Ministry Times Two

For Eric and Jennifer Garcia, serving together and having a good marriage aren't accidental—they're intentional.

by Dawn Zemke

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They were the two people least likely to end up a married couple.

At least that's what Eric and Jennifer Garcia would have said when they were students in the same high school. Jennifer had frizzy red hair, braces, and sang with the Songbirds. Eric was the good-looking, popular jock. Though they'd known each other since the fifth grade, they moved in very different circles.

Only after they'd graduated from different colleges and returned to their hometown did Eric and Jennifer come to appreciate all they had in common—especially shared values and a deep commitment to God. Those elements formed a foundation that has sustained their 15-year marriage through the upheavals of career changes, four children, and eventually the daunting task of founding a ministry organization—the Association of Marriage and Family Ministries (AMFM).

Knowing each other well made for few adjustments in the first years of their marriage, when Jennifer was teaching school and Eric was working as a consultant for faith organizations such as Promise Keepers and Moody Bible Institute while running his own distribution company.

"We didn't have a big learning curve," Jennifer recalls. "Nothing rocked our boat. Until the kids came along."

On overdrive

When they'd been married three years, Jennifer quit teaching to stay home with Hudson, their first child. "I was home taking care of the baby and Eric was having fun slaying the giants," says Jennifer. Depending on the season, he could be working up to 16 hours a day.

With Eric consumed by his job and Jennifer's days filled by the baby, they had to work harder to connect with each other.

"I'd call Jennifer several times a day," Eric says, "so we could touch base about how things were going. That way when I'd come home fried from a long day, we could wind down together, not unload on each other."

"I knew I could phone him any time and he'd take my call," Jennifer adds. "He never made me feel I was bothering him."

But Eric's intensifying work situation over the next two years put an increasing strain on their marriage. Much of his time was being eaten up by speaking engagements, and the evenings he was home were flooded by calls from clients. Jennifer, now pregnant with their second child, was frustrated, and Eric was feeling burned out.

"I was alone all day—and many evenings—with the baby," Jennifer recalls. "I grew inwardly resentful of the constant interruptions whenever Eric tried to help with Hudson or we attempted to have family time. I hated what our life had become."

"I felt disconnected from Jennifer and empty inside," says Eric. "I was standing at a huge evangelistic event I'd helped plan, looking down into a stadium of 63,000 men, seeing guys going forward in droves to dedicate their lives to Christ. Yet all I could think was, I wonder who my next client will be and how big we can do it? That's when I knew I'd been drained and my priorities were totally out of whack."

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Originally published in: Marriage Partnership, 2006, Winter, Page 58

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