The Marriage Course Meets You Where You’re At

...even if where your husband is working in Sudan!

The movie that encapsulates our courtship is When Harry Met Sally.

The song that expresses our lives is Leaving on a Jet Plane.

It took us 12 years to decide to get married and over all of these years we have learned many relationship lessons.  The one that stand above all the rest is to create specific time together, but this has become much more challenging since we now have two young children. 

So in June after three months of pretty consistent work travel, Craig and I saw that the church was offering The Marriage Course again with breakfast and childcare on Saturday mornings and we said, “Sign us up!” And honestly, with breakfast and childcare provided we would have signed up for “Fish Cleaning 101”, but happily the marriage relationship is a much better topic!

We got to our first class in the under croft of our church and there were tables for two people scattered throughout the room with linen clothes, roses, and coffee service. It truly was a “You had me at hello.” moment! This session happened to have the privilege of live facilitators for the class, Derek and Cathy Rust. They brought an authenticity and warmth to the class that supplemented the video content. We were surprised, though, at how much the videos drew us in. Affectionately known as the “Couch Couples,” the videos depict a series of short interviews with various couples of different ages, stages and backgrounds talking about joys and challenges in their marriages. They also gave testimony about different moments of transformation that took place in their marriages because of the Marriage Course. There was plenty of time each week for Craig and I to talk one on one about the topic for that day – communication, family of origin, forgiveness, to name a few. There was a workbook that helped to guide our conversations and homework for us to complete together during the week.

Now you have to participate in The Marriage Course in the context of your real life relationship, right? So two of the weeks I went by myself because Craig was in Sudan. But, as I mentioned this is normal for us.  While the other couples talked together during the discussion time, I wrote Craig a letter on my laptop (internet service is quite sketchy in Sudan so live communication wasn’t an option!). As we journeyed our way through the eight weeks, we got some new insights, remembered some stuff we forgot, and laughed at the banter between the couch couple we dubbed ‘the extroverted teacher' and 'bemused musician' (let us know if you find them hilarious, too). Wherever you are in the marriage relationship, The Marriage Course is well worth the time and commitment.

Building nine years of marriage... one day at a time.

Craig and Debbie Cole