Joy-Anna Duggar Preps For Future As Austin Forsyth’s Wife With Audio Book About ‘Making Disciples’
Joy-Anna Duggar was so eager to marry Austin Forsyth that she started listening to an audio book on marriage before her future husband even popped the question.
As reported by the Duggar Family Blog, Joy-Anna Duggar, 19, and Austin Forsyth, 23, celebrated five months of courtship by joining Austin’s family for dinner on the July 3 episode of Counting On. On the way to the Forsyths’ home, Joy-Anna listened to an audio book about having a successful Christian marriage. She said that the book has “a lot of great lessons” and that she was listening to it because “Austin could pop the question at any time.”
The book in question was You and Me Forever: Marriage in Light of Eternity by authors Francis and Lisa Chan. According to the Christian Post, Francis Chan founded the Cornerstone Community Church in Simi Valley, California, but he resigned from the church in 2010. He and his wife moved to San Francisco and started a “discipleship movement.” In their book, the Chans share their belief that the main goal of marriage is to “make disciples.”
“You exist to make disciples,” reads an excerpt from the book.
“Your marriage exists to make disciples. You don’t want to stand before God at the end of your life with no disciples.”
Joy-Anna Duggar took this passage to heart, as evidenced by the mission trip to Israel that she and Austin Forsyth took during their honeymoon. As previously reported by the Inquisitr, the couple toured the country with One for Israel, a group that proselytizes to Jewish people. The JewishIsrael blog describes One for Israel as an “aggressively proselytizing Christian organization targeting Jews for conversion” that uses Holocaust survivors to further its agenda. During their short mission trip, it’s possible that Joy-Anna Duggar and Austin Forsyth shared the “love of Yeshua” with Holocaust survivors by bringing them “gifts of food and supplies.”
Joy-Anna’s audiobook includes an anecdote about the Holocaust. In it, Francis Chan shares the testimony of a Christian man who lived in Germany during the Holocaust. The man talks about being haunted by the memory of how his church congregation would sing hymns louder to drown out the sounds of the trains carrying Jewish men and women to one of the Nazis’ extermination camps. Chan uses the story to encourage Christian men and women to analyze their marriages.
“It’s easy to look at other moments in history and criticize the church for their poor response,” he says. “The difficult part is looking at the world right now and assessing your response. Does your marriage make sense in light of the existence of hell?”
If Joy-Anna Duggar and Austin Forsyth decide that the best way to avoid going to hell is to keep on proselytizing, it’s unclear on how they plan on doing so. Unlike some of the other men who have married Duggar daughters, Austin doesn’t make a living by trying to “make disciples.” Jill Duggar’s husband is a missionary, and Jinger Duggar’s husband is a preacher, but Austin plans on supporting his family by flipping houses.
Joy-Anna began helping Austin renovate homes during their courtship, so the couple spent a lot of time working instead of talking. This may be why Joy-Anna didn’t discover that cheesecake was Austin’s favorite dessert until Mrs. Forsyth passed this info along on the latest episode of Counting On. Even though Joy-Anna didn’t know this fact about her beau, she claimed that she and Austin had “gotten to know each other on a deeper level” during their five months together.
According to TV Guide, fans will finally get to see Austin Forsyth propose to Joy-Anna Duggar on next Monday’s episode of Counting On. “Joy Gets Engaged” will air at 9 p.m. ET on TLC.
[Featured Image by Duggar Family/Facebook]
