1 Year of Marriage

Today marks Steffani and I’s first year anniversary.  One year ago we were on Siesta Key beach in Sarasota, FL about to get hitched.  It’s hard to believe it’s already been one year.  The year has truly flown by.

Gratefully, we’re still in love.  It used to confuse me when people would say they’re more in love with their spouse than when they first got married but now I get it.  Marriage is truly a gift from God.  The longer you’re with someone, the more you get to know them and hopefully appreciate different aspects of them.

After today, we’ll no longer be newlyweds.  That’s kind of sad to think about in a way because it was always fun to tell people we’re newlyweds.  But I definitely look forward to the next 50 or so years of marriage with my beautiful bride.  She is the best person I could’ve picked to spend the rest of my life with; something that is affirmed on an almost daily basis as I admire the godly woman that I’ve been blessed with.

She’s everything I’ve dreamed of and more.  For a long time I was single and prayed that God would take away my desire for a woman.  Thankfully He listened to Grandma and Steffani instead of my own foolish prayers.  Singleness was a wonderful season in my life; but as I wrote in my anniversary card to my wife, marriage has proved to be better than singleness ever was.  Why did I wait so long to get married again?  :)

We’re still in the lovey dovey stage I suppose.  It’s been a wonderful blessing that we haven’t gone through what some friends warned me about that the first year is the worst.  If anything it has been the best for Steffani and me.  Maybe I’m sounding cheesy there but that’s okay, she deserves to be honored in my blog posts every once in awhile, right?

She truly means the world to me.  I didn’t know I could love someone as much as I love my wife.  It’s a deep love, one that has been built over many years of friendship.  We have known each other for 10 and a half years at this point; it took me a while to pull the trigger needless to say.

So for all you men out there who never want to get married, give it a second thought at the very least.  Singleness is wonderful and I wouldn’t trade that season for anything, but don’t completely close off the possibility for so long like I did.  Marriage is a gift from the Lord, and we should accept it as such if we’re called to.  Some people are called to a life of singleness and that’s inspiring, thankfully God showed me He had different plans for my life.

Here’s to another 50 years, Steffani!

A Moving Testimony

We’re currently in St. Louis for Urbana, a missions conference focused on college students who are exploring the idea of serving overseas either short term or long term.  So far, it has been a wonderful conference for Steffani and I.  There are great speakers in the large group sessions, meaning 16,000 people strong.  There are also great teachers in the classes that are in between the big sessions.  And we’ve also helped out with recruiting at our booth with New Mission Systems International.

What I’ve found most encouraging so far though was a testimony by a young woman from the Middle East.  I can’t say exactly where she was from because we’ve been asked not to; but nevertheless her testimony was one of the most moving I’ve ever heard.  She had spent 34 days in solitary confinement in a prison for planting churches.

When I hear about these incredible missionaries who live lives full of risk for the gospel I can’t help but be inspired.  Would I still cling to Christ if it meant death or imprisonment?  Would I be as bold for Jesus as He has been for me?

Anyway, back to this woman’s testimony.  She felt a clear calling from Christ to plant 7 churches in her homeland.  At the time of her arrest she had planted 6; bear in mind she is only about 32 or 33 at this point according to my calculations.  

When she was released from prison, she was told explicitly not to preach or share the gospel in her hometown.  Alas, she felt the Lord was leading her to plant church number 7 in her hometown.  This stuff sounds like it’s straight out of the Bible, right?  The fact is it’s probably not too far from where some stuff in the Bible originally happened.  Naturally, she followed God’s leading to plant church number 7 in her hometown.

She shared how when she was in prison she was reminded by the Lord of what she had been preaching a few weeks prior to her imprisonment.  She had told her congregation to not give up, to persevere.  She felt convicted in prison that she had preached something but there wasn’t any action to it.  Now she got to practice what she preached according to her while she was in prison.

Obviously she spoke in an accent and with broken English, but I will never forget her testimony and encouragement from the life she lived as long as I live.  I thank God that Steffani and I were able to hear this incredible woman’s testimony and I pray that we are inspired to live daring lives for the gospel.

Cuba, Part 2

As mentioned in the previous post, we got clarity that Cuba is a closed door at this point.  We can’t get a long term visa still; there isn’t a team for us to join with down there; and they don’t need what we have to offer in the form of teaching English and possibly business.  They primarily wanted more pastoral training and curriculum to train more pastors, neither of which my wife or I have studied to do in the past.

I’m so glad we went down there though.  What I learned about the business climate is that business is really tough down there.  There weren’t many stores down there and the ones that were down there were closed most of the time.  The reason is because no one has any money.  Cubans are only given $20 a month salary to live off of.  To my American ears that sounds just crazy, right?  They manage somehow though.  A friend told us that many Cubans just steal; it’s a part of their culture since everyone only makes $20 a month.  Along with that there is no real incentive to work hard; you make $20 no matter how hard you work.  How are you supposed to support your family on $20 per month?  I can’t even imagine.

The Cubans we met with were a praying people.  It was so encouraging to meet with people in 2 different cities and see the main common thread was prayer.  I mean, they prayed all the time.  It reminded me of my own need for prayer and how often I neglect that.  I pray on a regular basis but I don’t hold a candle to Cubans and the amount they pray.  They have such a strong and evident connection to God; it was really uplifting to see that.

As far as personal space we were short on that.  I laughed with Steffani on the way home that we had spent a full week within about 3 feet of one another.  Thankfully we got along the whole trip which I believe stands as a testimony to the strength of our marriage.  For some reason we both tend to thrive overseas; it’s almost like we were built for it somehow.

Where does this leave us now that Cuba is a closed door?  We’re thinking possibly Spain now.  We Skyped with a couple who said they need help teaching English and that’s right up our alley so it sounds like an open door to us right now.  We’re planning on heading there in early March so hopefully that will work out for us.

It’s so hard to give up my dream of living and working in Cuba.  I had been dead set on it for a year now and to have to give that up is extremely difficult.  Apparently God has different plans for Steffani and me though, so we’re just going to follow Him and keep going down paths until it’s a closed door like Cuba was.  I told my friend it was like I had to let my dream of opening an entrepreneurship school die; it was like losing something I held very dear to my heart.  I’m moving on though; it certainly helps that I have Spain as a possibility to look forward to.  We’d appreciate your prayers as we move forward with Spain as an idea.

Cuba

As many of you know, we went to Cuba for a week and got back this past Tuesday.  I’ve been meaning to write this ever since.  Cuba was amazing, interesting, all sorts of adjectives that are difficult to summarize but I will surely try here.

From the moment we got off the plane and were picked up by some people who would become fast friends in a ‘56 Ford, I knew Cuba was going to be very different indeed.  The thing that struck me as odd right off the bat was that the road was shared by all sorts of transportation.  From cars from the ‘50’s to horse and buggies to bikes and bike taxis, it was a really diverse roadway system there.  For Cubans, nothing seems more natural I’m sure, but it caught my American eyes off guard.

The friends we made down there were wonderful.  We stayed with a family in Santiago for 3 nights followed by a family in Holguin for 4 nights.  Both sets of families were beyond hospitable and really made us feel at home, at least as much as possible when you have blaring music next door and cats and roosters keeping you up all night.

There is truly no better way to see a country than to stay with locals.  Our first family had 2 children, ages 5 and 6 and I had a blast with them.  The second family had a 3 month old baby so Steffani was in heaven with that part of the trip.  We joked that the first stay was for me since I love that age and the second stay was for Steffani since she loves babies.  The 5 year old girl couldn’t even manage a smile for the camera when we left because she was so sad to see us go.  That truly warmed my heart and made it hard on me too to leave their place.

With kids in particular there doesn’t ever seem to be a language barrier.  I can be silly in any language and kids are ticklish in every language so I usually connect with children no matter where I am.  These kids were no different.  They were so cute and I had so much fun with them; I miss them as I write about them now.  We knew enough Spanish and both sets of hosts knew enough English that the language barrier wasn’t really too much of a problem thankfully.

When we left we asked our church to pray for three c’s; communication, clarity and connections.  We are pleased to say we got all three on this trip.  Our communication went fine as mentioned earlier.  We got clarity in the form of a closed door down there at this point.  And we made connections with the Baptist church that we have already shared with some people from our organization who are going to head down there in April.