Today, by God’s grace, we are celebrating our 10 Year Wedding Anniversary!  10 years ago, as we prepared to start a life together, we could never have guessed all the Lord had in store for us.  We had no idea that 10 years later we would be preparing to return to Fiji, not for a honeymoon, but to serve and love the people there with the gospel of God’s grace!

Anticipating that the Lord might be calling us as missionaries, we chose Fiji as our honeymoon destination thinking we were likely to never return. Instead, the Lord was planting seeds a decade ago showing us both the needs and growing in us a mutual love for the people of the Fijian islands.  God’s ways are truly amazing!

As we reflect over the past ten years of life spent together, recounting the blessings and trials, we can so clearly trace the hand of God on our lives, family, and marriage.  We have been incredibly blessed to have been involved in churches, friendships, and family relationships that invested in us and our marriage.  Through all of these, the Lord has equipped us to love and serve others and has shown us the true joy and blessing it is to follow His path for our lives. Through changes in jobs, cities, churches, the addition of Taj, and even a few furry friends, God has been at work each moment of each day.

Today, we are reminded that God is the best steward of His children and we are so grateful for the way He has been at work to fashion us through the ordinary and extraordinary moments of our lives this past decade to bring us to a place that we might be of use to the church in Fiji.  We are beyond excited for the next step in this journey for our family.  We acknowledge that there are so many unknowns and there will likely be moments of uncertainty and of being stretched and fashioned in new ways.  Yet, we know that by looking back on the 10 years we have already been blessed with, God will be at work because He is faithful, good, sovereign, and wise.

10 years ago on our wedding program, we wrote Habakkuk 1:5 “Look among the nations and watch, be utterly astounded, for I am doing a work in your day that you would not believe even if it were told to you.”  Contextually wise, this may seem like an odd verse to pick for a wedding as it comes in the setting of God revealing a less than exciting future for Israel, after the prophet Habakkuk is concerned about necessary spiritual reforms for Israel.  However, what is amazing about this, is that it reveals the nearness of God in uncertain times, the wisdom of God even when we can’t comprehend how things may play out, and the faithfulness of God to work out a plan for His people that will truly be for their good and His glory.  What a privilege we have to serve a God that can do this for His people and what a blessing it is to have a marriage that can have its foundation on a God that is so faithful and wise.  We are truly looking forward to what the Lord has in store for us!