Declaring God's Faithfulness- March 2018

We were both granted the sweet gift of being raised by strong Christian families with a strong Christian heritage. Ransom grew up with his parents and younger brother in Glenside, Pennsylvania. Ransom’s father is a well-known Reformed theologian teaching at Westminster Theological Seminary and so Ransom had a rare upbringing—discussing theology and other weighty Biblical matters from a very young age. When his parents discovered a lack of “coming of age” traditions for Christian men, they instituted the “Bar Yeshua” in their family. Similar to a Bar Mitzvah, the boys were required to memorize large portions of Scripture, learn Greek and Hebrew, as well as other practical skills like drafting a budget, in their journey from boyhood to manhood. At age 12, they celebrated the Bar Yeshua at their PCA Church with a ceremony and meal. For more information on it, you can Google Vern Poythress’s article, “How I Helped My Boys to Become Christian Men.” Throughout his high school years, although he had a lot of theological knowledge, Ransom’s faith was largely his parents’ and his successes were a source of pride for him. It was his freshman year at Caltech where God began to slowly take away those sources of pride. Where he had been the top of his class at high school, he found himself struggling academically in college where students performed at such high levels. When he started to throw himself into sports and athletics and find success (especially in Ultimate Frisbee) he tore his ACL. Ransom struggled to find a church family in California and he found those college years to be some of his darkest spiritually.

It was after college, when he spent a gap year at home trying to figure out next steps for grad school, when his faith revived. He took some classes at Westminster Seminary (they were free! #family perks) that solidified his personal belief in the objective truth of the Gospel! Ransom spent the next six years of his life at Boston University getting his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology. There, his faith was tested and it grew. He became a deacon in a PCA church and had a wonderful church community. After Boston, he had another gap year before looking for jobs and took a few more classes at Westminster Seminary. We are so glad he went back to Westminster because that’s when Lisbeth entered his life!

Lisbeth grew up with her parents and older sister in a suburb outside of New York City. She remembers accepting Christ at age 5, locking herself in the bathroom and asking Jesus to come into her heart. She did it every day that week until her parents told her that once was enough! Similarly, Lisbeth knew all of the “Sunday School” answers and thought of herself as a good Christian. On a mission trip in her teens, she recommitted her life to Jesus, feeling like she had previously been a Christian on Sundays, but a non-Christian during the week. She became the president of the Bible Club at her school and lost a lot of friends because of her refusal to participate in harmful activities her peers enjoyed. But it wasn’t until her freshman year of college at Wheaton that she realized she didn’t really think of herself as a sinner and thought she was pretty good overall. The truth of her depravity, of her deep and utter sinful estate, hit her like a ton of bricks and she saw her desperate need of Christ. This was a turning point in her life and she and the Lord grew closer than ever.

After college Lisbeth wrestled with career options. She became an Assistant Theater teacher in Harlem, NY. She worked as a teacher during the day and then attended Acting School at night. She tried pursuing acting professionally but bumped up against several ethical issues and decided it wasn’t worth it to fight those battles the rest of her life. But she always hoped theater would be a part of her life in some way. After a semester spent at Francis Schaeffer’s “L’Abri” in Switzerland (Christian study center) to “reset” and seek the Lord’s will, an interest in Biblical Counseling arose. She ended up at Westminster Theological Seminary in pursuit of her Master’s Degree in Counseling. This is where she and Ransom overlapped. It took until the last day of class of our last semester together, and it took a matchmaking friend to coerce us to have our first conversation. But once we started talking, we couldn’t stop talking to each other. Our first date started at the lunch hour and was still going strong by the time the dinner crowd came in! We fell for each other quickly. Both being a bit older and having dated for a while, it was clear that the relationship was like none other we had ever had. We both felt a strong desire to honor the Lord in our relationship and were very vulnerable about our histories and weaknesses.

We dated in-person from May-August of 2014 and then Ransom landed a job in Northwestern NY at Houghton College. So from August 2014-May 2015, we were long-distance dating. But in December of 2014, Ransom proposed to Lisbeth (it’s such a beautiful engagement story—ask Lisbeth to tell you sometime!) and they quickly started planning their wedding for June 20, 2015. Following our sweet wedding, Lisbeth transplanted to Houghton and we have been living here ever since. Ransom teaches Biology at the college and Lisbeth continues to pursue licensure in NY as a Mental Health Counselor and teach Zumba classes at the college. We have a heart to minister to the college students. We try to have Ransom’s classes over for meals and regularly meet with students one-on-one for prayer and counsel. God has blessed us with a house of our own, as well as a rambunctious and hungry cat, Marvel.

The Presbyterian Church of Wellsville has been like extended family to us. We couldn’t believe that months after we got married, they threw us a post-wedding shower and gifted us all of our dishware that was previously overlooked on our wedding registry! We love being a part of several different aspects of church ministry and thank the Lord for our generous, loving, and Christ-like church family.

*ADAPTED FROM OUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTER. FOR MORE INFORMATION REGARDING OUR NEWLETTER, PLEASE CONTACT THE EDITOR, DOROTHY ACHILLES, AT MDACHILLES@FRONTIERNET.NET