We have a new son in-law!
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| Josiah and Leslie |
We are officially announcing the marriage of our daughter,
Leslie Anne Roberson, to Josiah Scott Talbert Truax, on August 8th,
2013. They were married at Rivermont
Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Lynchburg, VA.
This wasn’t your ordinary wedding. For one thing, neither set of parents (bride’s
or groom’s) were present at the ceremony.
We, of course, just relocated to Tokyo in January. Josiah’s family meanwhile, lives on Okinawa where his
dad serves as a Colonel in the United States Marine Corps.
Leslie and Josiah, desperately in love, announced that they
intended to marry by summer’s end. They
used the “E” word -- they were going to elope!
Well, they nearly eloped to Japan, because Josiah’s parents wanted very
badly for our two families to witness the kids’ vows, sending them into marital
bliss with a blessing from each side of the family. Between the Truax family’s pocketbook and the
Roberson family’s planning skills on the ground, we nearly had this elopement
set for Tokyo, Japan.
Except for one thing.
The kids didn’t want it.
I can’t blame them.
After all, they each had only 5 days off from work. They would
have spent 2.5 of those 5 days traveling half-way around the world and
back. The time spent in between may have
been lost in a hopeless fog of jet lag.
Even if we succeeded in pulling off the elopement of the ages, chances
are, our bridal couple would not have even remembered it.
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| Ben walks Leslie down the aisle |
In the end, Leslie and Josiah begged for us to let them
remain in the States and get married their way.
We relented. The result was a
lovely, simple wedding attended by around 20 people. Our son in-law Ben Presson stood in for Stew
and walked Leslie down the aisle. Along
with Ben and our daughter Stephanie, Lissa’s mother, Carolyn, and sister,
Kristin, attended the ceremony to represent the Roberson side of the
family. Josiah’s grandparents drove from
Florida and Ohio, respectively, to attend the wedding and represent the Truax
side of the family.
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| Our view of the ceremony. Yay, Skype! |
Where did that leave us Japan parents? Well, we watched the ceremony live via
Skype. Josiah’s granddad, Papa Truax,
used his I-phone to “video” the ceremony out to the parents of the groom in
Okinawa. The parents of the bride
meanwhile, video-skyped into the Truax home onto the sister-of-the-groom’s
laptop. Sister of the groom trained her
webcam onto the parents of the groom’s laptop, which was connected via
video-skype to Papa Truax’s I-phone inside the church.
Did I mention that the ceremony took place at 2:00 in the
afternoon in Virginia that day? That
translated to 3:00 in the morning in Japan.
This means that we, the bride’s family, attended the ceremony in our
pajamas! At 3:39 a.m. Japan time, Leslie
and Josiah were presented to the guests as Mr. and Mrs. Josiah Truax.
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| Exchanging wedding vows |
We love our new son in-law.
He is bright and articulate, a lover of literature like our daughter
Leslie is. Josiah has aspirations to
become a pastor-writer down the road. He
is a purposeful individual, to the degree that their wedding plans are partly
to enable Leslie to resume her college studies at James Madison
University. Leslie sadly withdrew from
JMU a year ago because the school insisted on charging her a third year of out-of-state
tuition. This wedding serves as a
game-changer: armed with a Virginia
marriage license, Leslie is now miraculously an in-state Virginia resident! We pray that these newlyweds succeed in
eventually switching “burgs” from Lynchburg to Harrisonburg, so that Leslie can
complete her teaching degree.
Papa Truax generously covered an apres-wedding meal at Olive Garden that afternoon.
Please join us in celebrating Leslie and Josiah's recent marriage! Praying friends, please ask God's blessing for the two-become-one as they seek His best for their lives together.
