My first weekend here in Portland capped off a very busy half-week in which every day had something important to get done.

We finished it all with quite the flurry yesterday.

On Friday, it seems we may have nailed down where the wedding will take place.

Canby Grove Conference Center. The papework and details have to be signed still, but Amy and I went there and we felt a lot of peace, had a lot of ideas, and very much enjoyed the tour Shelly gave us, and her enthusiasm.

If you go to their website have a look at the Mt. Hood Pavilion. That’s where we’re getting married… and maybe/possibly/hopefully/likely also having the reception. It’s going to be a bit of a creative setup, but we got excited about the possibilities. Plus, in an Oregon winter who wants to go outside, walk around to a different location, and thus leave the cozy fireplace?

Saturday was just about us. I insisted we don’t do anything wedding, and don’t do anything that involved other people. We went to an art festival in Portland, after which we did a little, tiny bit of wedding shopping at Kathleen’s of Dublin. Looking for wedding bands, don’t you know.

Then, a relaxing afternoon and an amazing dinner at Salvadore Mollys. My favorite restaurant.

And a relaxing evening capped it off. I can’t remember the last whole day we were able to spend just about us, and so we needed this.

Sunday had a different focus. Morning was church. Amy led worship. There was communion. It was a great time–even if all the distractions before hand didn’t exactly enhance our eagerness beforehand. God still works in bringing nice surprises. Plus, I was able to catch up with the fine folks at Two Rivers, which has been so supportive of Amy, and oddly enough the church most supportive of my efforts as well. Curious that. Check it out if you’re in the Milwaukie, Oregon area.

That afternoon, I went to Starbucks. Amy went to her producers to record more Christmas CD goodness. Went very well. I’ll post some of the videos I took.

For a total change of pace, we then went and saw The Dark Knight. It was dark. And quite good. And dark (did I mention that?).

Monday brought all manner of busyness. In the morning we went to the Dahlia festival in Canby (pictures posted soon). Amazingly beautiful. Amy has a bunch of Black Satin dahlias to remind her of the morning.

Then over to the Gustafson family picnic, where I met again aunts and uncles and grandmother, and for the first time met cousins. Quite fun!

Then, it was off to business for us. First Macys. We walked through Macys and picked out all manner of new home goodness.

Then coffee and icee.

Rejuvenated, we made our Target walkthrough.

So, have a look at target and macys websites for updated registry fun.

A long day, a late evening. Definitely, a weekend well spent.

Hi! Sorry there haven’t been any posts of late. A lot of distractions have hit and while we’ve not forgotten about the wedding stuff, it seems like the wedding stuff hasn’t had more official news that can be announced quite yet.

I still mean to post on how we met. But, I hope you’ll excuse my tardiness, as I’ve had other writing to work on. I finished the first draft of my next book a couple weeks ago. It’s on Christian spiritual maturity and how God goes about teaching it.

Amy has been in the studio during her few free moments, recording a Christmas CD.

And earlier this week, I joined her in Portland. After 6+ weeks of not seeing each other, blogging isn’t too high on our list of tasks. But my being here means we’re going to be getting some wedding stuff done, and look to September for more active posts hereabouts.

Thanks for checking in!

Four weeks ago I signed the contract for my dress.

Not just any dress, the dress. My wedding dress. My once-in-a-lifetime huge white sparkly princess wedding dress. (I’d post a photo but I have to keep it secret from you-know-who ;). )

Through the years, I have been wedding dress shopping with many of my friends; I have watched them try on these uniquely large white gowns; I have witnessed each find the one that eventually and finally made them gush and say, “WOW! This is it.” READ MORE

Wheaton!! Yay!!

Welcome!!

The first words I said to Amy. On January 12, 2007.

The story of how we met… coming soon…

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. Acts 4:32

Oftentimes when this verse is read, it is followed by the question, “Why don’t we see this kind of giving & sharing among believers today?”

Well, for anyone who has ever asked that, I’m here to share the happy news that we, in fact, do.

The three weeks of our engagement thus far has proven to Patrick & I that we have amazing, amazing people in our lives. Repeatedly over this time, friends & family have risen up to offer us things that have absolutely astounded us and made our planning so much easier and so blessed.

Someone gave us a generous cash gift to help out with wedding expenses! Someone offered to make our wedding cake for no cost to us! Someone offered us a horse-drawn carriage to ride off into the sunset in! Sunday, someone offered us china & crystal because they’ve inherited way too many sets themselves! Yesterday, someone wrote and asked if she could make me some special jewelry to wear with my dress!

(Not to mention–or rather, not to forget!–the hours, money, & resources our other family & friends are investing in us as part of this journey.)

It’s beautiful. It’s a beautiful facet of the endeavor.

It’s so beautiful to both of us, mostly because even here in this, we see the Holy Spirit working through His Body. This is how life is supposed to work, this is the way He designed it. He gave each part of the Body gifts and talents and possessions to use for the benefit of the whole Body. And when we’re giving from our giftedness, we do so with joy, free of obligation. We see an occasion & we happily rise to it. We work all together, in every part of life. In births, in deaths, in joys, in failures, in crises…in weddings. That way the yoke is lighter for the one carrying the burden…and we all know, for as much joy as it is, planning a wedding is at times a burdensome task.

So, even at three weeks into this, thank you all, more than we can even begin to say. We are so thankful for your generosity, for your obedience to what GOD has moved you to do.

<3 <3 <3

Well, nothing is entirely new. Or at least new that is settled enough to make some kind of announcement. I mean I could mention that both a clock/radio and a juicer have been added to the Amazon registry. But, frankly that’s kind of boring.

But even though nothing is settled with plans we’re moving nicely forward. The location of the wedding and the reception is just about decided. Well, I’d say it is decided, but you know how these sorts of things have to go through a process.

We’ve got a cake. In fact, there’s a good story there. Very nice story. Amy’s story.

The wedding itself is mostly planned, it seems. And the reception is getting there. Put a seminary graduate and a worship leader together and services tend to be quickly planned. We thought about doing our usual habit of just throwing something together at the last moment, but then thought since we’d be all dressed up and have to print programs and such, it’d be good to come up with something more beforehand.

So I (Amy) found this dress that I really liked online.  I searched by the style number and found it on several websites for between $400 and $600, but on one website, it was only $149!

“How can this be?” I thought to myself.  “Sounds a bit too good to be true…”

They offered an email address, and I took them up on it.  “I am curious why the price is so low,” wrote I.

Their reply (not even kidding) :

Dear friend,

This question is asked by most of our customers.  There are 3 Keys:

All the dresses at our website are not the original desienged dresses but the copy.  The pictures are copyrighted by the company who have these brands.  We collected these pictures from internet and just make them as samples to our customers who want to let us customize the dresses for them.  The dresses will be designed and produced by the requirements of our customers themself.  So the price is low.

We are a Chinese wedding dress factory.  So the price is low.

We don’t have the retail stores in US or Europe.  So the price is low.

All gowns  we offer are new and customized by the requirements of our customers.
you can order in other color if you like.

It usually take us 15-20 days to customize a dress .take 4-7 days by global express delivery .  So you’d better go ahead more than one month place an order.

Best Regards
Skyle Gao

The reply I didn’t send:

Thank you, dear Skyle, but in America we have a few words for that…like illegal, for one.  I’m going to go ahead and not place that order…

We realize it is a long way from Southern California to Portland, Oregon. And we realize there are a lot of people who might want to come to the wedding who just can’t make it up there.

Because of this there will be a Southern California Reception sometime after the wedding, likely in mid-March.

Details to come whenever they are available.

So, it’s been a little over 2 weeks since I asked Amy, “Will you marry me?” That was a Sunday. That evening we celebrated with my brother and sister-in-law over wonderful French food.

The first day has to be set aside for celebration.

But, pretty soon after that we realized there would be a lot of questions asked of us.

Such as when. And where. And what colors.

First the when.

Amy’s job ends around the new year and she was moving back in with her mom for the rest of the year. Meaning, we could wait for summer and all my classes to end, but that seemed a bit long of a wait since she was going to move down here most likely anyhow. Instead of us each trying to find a temporary roommate, we decided six months was a plenty long engagement.

My class schedule suddenly became rather important. In case you didn’t realize, I’m starting back to school in the Fall. Starting a PhD in Systematic Theology at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena. There’s all sorts of aspects to that which are entirely not what I ever expected. But, that’s a whole different post. Fall quarter ends around December 12. Winter Quarter starts January 5. There’s the window right there.

Christmas, as you probably realize, is usually the theme event of December. Indeed, there’s a whole Christmas season and everyone is drunk on the Christmas Spirit. Before Christmas would be absurd because of that. Right after? That’d be December 27th. The Christmas Spirit doesn’t just disappear at bedtime, like the Memorial Day Patriotism, or Easter Day Reverence, or the Arbor Day Aura. Christmas is a high proof holiday, and tends to leave a lingering holiday hangover. Too much to ask for people to travel and plan and otherwise re-focus their thoughts away from the baby Jesus and onto Amy and Patrick’s nuptial bliss. My mom’s birthday is the 24th, New Years is the 1st. That’s far too many holidays packed into a week.

Plus, who wants an anniversary right after Christmas? It would always be lost in the Yuletide pageantry. Gotta think about the future, you know.

And so we found a day, a day enough after New Year’s Even and enough before my re-entry into theology.

Patrick Oden and Amy Gustafson will be married on January 3, 2009.

Where and what colors? We’ll get back to you on those details.

Tanabata is a Japanese festival celebrated each year on July 7th. It celebrates the coming together of Orihime and Hikoboshi, the stars we call Vega and Altair. In Japanese folklore they are celestial lovers, separated by the river of the Milky Way, except for one day a year.

According to Wikipedia:

Orihime the daughter of the Tentei wove beautiful clothes by the bank of the Milky Way. Her father loved the cloth that she wove and so she worked very hard every day to weave it. However, she was sad that because of her hard work she could never meet and fall in love with anyone. Concerned about his daughter, Tentei arranged for her to meet Hikoboshi sometimes called Kengyuu who lived and worked on the other side of the Amanogawa River (Milky Way).

When the two met, they fell instantly in love with each other and were shortly married. However, once married, Orihime no longer would weave cloth for Tentei and Hikoboshi allowed his cows to stray all over Heaven. In anger, Tentei separated the two lovers across the Amanogawa River and forbade them to meet. Orihime became despondent at the loss of her husband and asked her father to let them meet again.

Tentei was moved by his daughter’s tears and allowed the two to meet on the 7th day of the 7th month if Orihime worked hard and finished her weaving. The first time they tried to meet, however, they found that they could not cross the river because there was no bridge. Orihime cried so much that a flock of magpies came and promised to make a bridge with their wings so that she could cross the river. If it rains, the magpies cannot come and the two lovers must wait till next year.

This festival is celebrated, in part, by tying wishes and poetry to the bamboo.

This is noteworthy to me now because I was at the Huntington Library this past Sunday, and was surprised by all the little children about dressed in traditional Japanese clothing.

Amy was down for the weekend from Portland, her first visit to California since we became more than friends. She met my parents the day before. We went kayaking in Newport. On the 4th we walked around Pasadena, had cheese and salmon on french bread along with cans of Cactus Cooler. We watched The Castle and fireworks shooting out from the Rose Bowl.

So, the weekend had been a nice time already.

I had made reservations at the Tea Room at the Huntington Library Rose Garden and so we wandered over there around 10:30 in the morning, slowly made our way past the entrance, around the statue garden, through the occasional spider web, and finally to tea. It was, as one might expect, delightful. Finger sandwiches, strawberry tea, rude people at other tables we happily laughed at, not letting anything interfere. Our bond is joy and good humor and ease in each other’s presence.

We walked more among the roses after that, sitting for a bit on a bench, enjoying the warming California day. It was hot, to be sure. But quite a nice treat for her to see both blue sky and yellow sun.

We walked some more through the gardens. Through the semi-tropical forest, into Australia, then spending a long while in the desert. We watched the lilypads, felt the bamboo, and enjoyed wondering about the gazes of the various marble gods and heroes and figures.

We ventured into the old Huntington mansion. Recently re-opened after many years of restoration. There was art on the walls, fancy furniture about.

It was all delightful.

Then to the Japanese garden, following the costumed children wandering through the grounds. We found the answer to our question there. It was Tanabata. Apparently, even though it was the sixth, it was the day to celebrate the coming together of two celestial lovers who had had lived lives of many trials separating them for far too long.

Such was a fitting festival.

We walked back through the Japanese scenery, across the little stream, back to the Rose Garden where we sat on a bench once more. People walked along the sidewalk not too far away but it felt isolated because there were many rose bushes and trees and other flora walls between us and them.

There were no more barriers between us, neither river, nor mountain. Time and space, the work of not the gods but of God, had brought us to this moment.

“Amy,” I said, leaning towards her and reaching into my pocket at the same time. “will you marry me?”

“Of course,” she replied, without even a slight moment of hesitation. I had the ring in my hand and I put it onto her finger. I kissed her.

“Will you marry me?” I asked again–just to make sure she knew what I was saying.

“Yes. Yes. Yes.” She replied.

And at the Huntington Library, sitting amidst the bright roses, on a hot July 6th 2008 I became engaged to Amy Gustafson. Engaged to be wed. She my wife, I her husband.

Real and surreal.

Such is the way of celestial lovers no longer separated.

But by a temporary bit of time and space until January 3.