ten years, as if time had shot by when I wasn’t paying attention. What could I say about the past ten years?
For inspiration I started going through old photographs. We have a number of photo albums on our shelves and even more boxes of photos that didn’t make it into the albums. I ended up going through every single photo we ever took together, flipping through them like the pages on a calendar. I watched as we changed, and as the world changed around us. I saw faces of old friends and faces of family members who are no longer with us. Whenever I found a photo of just the two of us together I scanned it into my computer and thought about when it had been taken. And as the years rolled by I realized what I wanted to do for today’s entry. I don’t want to say anything. I’ll have words to write a little later in the week, maybe, but today I want to share with you some images from the last ten years, as a tribute to the woman who stuck with me through them all—no matter what life threw at us.
1997, visiting our pastor and his wife, Seoul
1997, in front of the Genghis Khan Hotel, Ulan Bator, Mongolia
1997, hiking on Mt. Cheonggye in Seoul
1998, Blue Ginger restaurant, outside of Boston
1999, Voortrekker Monument, Pretoria, South Africa
1999, somewhere in Mozambique
2000, near the Asian Center for Theological Studies and Mission, Gyeonggi Province
2000, Pretoria, South Africa
2001, celebrating my birthday, Seoul
2001, reaching the rim of the Grand Canyon after climbing down to the bottom and back
2001, Hoh Rain Forest, Washington state
2002, supporting Korea in the World Cup, Seoul
2002, on a family outing to Sokcho, east coast of Korea
2002, lunch at the Lemongrass Restaurant, Ko Phi Phi, Thailand
2003, on a church outing, west coast of Korea
2003, at the award ceremony for the new translators contest
2004, in front of Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas
2004, on the California coast, near San Diego
2005, in the reed fields of Wando, off the south coast of Korea
2006, in Gosu Cave, Danyang, Korea
Ten years ago, I was certain I was making the right choice, and that certainty has only grown through the years. I look forward to spending the next ten years with the love of my life.