Milestone

We reached another milestone today. It is fifty years since we moved into this house. 

We were married in July 1967 and lived in a rented house for fifteen months while we bought a little over an acre of land and built a house on it. 

The carpet had not been installed in the living room when we moved in and the lawn and landscaping were not done. The upstairs was one big attic room. On the main floor were two bedrooms, kitchen, living room, bathroom, and laundry, plus an attached one-car garage. We had one three-month-old son and very little furniture. Walls were white plaster and decorating was limited to a calendar on the wall. Multiple bathrooms and central air were luxuries we didn't even consider.

Leroy worked all through the next spring and summer to seed the lawn, one section at a time. I took the picture below after we had grass, shrubs, and a tree in the front yard. They are so small you can hardly see them!

We had a lot of ideas for improvements to the place and it took almost fifty years to get them all done. Maybe that's why we never moved. As the family grew, we added a bedroom upstairs and later a second bedroom and a half-bath. That floor was crammed full with five boys. Our bedroom was downstairs and our daughter had the second bedroom.

As the years passed we built a two-bay garage beyond the right of the attached garage. When the boys were teenagers another two bays were added.

We also added a patio behind the garage end of the house and sometime later turned it into a sun room by enclosing it. Several years later it was finally finished when tiles were laid on the floor. This place was a work in progress, doing things only as needed and we could afford it.

The basement was unfinished with cement block walls and concrete floor. That was fine since it was a rec room. We had a wood stove down there which heated the basement and main floor. The concrete floor was perfect for the children to ride tricycles and roller skate. Leroy hung some swings from the floor joists and the picnic table was stored down there for the winter. In the 1990s we got rid of the wood stove and installed an oil furnace for heat. The children were growing up and our tribe was increasing as grandchildren were added, so the time had come to finish the basement and turn it into a family room for parties and Christmas dinners.

One of my dreams had been to have a sewing room in the second bedroom on the main floor. I thought I would spend my time sewing when I was an old lady. By the time that room was no longer needed for a bedroom, things had changed. I was spending more time writing than sewing so it became an office. We had an Amish man custom-build a desk to fit the room.

Some non-essential items on the "someday" list were adding shutters for trim and blacktopping the driveway. They eventually happened and we chalked off the final one when the driveway was finished last year.

Of course, there were a lot of other changes and upkeep that happened through the years. Wooden windows were replaced with vinyl ones, the roof was replaced, the garden expanded to cover almost a third of an acre and kept shrinking as the children established their own homes.

This place has served us well and could tell a lot of stories. It is the only home our children ever knew. God has been good and we are very blessed.

Moral Questions

Medical science has made great strides in modern times. A hundred years ago, during WWI, people died by the thousands from the flu. Today joint replacements and open heart surgeries are almost routine. People are living longer as a result of better health care. But some of the advances raise difficult questions, especially as it relates to the sanctity of life in reproduction and end-of-life issues. How much effort and money should be spent to prolong life? When is it time to "pull the plug"? What methods of birth control should a Christian not use? Is it morally right for an infertile couple to try conceive a child by IVF (in vitro fertilization)? Medical science has created a quagmire of moral questions that were not an issue a generation ago.

The first test tube baby, Louise Brown, was born in 1978.  Many of those who successfully undergo IVF end up with leftover frozen embryos. As the use of IVF grows, the number of embryos in storage also grows. An estimated 600,000 frozen embryos are now in storage across the United States. 

The government views these embryos as tissue and personal property rather than a human being. Most of these frozen embryos will eventually be destroyed. Since we Christians believe life begins with conception and these embryos are human beings, this creates a moral problem. 

The year Louise Brown turned 20, another couple welcomed America’s first "snowflake baby,"  the term advocates of embryo adoption use to describe the children born from this procedure. President George W. Bush began an initiative through the Department of Health and Human Services to promote embryo adoption.

When couples use IVF, one option available to them is to donate the leftover frozen embryos to another couple. This is an alternative way for an infertile couple to adopt a family. After the doner releases their embryos to the adoptive parents, the embryo is thawed and implanted in the womb of the adoptive mother. She carries and gives birth to the child, allowing the adoptive parents to not only have a child but also experience pregnancy and childbirth. A child that would have been destroyed (technically aborted) is given a chance to live. Most people have not heard of embryo adoption but I believe it is not morally wrong and is a valid way for an infertile Christian couple to build a family.