It’s A Boy « Laura Walters LIFE

It’s a Boy! March 5, 2009

Filed under: It's A Boy — laurawalters20 @ 10:49 am

Kirk received a phone call from the Senior Pastor in Mobile, AL and asked us to come be the Youth Pastors at Forest Hill Church of God. We prayed about it, but there was only one problem—I was pregnant with our “first child” and only weeks away from Bradley, our son, being born. Bradley was born on March 25, 1998 (7 pounds 14 ounces). Six days later, we moved to Mobile, AL and began our new start in full-time ministry.

After being married for almost 5 years, Kirk saw a side of me that I know he had never, ever seen. I did not get an epidural in time and I had a 7 pound 14 ounce baby naturally. Kirk would make comments on the severity (or lack of severity) of the contraction, based upon what the monitor was reading—not his best moment. He also made the mistake of holding my hand on some of those “not so bad” contractions and found out how strong I was. I think I put him on his knees a couple of times. I thought I was dying.

This was a BIG adjustment, a new baby, a new home, a new church, a new everything. My brother (Larry Bean) and Kirk’s sister (Gina Bean) were married (yes to each other—it just makes family events easier that way) and they were the Minister of Music at the church we went to in Mobile, AL but had no idea that the Pastor had called us to come be the Youth Pastor. They were on vacation when all this was taking place. While in ministry there with Larry & Gina the church grew from around 350 to 700 people in attendance.

It was nice to be close to family again. We lived 2 hours away from my parents and about 3 hours away from Kirk’s parents. We lived in the church parsonage (this is usually a house built beside the church for the pastor to live in) for 3 months and they decided to turn that house into the church office. Guess what? You got it! We packed up once more and bought our “first house” with our 3 month old baby. I began to work part-time at the church office a few months later. Gina (Kirk’s sister), worked in the church office also but we didn’t work on the same days. It worked out perfect because while I worked, Aunt G spoiled Bradley rotten. We did learn so much as Youth Pastor and got a lot of experience.