It was one year, five months, and 19 days after I met the love of my life that I stood before a gathering of friends, family, and God proclaiming my love and dedication to her. On October 27, 2012 Jasmine Megan Kersting became my wife. We are no longer Ryan Schlimgen and Jasmine Kersting, but are now Ryan and Jasmine Kersting-Schlimgen.
So much has happened since the last time I blogged. I was in Chaplain School, or more specifically PNCS BLC-Phase I. What, you don't understand what that means? Yes, the military is filled with acronyms, and I always catch myself using them with Jas, then pausing, and explaining what the acronym is. This one for example is the Professional Navy Chaplain School Basic Leadership Course Phase One. This was a four or so week course preparing me for the basics of what it means to be a Navy Chaplain. Going in, I didn't think it would be too much different from Parish ministry, just more pastoral care, and deck plate ministry (a ministry of presence, we are there in the lives of our flock as their lives are happening). As I would learn through my time at Fort Jackson, there is so much more to it than that, and I could not do any justice to the packed month I had there.
What I can tell you is that I met a lot of amazing people who will be a part of my life in the military, and otherwise from this point forward. People like Chaplain Aroon Seeda, Only the second Buddhist chaplain ever in the Navy, and one the the nicest guys you will ever meet with a great big heart, and a sense of humor that will catch you off guard and make an otherwise difficult day just a little better. Or Chaplain Ryan Williams, the LDS chaplain who switched form the Air Force to become a Navy Chaplain (after already attending the Air Force's Chaplain School), Ryan sat next to me in our classroom, and was a stand up kind of guy who is now serving his first tour green side (with the USMC) down at Camp Pendleton where I am hoping to soon to some OJT with him (On the Job Training, also known as ADT-Active Duty Training when I am getting paid [which I wont be]). And of Course, who could forget LCDR (Lieutenant Commander) Chaplain Moore, this man was an inspiration, my class officer, LCDR Moore has lived every aspect of military ministry you can think of, he has had the Holy Spirit moving through him, and acted on his feet and responded to every call he has needed to with grace, faith, and love for his flock. Truly and inspiration!
Following Chaplain School, was a little bit of downtime, getting back into the flow of my internship at St Johns Presbyterian Church in San Francisco, resting form the training in SC. Then in August, Jas and I took a road trip from San Francisco, to Great Falls, to Denver, and back in order to clean out our storage units, load everything up into a storage unit, and move it all back to San Anselmo where we could start moving it into the new apartment that would be our first home together. We just moved all of her stuff in to the apartment (still SFTS housing, in a new location slightly larger than my old apartment), so we wouldn't have to move it down again from Claire's after the wedding. It was an interesting process for about a month trying to go through all of our things and get rid of/combine our possessions, that has slowed, after the first month, but is still an ongoing process.
Classes have been back in Session since the first week in September, and I am busy but not overwhelmed. I front loaded my coursework over the first couple years so I could take it easier toward the end. I am taking three courses to remain full-time (I only require one of them and then I will have all of my requirements done to graduate). The final requirement I have is Ethics, which I am fulfilling with Economic Justice being co-taught by Professor Carol Robb, and the Seminary President/Dr Jim McDonald (I will not say what I really think about this class and it's primary professor [hint, it isn't Jim], but lets just say I am not happy with the biased and unethical treatment of this class and it's students by someone who is supposed to be an expert on ethics). Next is a Doctoral Level Pastoral Care class I was able to take by special request on Loss, Grief, and Trauma; it is an interesting topic with a lot of great information from the readings, but even more from the insight of my classmates in this seminar style class. Lastly I am taking an online class on the history of Marriage and Family in the Christian West; this was not my first choice, but the class I was going to take was cancelled, however this is turning out to be one of the more interesting classes I have taken yet. Things are going well, and I am looking forward to taking my last semester of classes in the Spring (all electives because I am effectively done after this semester).
The name hyphenated name (which causes Jasmine to call herself Mrs Dash) came about for many reasons. For one, I love my wife and her family, which she also loves very much, and there is no way I could ask here to give up such an important aspect of that family like her name. I also wanted to honor my father-in-law Jim who was blessed with three wonderful daughters each as lovely as the last, but in a society where most women take on their husbands last names it seemed like it would be nice to carry on the Kersting name for Jim. Now sure, I could have just kept my last name and Jasmine kept hers, but she wanted to take on some of me, and I wanted to take on some of her. The hyphenated name is not only an ode to those who have come before us, but a reminder to each other. We are no longer the individuals who met in the Spring, we are no longer the individuals who dated long distance through a lot of plane rides, phone calls, and skype dates, we are no longer the individuals who got engaged and moved one of them to a city in a far off land so they could be nearer to one another. We are now husband and wife. The aspects of the individuals we were are still a part of us, but now they have changed, or I should say are in the process of changing. We now are part of a Mr and a Mrs. We are husband and wife, we are a team, we are a unit, we are a family, and every time we say, write, look at, or are reminded in any way of the new last name we hold, we can remember who we have become. I am no longer a Schlimgen, Jas is no longer a Kersting, we are the Kersting-Schlimgens. Now we just need to look to each other and to God... Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love. -1Cor 13:13b
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