So, Ray and Lorraine began their journey together. Most of the controversy surrounding their marriage had subsided, and they were happy, and knew they were meant to be together. Ray was still in school finishing his senior year, so Lorraine continued to work as a professor by day, and also as a nurse's aide by night at a local hospital.
	Of course, living together meant that each of them had to change a little. And, since Lorraine was a working girl, Ray had to pitch in around the kitchen. Since they both shared a career, that arrangement never left their marriage, and Ray still straps on an apron after dinner and does the dishes.
One of the things that attracted Ray and Lorraine to each other was their common vision, a shared life goal of being in God's service. They had each felt this calling individually, earlier in their lives, and it was something they never lost sight of. This made them the perfect team in their lives of service, and their first assignment was to a church in West Seattle, in a very depressed part of town. Ray, with his newly-earned degree in theology from SPC, was the young pastor, and Lorraine got her first taste of being a pastor's wife, an occupation which doesn't require a degree but requires the same amount of professionalism, commitment, and compassion as the pastor's job does.
	After the church in West Seattle, Ray and Lorraine were appointed to a church in Victoria, BC, where their first child, Lana, was born. It was while they were in Victoria that they felt a strong calling to take their ministry overseas, but the job required a diploma, and since Ray was still paying on his student loan, he had the degree but no diploma! So they moved to Bremerton in 1951, where Ray worked for his father, in the gas station, to earn the money to pay off that student loan. During this time, their 2nd child, Mari, was born, and it wasn't long after that, in February of 1952, that they were off to the Philippines with a 2-year old and a 3-month old, to serve as missionaries.
In the Philippines their first assignment was to a very remote area of Mindanao, the southernmost island of the country. And this is a picture of their first house. After a few short years of married life, they were already homeowners, and it was a beauty--a hut with a thatched roof made out of the leaves of a palm tree. It sat on stilts (to raise it up from the ground and away from moisture and anything that crawled). Ray engineered the water system, which was a reservoir made out of a WWII bomber gas tank. In a later hut, Ray also engineered the plumbing system, which consisted of a long pipe sloping away from the hut into a compost pit about 4 yards away. At night, everyone had to sleep under mosquito nets every night to keep out not just mosquitos, but also lizards or even scorpions who might lose their footing on the ceiling.
	Lorraine's first kitchen would be any woman's worst nightmare. Imagine camping for four years. There was no running water or electricity. The "stove" was a fire pit with grates, where charcoaled coconut husks and wood were burned. All the drinking water had to be boiled to kill all the local organisms. (Somehow, most likely due to Lorraine's ultra-sanitary cooking and cleaning methods which she had learned in college, the family suffered very few illnesses.) Lorraine did have a refrigerator which ran on kerosene, and also a washing machine which ran on gas, so she was the envy of the neighborhood women, who still washed clothes by hand in the river with washboards.
At one point in their early career, there were no roads, only a river...so, here is a picture of the family out for a Sunday drive. In 1959, when Ray and Lorraine had their 3rd child, Lorraine went into early labor had to be "rushed" to the hospital in one of these boats.
	Ray and Lorraine and the family survived all of this, and even had another child, Lil, in 1960, while they were in the Philippines. They would return to the states every four years for a "furlough", a time to travel to churches all over the country to share stories and pictures of their ministry in the Philippines. And each time they returned to the remote country, there were improvements. Eventually, they lived in a house with a real roof, and running water, and electricity. And, at the end of their career, they lived in the capitol city, Manila, with all the modern conveniences of life in America (even air conditioning!) And, finally, after 38 years of service, they retired from missionary work.
Ray and Lorraine recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on June 28, 1997, where this family picture was taken. From left (standing), Lana, Mari, Nita, Lil, and Ray and Lorraine. They are now happily settled in San Diego, living close to family and friends, and still looking for ways to share love with anyone they meet.