Regan and Mellie have been married for 17 years.
One of my favorite parts of this episode may be that you can hear 4 of their 6 children practicing their violin in the background toward the end, and another favorite moment, at the very end where the Martin’s sing a gospel hymn for us.
This American family who moved from Wisconsin/Illinois to follow God’s call to South Africa.
Both had missions on their heart.
Regan said he prayed, “Here we are, send us. Where would you have us to be?”
Regan visited South Africa with Cape Missions International and after one of those trips, when Mellie picked him up from the airport he said, “I think the Lord is calling us to South Africa”.
Mellie shares she was overwhelmed at that, because she had been single handedly parenting as he was away and “was in survival mode. She was pregnant with their fifth child”.
Mellie said she just simply listened and thought maybe it was just the jet lag talking, and that she wouldn’t bring it up because maybe it would just go away.
But it didn’t go away and she agreed to go back with Regan a year later and observed what he had experienced on his first trip to South Africa. She couldn’t deny that there was a fit, that Regan was in his element.
“It hit me on the trip, this is right.” - Mellie
Regan and Mellie share they met in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin at their family church.
It wasn’t until Regan had been in a really serious car accident that he grasped God in a whole new way.
“When He was at work at turning my heart after Him, it was in that context with new eyes I saw Mellie and there was an attraction there.”
“The work that the Lord was doing in my life was that my heart would be fully after Him, and trusting the Lord in how He might work everything out with Regan. I prayed for him a lot.” - Mellie
“God had it all under control” — Mellie
Regan says during the dating/engagement period, he had a lot of immaturities surface and saw how marriage was going to mature him and how he needed a better grasp of the gospel, and centering on Christ.
“Marriage and fatherhood is how God calls a young man forth in manhood” — Regan
“That faithfulness, responsibility, serving, leading, laying down your life…”
They share what they’ve learned of the Father’s heart through the role of husband and wife.
Mellie said the idyllic idea she may have had about herself thinking she is patient, understanding really has been shifted especially with children and fostering children in the early years of their marriage, seeing that submission and respect is something she really was having a hard time with, in relation to Regan.
“I’d ask the kids to respect their father, but am I respecting him? I’m such a hypocrite.”
“You see yourself in this mirror of God’s Word…and it’s so humbling and distressing. I began to understand how much I need the gospel. So seeing the Father’s heart in that, I felt like, ‘Lord You’re telling me to love, and I am completely incapable of loving… how could You call me to do that?’
And I felt Him say, “That’s exactly where I want you to be, you need the gospel and that’s why Jesus died. Not only to save you from your sins but to empower you to live a righteous way.” - Mellie
“Mellie, will you submit to My leadership through your husband?
And growing up in my family, which has a lot of strong women, that was so counter cultural, so against my natural way of operating.”
FAMILY
& homeschooling
“From the beginning, God put it in my heart to lead my family in worshipping God. That burden, that desire, a happy burden, a joy.” - Regan
“To worship God as a family…what a blessing”
“There’s a great need for that, where reformation would meet the home” — Regan
“And where parents would have that biblical vision for shepherding their children’s hearts at home, worshipping the Lord together at home, and especially preaching the gospel. We come back again and again to the gospel in our home because we see our brokenness
in close relationship you d
