Cheers to 30 Years!

My lovely parents celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary this past Spring. My siblings and I threw a surprise party for them in Manhattan, KS. The place they met in back in 1994. It was one of the most beautiful evenings ever. People from all facets traveled to celebrate them, their love, and their character.

We had been working on this party for about six months from booking the space to planning decorations to collecting photos to ordering catering to inviting everyone to keeping the secret. It was a lot of work. But it was a wonderful opportunity to do something really meaningful with my siblings for the two people who gave us everything and would do it over and over again. If anyone in this world deserves to be celebrated, it is, without a doubt, Jason and Heather Roenne.

For the last 30 years, they've shown us what love, loyalty, and faithfulness look like. But as I look around this room, I realize they've spent those same 30 years doing something else too. They've spent them collecting people. Friends, family, neighbors, classmates, in-laws, nieces, nephews, and now grandchildren. The love in this room didn't happen by accident. It was built one relationship, one act of kindness, and one year at a time.

Over the past 30 years they've taught us (my siblings, mostly) that love is not just a feeling. Love is relentlessly making decisions, sacrifices, and taking action in service of one another.

It's Dad slipping Orange Tic Tacs into Mom's school bag so she finds them later and knows he's thinking about her. It's the big decisions too. Buying land and building a ranch. Raising four kids. Showing up for every season of life together. And sometimes it's training for a race while on vacation just because your daughter put it on her Christmas list.

Their love language has always been acts of service. They have spent their lives serving God, serving each other, serving their family, and serving the people around them. And in doing so, they've shown us what love looks like when it's lived, not just spoken.

Over the last few years, our family has changed a lot. Boyd and Jack married incredible women. Granddaughters arrived. I graduated and moved out. Mell is about to move to Texas for grad school. For the first time in decades, Mom and Dad became empty nesters.

And what has been so fun to watch is that instead of growing apart, they've somehow fallen even more in love.

So standing there that night, in Manhattan, the city where it all began, felt especially meaningful. This is where they met. It's where all four of their children went to college. It's where our family story started.

And looking around that room, I think was the greatest gift of all. Every person there represents a chapter in that story.

Mom and Dad, thank you for showing us what it means to love the Lord, to love your people well, and to choose each other again and again for 30 years.

The life they built together was all around us tthat night.

All my love,

Neva