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Building Strong Marriages

Nina and Marshall Marley

8/09

Nina’a Background

In Rockford, Michigan, Nina endured a chaotic family life with an abusive father and an alcoholic mother. Nevertheless, her father, a very strict Catholic, wanted everybody to go to mass with him. Nina says, “That’s where I went to church and how I learned about God. I went to parochial school for six years.”

Her older sister had a wild reputation at the Catholic High School where Nina would probably follow in her sister’s footsteps. But, as an 8th grader in 1957, she says, “My life changed—we moved to the country and I went to public school. There I got a fresh new start and made new friends.”

She met her best friend who soon became a Christian. Nina then also got saved through her friend’s witness. During high school years, they grew in the Lord. Nina says, “I hadn’t read the Bible before, so it was all new and fresh. I didn’t really get into trouble, because we were living for the Lord.”

Concerning her relationship with the Lord, she says, “My parents were not happy about it. I wanted to honor my parents so I did go to mass. But our family was in such a mess—my mom left my dad several times, wanted to get a divorce, but always went back to him. There was just no stability in the home.”

So Nina was glad to spend time as a teen-ager at her best friend’s home and to learn from her friend’s parents. “But,” she says, “I went off to college, and we went different directions. I had problems and insecurities because I still was not grounded enough in God. I really didn’t do well emotionally. And when I graduated, I married a non-Christian.”

After marrying Jim, a college campus worker, they moved to Missouri where she began teaching. For a time, she strayed from God, but the birth of their son Travis pointed her back to the Lord. In 1970, she and their son attended the local community church and later began attending a Baptist church. She recommitted her life to Christ and started growing in faith again. That gave Nina needed stability when Jim shocked her and fifteen-year-old Travis by deserting them. Divorce followed.

At that point, she quit her teaching job and went to work in Kansas City at Colonial Presbyterian Church, CPC. As the pastor’s assistant for the next eleven years, she observed his example as a godly Christian man. She says, “I never had had that example. He had a great impact upon my life and others, too.”

Marshall’s Background

Marshall’s father abandoned the family when Marshall was three. His mom remarried six years later, and his stepfather, with three children, adopted her children as well. Having a non-Christian stepfather and a Christian mother, Marshall says, “I went to church services, attended vacation Bible School, and memorized scripture. As I grew up, though, I never saw what a godly adult male was supposed to look like.”

He looked at all the men of this church, even the pastor, and saw no one he was interested in imitating. He respected them as working men but not as Christians. Marshall says, “At age 14, I made a deliberate choice not to follow God. I was very rebellious. I knew the difference between heaven and hell, but said, ‘If I have to live the way [church] people live, I choose hell.’”

Marshall, the oldest son, was very rebellious and disrupted the entire family. He left home at age sixteen that he might have fun. Then, an apprehensive nineteen-year-old Marshall married a non-Christian and joined the Navy. After serving in Viet Nam, he got out of the Navy and began working for the Federal Aviation Administration in Olathe, while still drinking and partying. During that time, his wife bore him two sons.

While he was out of town on business, his wife visited their neighbors’ church. Marshall tells of his return, “I came back on a Friday night, and my wife told me then that Saturday morning the preacher was going to come over. I didn’t want anything to do with church, but I was polite and listened to him. I committed to go to church the next morning. That night I knelt beside my bed and put God on probation. I said, ‘God, I will try what you have for me, but if I’m going to serve You, I have to have a relationship with You that’s different than what I saw as a kid.’”

So, they attended there, the First Assembly of God Church in Olathe. He says, “That church along with the pastor and his wife had a major impact on me. I grew in the Lord tremendously for fifteen years.”

God Closes a Door

Following those years, Marshall’s family moved to Loveland, Colorado, and found a phenomenal church there. One of the pastors mentored Marshall and helped him learn to study, to host a weekly Bible study, and to make hospital calls. In September 1984, he felt God’s call into the ministry. He says, “Some friends owned a house with a small cabin in Estes Park, and I took a month off work to fast and pray as to whether I was gonna’ go into fulltime ministry. My wife was very much against it, but I was ready to quit my job to go into ministry. One morning, about three a.m., I went out on the deck over-looking Big Thompson canyon. I was desperate with God, ‘Do you want me to go into fulltime ministry?’”

Very clearly I heard, “Not now!” Although that answer disappointed Marshall, he says, “I had perfect peace.”

He returned home and continued ministering to everybody in the church except his family. Then, one day he found a note that his wife had left him. She had taken their sons and moved to Wichita. Divorce followed in 1986, after which Marshall moved back to Olathe to be closer to his sons

Marshall & Nina meet

In 1987, he was invited to a singles’ group at Colonial Church, more aptly entitled Divorce Recovery, which Nina helped lead. They became acquainted and got involved in that ministry together. That year, united in mind, they sought to honor God in all they did and married March 5, 1988.

Seeking God’s Call

Not just Marshall but Nina, too, had felt God’s call earlier in her life. If they planned on going into fulltime ministry, missionary friends advised them to get solid grounding in God’s Word. So, September 1996, they went to check out the Bible School in Estes Park. They drove there thinking they could easily get a motel reservation. However, they found nowhere to stay, that being the busiest time of year. Fortunately, a woman at the Chamber of Commerce informed them she had had a cancellation of a cabin. They followed her directions to the cabin. Marshall describes it, “As we were making a huge sweeping left-hand turn, I saw the place. And—it was the exact same cabin I stayed at twelve years earlier! The lady had bought the house and made the cabins into rentals. That was a great big sign to me.” But he concludes, “We had to make sure.”

About three a.m. the next morning, Marshall remembers sitting on the deck overlooking the canyon. This time he heard the clear voice of God saying in his heart, “Now is the time.”

Nevertheless, Nina wanted her own signs. She experienced insecurities such as: “Where’s the money going to come from? What are we gonna’ do? What does this mean? What are we gonna’ do with all our stuff?” That final question made Nina realize, “I was holding onto things, and I did not want anything to stand in my way to serving the Lord.”

God leads them into ministry—Building Strong Marriages

They also received ministry direction in scripture and returned to Kansas City for further counsel and prayer. Then, August 1997, they quit their jobs and went off to Estes, Colorado, to the Torchbearers Ministry Bible School. For a year, they lived in a small apartment. Living in such close quarters, Nina admits to experiencing spiritual meltdowns and had many questions, for instance, “Is God going to be there to catch us if we fall? Am I strong enough to do this? What do I have to offer?”

Together, she and Marshall prayed specifically about such concerns. Nina states, “I couldn’t go on his faith. I had to establish that faith of my own. We learned a lot about spiritual warfare and God’s faithfulness from excellent teachers.”

After finishing a year at the Bible School, they returned to Kansas City in 1998 to start a marriage ministry at CPC. Then, in July 2000, they started Building Strong Marriages as a not-for-profit organization and since have raised their own support. Being a 24/7 ministry, the Marley’s learned to guard against crises in other marriages invading their own marriage, for they aspire to be an example of a good marriage.

Finding Life Church

Nina and Marshall minister to churches in Kansas City and so introduced the ministry to Pastor Clint. He became excited about it, and they decided to try Life Church. Marshall says, “We loved the music and teaching, prayed about it, and decided to become a part of Life Church. We continue training couples to be premarital mentors all over.” To this Nina concludes, “But we like to do it at our church, too.”

Finally, Marshall sums up, “God has been very gracious in letting us minister to many people, training over 200 mentor-couples in the KC area and in different states. We teach Biblical marriage principles, and He has supplied all our needs.”

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