A country away from one another, my husband and I fell in love...
Jonathan's family had been working as missionaries in Ecuador for generations, from his grandmother to his father, he inherited a deep understanding and passion for the lost. Jonathan's family worked amongst the Shuar indians in the jungle from the time he was ten months old, so he grew up with a very different perspective than many of us get to see. But the Lord was molding him separate from anything other than His voice alone, and Jonathan knew his own calling to preach the gospel in places where other's dare not go.
I came from a background about as different as it could be from his, with family that very late in life came to the Lord. My journey therefor looked very different, but when I came to the Lord in my late teens, God very quickly revealed to me how all the passions I had up until that point to serve the needy in the world were part of the plan to make me who He desired me to be. What changed was the absolute necessity in my heart to see Jesus be the core of that work.
God brought us to the same place at the right time, and had given us hearts that would so closely resemble one anothers and from each other only grow.
God brought us to the same place at the right time, and had given us hearts that would so closely resemble one anothers and from each other only grow.
Through a mutual friend we ended up meeting in a very round about spirit led way. I was attending The Master's College in California, and Jonathan had been working all summer in Ecuador leading teams through the jungle, soon to return to his university in Arkansas. Now, I hate to say we met through the Internet, but it was the tool that led us to one another. Jonathan had just signed up for a My Space, as his groups from the summer wanted to stay in contact, and at the time My Space was the Facebook of today. I went to write our friend Joey about the possibility of working in Ecaudor for the summer, as my heart longed to go overseas and serve. Long story short, I was led to Jonathan's page, which instantly inspired my heart for the man he was for God and sent him his FIRST My Space message, in the first hour he was signed up.
I had been searching in my own life what felt like unsuccessfully, for people who I felt truly understood my heart to go the nations and seek out the lost in the way I personally felt called. I read a piece of writing Jonathan had written about his passion for the Lord, and his desire to live a selfless life of joy and sacrifice to see God glorified. My heart was deeply moved, just in seeing the person that he was in the world for Jesus. and without expectation, my heart fell in love with him. Just knowing he was out there, uplifted my soul and I wrote him to thank him for it.
I wrote about my own dreams and prayers for a life lived for Jesus and told him how his letter touched my heart, and that I was grateful Jesus had such a follower. Somewhere in that first letter, Jonathan fell in love with me... and that letter spurred on three weeks of correspondence on a daily basis... of two to three letters a day of such length you would think them to be small books! But we were so thrilled to know one another, and to be learning one another... that over night I met my best friend... the person who heard the song of my soul.
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| Our first photo together in Los Angeles, CA. |
Our love story has been one that from the first moment was led by a love for God in one another, and our passions to live a life for him. We feel in love with each others love for the Father, grown by each other to be even more for him. Our story is unique and it is beautiful, and because we have from the first moment entrusted it to Jesus, the blessings we have experienced in our marriage and love story, are beyond anything I could put on paper to describe it to you.
After those three weeks we got on the phone with one another and hearing each others voices that way was like coming home... Our first talk lasted six hours and the following two another five... I told Jonathan everything about me, the good and the bad, my regrets, my passions... and he wanted to know it all. I heard his stories and about his family, and just loved him more deeply with every word. By our third conversation we were professing our love for one another in joy and tears, expressing our desire to be married and have life together always. The next month Jonathan flew out to LA where I was working in ministry and proposed to me, and in four months in total, we were so happily and beautifully married.  |
| The first time we got married :) |
Everyday, I fall more in love with my husband... and by some miracle he daily falls more in love with me. The picture to the right is our first wedding picture, as Jonathan and I had the blessing of being married twice. :) In the background you can see our inspiration wall that we made together, compiled of pictures from everywhere, that we both had collected over the years, making photo walls in our single lives of things that inspired us... people we wanted to know and love. So when we were penniless, and without furniture and living on love in our new married home... the first thing we did was put up our wall that filled up the whole room. Looking back on it now, I see that it was almost a artistic expression of our hearts merging and our dreams and prayers unfolding. Every single home we have made together, has a wall put up the first day. We put it there to keep our hearts constantly reminded of the world God loves, the world that needs him, and the beautiful people living in it who inspire us to live stronger more righteous lives.
On a personal note... I once was drowning, alone and felt suffocated by my own lack of understanding, hungry and eager and desperate to be known. Jesus came to me when I sat alone in the dark praying for light, embraced me and made me new. He has given me a life of such joy and honor and a family that daily challenges my heart to be a better daughter for my most precious and loving Father in Heaven above. We have countless stories to tell, but are so thrilled about every single experience God has coming for us, together as a family.
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| Our precious little family, with Judea and Galilee. |
You can learn more about our journey to Thailand in the "Our Calling" page, but this is in very short, a bit of the love we share that makes our family what it is. We are a completely unworthy set of four, that God has decided to open the floodgates of Heaven for daily in His blessing and in His love. Even before all He has presently given, but just in the act of giving His perfect and blameless Son to pay ransom for our sin, it is the only thing our hearts know to do to live this life for him and to share His message and grace, love and bounty that we were so blessed to ourselves receive.
Thank you for following us and supporting us, and being a part of the story God is writing for us, that we pray with all our hearts solely honors Him.
"Oh magnify the Lord with me, And let us exalt his name together."
-Psalm 34
