Good morning, everybody. It is great to see you here today, for our final installment of faith stories for 2025. It's hard to believe that it's already the last week for for faith stories. At least for me, this summer has gone really fast. But it's good to see you here.

I am going to go ahead and introduce our speakers for the morning. Today, we're gonna hear from David and Maren Breitweezer. They've been married for almost forty seven years and have attended Faith Church for thirty five of those years. They have two adult children, Dan, who's married to Jennifer, and, attend they attend Faith Church with their children, Noah and Lucy. And Anne, their daughter, who lives out of state.

David and Maren have volunteered at Faith and elsewhere in a variety of capacities over the years. You'll hear more about that in their story. So let me pray for them and then they will share. Heavenly Father, thank you for this morning to come together to worship you. Lord, I just want to thank you for, just another full summer of faith stories and just, the many, ways we've heard about, how you've been at work in the lives of, people here at Faith, Lord, and continue to be.

And, I pray for David and Maren as they come up and share, Lord. I pray that you would speak through them, open our minds, open our hearts to hear what you have to say. Lord, I just thank you again for, for our church and this class, Good morning. Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, one will lift up his companion.

But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up. Ecclesiastes three verses nine and ten. David and I chose that title because these ecclesiastes verses were part of our wedding ceremony. However, in planning to share my part of our faith story, I realized it fits in at the beginning of my life. I was born on my sister's second birthday.

I weighed nine pounds, ten ounces. My mom said that she worried because I kept throwing up. However, the doctor who delivered me wasn't concerned. My mom knew better what was normal since I was her second child, two are better than one. So she consulted my sister's pediatrician, Doctor.

Carlo. He was nearing retirement, but remembered reading a paragraph about malrotation of the cecum in medical school. However, many years ago that must have been. I had surgery at five days old and still have the life saving scar on my stomach. I was born and raised in Southern Indiana.

My family were faithful attenders of a conservative Lutheran church, where as a middle schooler, we spent many weeks over two years in Luther's small catechism. A catechism is a teaching tool explaining doctrines of the faith in a question and answer format. Many Saturday mornings were spent reviewing the questions and their answers. I know we memorized some of the creeds at this time. That actually wasn't too difficult, as reciting a creed was a regular part of our Sunday morning worship service.

As a teenager, that faith and trust in the work of Jesus on the cross became my own faith. You have probably seen me on a Sunday morning here at faith, either at the piano or at a keyboard. And no, there's no piano or keyboard here. Well, I started piano lessons at age five or six. My mom played piano, but not very often that I can recall.

I didn't like to practice much, and frankly, my piano technique was more a matter of what I could get away with from my elderly piano teacher. I don't recall my piano teacher ever playing much to show me how a particular passage or section was performed. Looking back at that from the physician standpoint, I suspect it was because of her very arthritic hands. I also started organ lessons with an organist at another church where my mom's parents attended, maybe age 10 or so. Unfortunately, at about this same time, some disagreements over events at the Lutheran Church, not over Lutheran doctrine, led to an ugly church split.

My immediate family chose to go with the breakaway church, although relatives on my dad's side chose to stay with the original church. In some sense, this split my family, but it never seemed to be an issue for us when we would get together in a group. The breakaway church met for one to two years in a private reception hall until a new church building could be built. An electronic organ was donated to the new church by a family that attended. And so, an organist was needed.

My mom very reluctantly began helping at the console, not being an organist herself, But soon it fell to me, about age 12 or 13, having had a few organ lessons, to be the regular church organist until I went away to college. I attended IU Bloomington for four years and then IU med school in Indianapolis for four years to receive my MD degree. And it was as a junior medical student in a rotation through pulmonary intensive care at University Hospital on the med center campus that I spied an attractive young student nurse. My parents took my sister and me to a large Presbyterian church in downtown Fort Wayne until their divorce that was final when I was in junior high. I remember maybe in sixth grade, a Sunday school teacher I respected explained away the miracle of Jesus feeding the thousands with the loaves and two fish by people pulling food out of their pockets.

Also, overall, the apostle Paul was portrayed as being very arrogant. I did attend a confirmation class for several months when I was about 12, and I chose to honor or follow God then. After my parents divorced, my dad came from his apartment and often took my sister and myself to church. My mom was teaching high school all day and drinking alcohol each evening. Thankfully, my mom was able to abstain from alcohol by the time David and I were engaged.

I am grateful for the home she provided and that I could continue to have the same neighbors, attend the same schools, etcetera. Also, looking back, I am incredibly grateful that I started playing clarinet in fifth grade. I was in band, orchestra, and choir in high school. I view the camaraderie in band as a life preserver of sorts during my time at Northside High School in Fort Wayne. It was a wonderful way God used to connect me with all kinds of students that I never would have had relationships with otherwise.

After med school, I began a three year family practice residency in Evansville, the area where I had grown up. Marin and I were married that same year. I don't recall a lot of details from my training experience, except for the many hours spent on call at the hospital and spending time with an office manager reviewing practice management. After residency, not being a fan of cold weather, we interviewed with grape group practices in Southern states looking for a physician group to join after residency. A small, multi specialty group in Darlington, South Carolina seemed like a good fit.

So, we packed up to move south. While I am sure there were many lingering effects of black white segregation in Evansville, those segregation effects were much more obvious and visible in small town South Carolina. Due to an economic downturn nationally, as well as some clashes among partners in the practice, I resigned from this small practice and we moved back to Indianapolis after only two years in South Carolina. Two huge blessings from our South Carolina experience. First, we had moved to South Carolina as a family of two, but we moved back to Indiana as a family of three, our son Daniel being born there.

And second blessing, the ocean. You see, Myrtle Beach is only about 60 miles east of Darlington. I was a nurse at Parkview Hospital's title for Candy Stripers since I was 12 until I graduated from high school. I wanted to help people and have job security, so decided to become a nurse. The summer after my first year of college at IU in Bloomington, I was a counselor at a Presbyterian camp in Southern Indiana.

That was the first time I came across people my age and some counselors who had different ideas of what made someone a Christian. I felt very alone because I didn't qualify, although probably half the staff was similarly judged. I was also a lifeguard for the lake at camp, and I can't tell you how grateful I am that no one ever drowned, and I never needed to jump in to rescue anyone. Totally God's care. My dad had discouraged me from being a nurse, so I didn't immediately take the nursing requirements.

I had the choice after my freshman year to either graduate in four years and take summer school for two summers, or graduate in five years and have a much lighter course load altogether. That's the first time I remember giving myself some slack, And so I chose to attend five years of college. I needed to have at least twelve hours of classes to live in the dorm. Wow, such a gift to me. That is because I left Bloomington.

Before I left Bloomington, I took beginning diving with Hobie Billingsley, who sent numerous divers to the Olympics. Also, I took history of jazz with David Baker, who started the Jazz department at IU. The teachers and the classes enriched my life and widened my horizons. Last but not least, when I moved to Indianapolis to finish nursing school, I worked part time in Pune Intensive Care Unit and met David Breitwieser. Need I say more about God's care and providence?

I am thankful for the three years David and I lived in Evansville near his side of the family. I had never been a part of such a connected extended family. Member of the Br as a nurse and member of the Breitweezer family and their Lutheran church with its liturgy their family had helped start. I was on staff at Wellborn Hospital, first on a med surg unit that was mainly hospice. I remember a patient named Lenora, who challenged me as I was scurrying around that included monitoring and IV in her arm.

She said something like, You know that song, you've got to stop and smell the roses. Well, I've worked hard all my life and I am lying here dying and I've never stopped until now because I have to. I don't remember what else she went on to share but forty six years later, I am still challenged by her warning to slow down whether or not I have wholeheartedly gotten past good intentions to slow down. Also, as a newly married woman whose parents divorced after twenty years of marriage, devoted to truly be present and loving in sickness. Similarly, both of David's grandmothers were more frail than their husbands.

So precious to see their loving help and commitment to their wives. Bottom line, I am forever grateful for all God's care and provision and examples of Christians living out their faith. When we moved to South Carolina, I realized how different the racial attitudes were in the Bible Belt. I worked part time in a surgery recovery area. Lots of interactions with staff and differing attitudes that I am certain break God's heart, and of course, sadly are present elsewhere.

Our son was born there, and we were so blessed, but I was so challenged. He was healthy, and I was able to continue to be staff on Wednesdays in recovery room. When we moved back from South Carolina, I joined MetroHealth here in Indianapolis, really just as a temporary place of employment until we could get back on our feet. Of course, being closer to both sets of parents was definitely a plus. My, my so called temporary employment lasted about thirty six years.

Yes, there were job changes and job, responsibility changes, legal structure, coworkers, ownership, even the name changed many times, eventually becoming part of IU Health. But I never left that practice until I retired about six years ago. A blessing during the early years of my career at MetroHealth was the birth of our daughter, Anne, with doctor John Mitchell as our pediatrician. Anne now serves as a nun in the Orthodox Convent in Kansas City, Missouri. I briefly tried to work as a nurse at a nursing home one day each week, but resigned after a few months and was home full time for twenty two years.

No regrets. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I didn't initially like a neighbor near where we lived when we moved back to Indianapolis, but when she said her church had a bible study that provided free babysitting, I was in. I am forever grateful for the ten years or so that I first took our son and then our daughter until they were in school to Creative Living Bible Study at Hope Church on Wednesday mornings. Great fellowship and Bible study.

So listening to my neighbor's recommendation was a good lesson for me. I need to be open to learning from people I don't particularly care for, as well as people I like or love. Growing up, my family's church tradition was that everyone attended church, and everyone attended Sunday school, children and adults. The Lutheran church we attended here after moving back from South Carolina did not really emphasize adult education and was much more liberal in its outlook and teaching. Thanks more to Marin's initiative than my own, we started looking for another church home.

We landed at Faith in 1990 and have been part of this body ever since. Our pediatrician, John Mitchell, was a member here. Later, I recognized Chris Groom as being one of Faith's missionary family. I had had brief positive interaction with Chris when she was a nurse at Methodist Hospital and I was a medical student in training. Later, our family spent a week in London with Steve and Chris one summer.

Beginning that Faith Church placed an emphasis on adult education. Pastor Dave Baldwin, who was the Christian education pastor, lived down the street from us and became our home group leader. Daniel has always been serious about his faith. When we were considering finding another church home, we were concerned about how it would affect our son. When he started school that fall, he started talking about this boy named Barry Rodriguez.

As a beautiful example of God's care, our first Sunday at Faith Missionary, there was Barry. As you might have guessed, Daniel was fine with attending faith. Such a gift to our son and family. In addition to the above, I see God's hand in timing with regard to worship. The church piano music I was more familiar with prior to Faith Church was more generic.

You might even call it mood or reflective music expressing a general emotional state. I don't recall hearing hymn tune arrangements to any great extent prior to attending the services at Faith. However, when we began attending Faith at that time, Penny Rodriguez, mother to mother to Barry, was both composer and full time pianist here at Faith. This opened up a whole new category of music and piano arrangements for me to explore. And Marin can attest that I did indeed explore it, purchasing not only Penny's works, but also checking out other composers and arrangers.

Of course, you understand a pianist can never have too much piano music. And it's always a pleasure to play a nine foot concert grand piano. I don't recall how or who let the cat out of the bag that I could play the piano. Kertchel Armstrong was the pastor of music and worship at that time. And he asked me to play occasionally for the Sunday evening services that faith held at that time.

Maybe it was just a tryout on his part to see what I could do. Within a year of our attending faith, Grace Church was sent out. The decision being to split the congregation roughly in half and maintain a presence here at 90 First And College. Penny Rodriguez obviously moved to the daughter church with her husband Dave, who became lead pastor at Grace. There were a number of pianists at faith, and we had an informal rotation for Sunday morning services.

However, over time, several of those folks withdrew for various reasons, and I assumed playing for more Sunday morning services. It's been a real joy for me to learn new arrangements, new hymns which are not in the Lutheran tradition, and to resurrect and relearn older arrangements for Sunday services. And I'm grateful for Randy Schlaeneger's faithful volunteer service for many years, like this morning, generally splitting the Sunday duties with me. Please know that throughout my growing up and adult years, my life has been very greatly impacted by my parents' divorce when I was in junior high. If someone tells you the kids will be fine, please know there is life altering fallout regardless of the specifics.

However, after the Billy Graham crusade in Indianapolis, I took the initiative to lead a bible study at the Indiana Juvenile Correctional Facility with preteen and teenage girls. It made me appreciate that these girls weren't exposed to many positive things families do, and the girls experience things they never should have had to deal with. I am not minimizing how difficult my experiences were, but serving the girls there gave me a fresh perspective on how much I understandably took for granted in my family of origin. Back to the two are better than one. I am so grateful for David's support through our marriage.

His positive family experiences and Christian faith have been key in helping me when there were so many logistics to handle with my family of origin. My life verse for a number of years is Romans twelve twenty four, Do not be overcome by evil, and I think it's Romans twelve twenty one, I made that mistake. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Especially because of my upbringing, I can relate to many difficult situations that people might be dealing with. Also, my dad's family, side of the family is Jewish.

He was involved with mayor's commission on human relations, and did his best to hire in management positions, qualified women who would dress like management. I also remember two men of color who he must have hired when he worked at General Telephone. I remember one of those men was married and had two young children, and that we did something social on one or two occasions. My orthodontist was Negro, and his partner was white. Participating in the Perkins Justice Pilgrimage with David last October only deepened my desire to make a positive difference.

The Perkins Justin Justice Pilgrimage involves life changing dialogue, engaging bible study, and immersive learning experience about reconciliation between the races and justice in the Deep South. The final day of the pilgrimage, we were challenged to interact with people we would not normally be around. I feel like exercise has backed me into knowing and or loving people I wouldn't normally be around. I have said for years to about anyone that Jesus gives me joy and peace, but exercise is the nicest thing I do for my mental and physical health. Most of the people I swim by at the Y look like me, but don't seem to share my faith.

Although over time, I've gotten to meet some wonderful exceptions. Ever since I rode the Hilly Hundred in Bloomington as a treat to myself after winning my daughter from breastfeeding in 1986, I've been a member of CIBA, Central Indiana Bicycle Association. I have often rode alongside acquaintances or friends who don't share my color, even more so in the last several years since I've been a member of Black Girls Do Bike and Riverside Writers. May I say my faith impacts all aspects of my life, and I do my best to share as I have courage to follow nudges or directions by the Lord. I volunteer as a nurse at Good News Health Clinic each week.

Good News Ministries is part of our church missions family that includes a homeless shelter for men, housing for some of the staff, a youth center, a thrift store, as well as the clinic that serves the men's shelter and many people in the community who don't have health insurance. I consider myself a thankful person, but good news has helped me take much of my daily life and surroundings less for granted. For the past few years, maybe ten or more, Maren and I have been serving in children's ministry second hour, starting in the nursery, and then graduating to kindergarten with Margaret Walker, who's a real pro at this. Now, we are serving in the preschool area. This has been an opportunity for us to do ministry together.

I was blessed to have all four of my grandparents active and in my life until I was in my thirties. Since my grandparents lived in the same community as my parents, We would be together frequently, and they were great role models of loving grandparents. I think that has helped me to be a grandparent to my own grandchildren, Noah and Lucy, as well as serving in children's ministry here at Faith. Another place we see God working was my retirement. For beneficial contract reasons, I gave eighteen months notice ahead of time of my plan to retire effective 07/05/2019.

Son Daniel and our daughter-in-law Jen moved from West Virginia to Carmel to take a new job in Indianapolis at the June 2019. Do you think that was just a coincidence? I don't think so. We are blessed to have this part of our family in the same community and even in the same church. Two is better than one.

Now, I come back to our title. It has several ideas rolled into one. First is marriage. Paraphrasing Pastor Tom, when you put two sinners together, there will be challenges. We are no exception.

If you're familiar with us, you are aware that we have very different personalities. I I assume you're aware of that. But I can say that we are both determined to work out our differences. Also, this is not to say that marriage is the only option or the better option for everyone. Second, thinking of Proverbs twenty seven seventeen, iron sharpening iron, meeting together with others either individually or in a small group is helpful for our mutual growth.

We have been blessed by the various groups we have attended including home groups, bible studies, etcetera. Third and most important of all, we have a relationship with Jesus, our savior and our guide, working in us and through us to mold us and shape us to be more like him. The end.