via volunteering, ministering and feeding the hungry ...

With Valentine’s Day drawing near, many couples will discover a means to spend some special time together â€" in all probability a meal in a pleasant restaurant, an in a single day live in an expensive resort, or, in the age of a virulent disease and anticipated cold climate Sunday, a nice, quiet evening at home.

after which there are couples who might see day by day as Valentine’s Day. they're with every other often, no matter if volunteering, working a nonprofit operation or spreading a ministry. here are three such couples.

Elaine and Chris Whitney 

photograph courtesy of the Whitneys

Chris and Elaine Whitney

Eighteen years after that they had married and had been within the technique of raising three daughters in St. Louis, Chris and Elaine Whitney decided to birth a new lifestyles in Williamson County.

Elaine had been a stay-at-domestic mother and Chris became working his own insurance business after they felt resulted in flow to Franklin in 2004 to beginning a church. within a few years, the couple noticed a stronger need to feed the hungry, and in might also 2013, they formally situated One technology Away that nowadays has grown into one of core Tennessee’s biggest food distribution centers for the needy not simplest in Williamson however in other counties and states.

“We basically felt like that’s why God introduced us right here,” Elaine Whitney pointed out. “We notion it turned into to start a church, but it really changed into for us to delivery a food ministry.”

The nonprofit has grown swiftly over the years, increasing its number of nutrients distributed by using 100% during the past yr and 238 p.c within the ultimate three years. and thru all of it, the couple has worked aspect through side in triumphs and challenges alike.

“We’ve been so used to doing life collectively that working together just gave the impression of whatever fairly herbal to occur,” Chris spoke of.

“It has grown into this truly neat component that God has created and it has been a lot of enjoyable. We get to work with a lot of brilliant people, and i get to work with my spouse.”

Elaine has mutual feelings, adding that working collectively strengthens their relationship.

“We balance each and every different out in fact well,” she stated. “We’re each doing precisely what we love to do, and that’s very satisfying.”

The Whitneys acknowledge that married couples working collectively isn't for everyone, nevertheless it’s been an amazing healthy for them.

“I don’t think it ability our marriage is any improved than somebody else’s,” Chris mentioned. “here's simply anything that God has gifted us to do collectively. We get to each use our gifts to their maximum by doing it collectively. I feel that’s in reality what matters in a marriage.”

Dorena and Chris Williamson

photo courtesy of the Williamsons

Chris and Dorena Williamson

When Chris Williamson situated amazing Tower Bible Church in 1995 and have become its senior pastor, he knew it became a pursuit he couldn’t have taken on with out the assist from somebody very particular to him.

that might be his wife, Dorena Williamson. Pastor Chris and 1st lady Dorena, as they’re affectionately wide-spread at the church, have every made their individual marks on not handiest amazing Tower Baptist in Nashville however also in their homeland of Franklin. however they’ve made even more desirable strides in working collectively.

“We’ve completed things collectively in all types of ways,” Dorena observed.

Chris added that the couple’s impact on the community harkens returned to the delivery of robust Tower Bible Church and its a lot of ability of outreach.

“no matter if we’re collaborating in our meals bank or delivering clothes to the aged in the Edgehill community, we’re all the time joined on the hip in doing ministry,” Chris spoke of. “I probably do extra of the incarceration kinds of ministries now, but there changed into a time that we'd go together and minister on the girls’s penitentiary. We’ve performed a plethora of issues collectively.”

Dorena is an writer of children’s books that “adults want too,” as her web site states. “i'm smitten by producing literary work a good way to impact the next generation in opposition t lasting trade.” She has posted books titled ThoughtFull, ColorFull and GraceFull, and is also a speaker and a mother to 4 grown little ones.

moreover main the multicultural religion community at potent Tower Bible, Chris served as one of the crucial founders of the Fuller Story in Franklin. It’s the initiative that resulted in the location of historic markers in town rectangular that share the experiences of African americans around the time of the Civil battle.

“What i love in regards to the Fuller Story is we’re telling reports about individuals to help enlighten us about where we got here from,” Chris noted. “for thus lengthy, just one facet of the story became instructed and even that become informed via rose-coloured lenses. [The Fuller Story is] not the complete story, nevertheless it’s a fuller picture, the place individuals believe and pause and mirror and hopefully want to dig a bit deeper.”

When Dorena and Chris aren’t doing their personal things or working together on ministries or different movements, they savor their down time as a pair. 

“and that i’m nonetheless crazy about her,” Chris said. “I simply love being around her. God has actually blessed us. It’s identical to wine, it gets enhanced with age.”

Lynne and Tony McAlister

image courtesy of the McAlisters

Tony and Lynne McAlister

It may be said that the story in the back of Tony and Lynne McAlister’s romance and eventual marriage is straight out of Shakespeare.

Or to be more actual, Shakespeare in the Park. That’s where the Franklin couple met in the early 1990s when Tony become working with Nashville’s summer season theater neighborhood and Lynne become within the viewers. 

and maybe there became a little of the Bard of their prolonged dating years. the two had been residing in Nashville when they met, and Tony’s job had him moving first to California and later to London. Lynne regarded that as a wakeup call of kinds. 

“We dated for just about 10 years,” she mentioned. “i used to be so frightened of getting married, it took him residing on the other facet of the area, in London, for me to assert, ‘good enough, that’s ample, I’m able to get married.’ ”

when you consider that tying the knot on Christmas Eve in 2002 and relocating to Franklin after two diverse stints living in London and three years in Raleigh, N.C., the McAlisters have been lively serving on boards and volunteering for a whole lot of nonprofits. whereas they every go their own way in a few of their neighborhood events, they additionally find alternatives to serve collectively.

some of the passions they share â€" and it goes again to their meeting each other at Shakespeare within the Park â€" is theater. To that end, each are on the board for Studio Tenn, the regional theater enterprise based in Franklin. Tony has been chairman of the board in view that November 2018, and Lynne serves as co-chair of the building committee.

“I’ve been concerned in theater for most of my adult lifestyles in some style,” Tony observed. “I actually have at all times been a huge theater fan. however I’m additionally involved operating for-income agencies, and i had accomplished strategic planning for the Shakespeare pageant. I got here on board [at Studio Tenn] and automatically started as chair.

“here's the first board I’ve ever been concerned in where you have got each husband and wife on the board. It’s very abnormal, nonetheless it’s working very well.”

Lynne, who's president of the Franklin Downtown neighborhood affiliation and is additionally lively with the nonprofit Unite Williamson, said volunteering can suggest long days, however’s without doubt rewarding with the correct strategy. 

“You ought to chuckle a lot,” she said. “To have a way of humor about every thing going on around you is the largest salvation every now and then.”