Friday, August 16, 2013

A New Family Member!



We have a new son in-law!

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.


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.  

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.

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.