This week we have the joy of sharing another “new Attendee” within Savior’s community. If you haven’t already met The Miller family, join me in getting to know them!
Who is in your family (children, pets, etc.)?
• Parents: Matthew and Becky
• Five kids: Katherine (14), Joshua (12), Estel (9), Providence (7), and Iunia (5) (pronounced Yoo-nee-uh, it's the Latin spelling of the female apostle Junia in Romans 16)
• Pets: Two Bengal cat brothers, Bugaboo and Bungalow
Where do you live? Where are you originally from?
We have lived in Wheaton for two and a half months. We moved here from Maastricht, Netherlands, where we lived for the past eight years. Becky was serving on the pastoral staff at an international church, and Matthew was a managing partner at an analytics consultancy. Our two youngest kids were born at home in Maastricht. Before that, we lived in Rhode Island, where Matthew grew up. Becky grew up all over the globe as a military kid.
Are you related to anyone at Savior?
Matthew is Fr. Kevin Miller’s nephew! Mtr. Karen has been Becky's pastoral leadership coach for the past three years. Getting to live near them was one of the reasons we moved to Wheaton.
How long have you been coming to Church of the Savior?
Becky visited the church while staying with the Millers during her annual week-long intensive courses at Northern Seminary for the past few years. We've been attending the Zoom services as a family since we moved here (and we popped in a few times to the Facebook broadcast while still living in the Netherlands).
In your time at Savior so far, what have you enjoyed most?
This is a big tradition transition for our family—we've never been part of a liturgical church before. During the first service we participated in on Zoom, one of our kids asked, "Why does church have a script?"
We have really enjoyed the sermons and the variety of preachers who have shared messages. This is something unique about Savior that we would love to see more churches emulate. We also love the focus on social justice, gender equity, and anti-racism. It's important to us that our kids grow up seeing women in church leadership to set an example for them.
What are some fun and entertaining ways your children have participated in the church services?
They mostly use the living room furniture as a jungle gym while we're trying to participate in the service. Their favorite parts of the service are any times that Pastor Esther’s daughter is on the screen and when other members include their pets.
What do you do when your family is not at church? (Job, hobbies, etc.)
Matthew works for Salesforce as a product manager and is adjusting to working from home after spending the last 12+ years traveling extensively for work. He loves coffee and cycling and awful puns, and he wishes he had more time to play guitar and write songs.
Becky just finished her master's in New Testament and is working on a book on Jesus's emotions. She enjoys reading, cooking, interior design, and discussing Biblical interpretation.
All the kids love reading and are thrilled with the Wheaton Library because it's full of English books! (Our library in the Netherlands had only a small selection of English books, though the kids are also fluent in Dutch.) We love riding our bikes and brought 16 bicycles in our shipping container. We have made it our family mission to visit every playground in the Wheaton area. The kids can't wait to go back to in-person school and make friends. They have had so much fun at the church picnics and bonfire.
What has been a surprising gift to your family during this time of COVID? And what don’t you want to return to “normal”?
Matthew getting to be home instead of traveling constantly is a nice change. This is the first time our family has been able to create consistent rhythms and routines.
Better public health measures like masks, frequent sanitation, and regular handwashing have made a big difference to us. We used to get sick all the time with the kids bringing home germs from school (one child horrified us by explaining the game of "Lick Tag" they played), but now we haven't had colds or stomach bugs in seven months. We hope to carry better public hygiene habits forward with us.