Tony and I got married on March 31, 2001. It was a fabulous wedding and I loved everything out our day. We honeymooned in New Orleans, because of Tony's love of Blues music and since our "theme" for our wedding was of an old world Blues wedding - at least in our mind.
While in Russia my prayer was to come back to the States, pay off my college debt and return to world missions. Hopefully with a like minded husband. I married Tony, knowing he had no desire for world missions but while we were dating God moved him into a ministry position at The Salvation Army - as the team leader of volunteers. I married him knowing that local missions was probably our focus, but every once in awhile I would say, "We could always do world missions."
Our first child was born in 2003, during his first year we hosted an foreign exchange student from Russia. I wanted to share my love of Russia with my husband and this was a good way to do just that. Our second child was born in 2005 we gave her a Russian name. When this child was about 4 months old Tony had a dream that changed our direction.
The way Tony tells it - he didn't put a lot of stock in dreams but he was praying with our son. Sometimes when we pray with our children it is like we are praying over them, praying as if we are them and praying for them. This night he says was a little mixed up. But he distinctly remembers praying for God to give us our vision. That night he had a dream and when he woke up it was if God said to him, "There is your vision." He went downstairs and wrote the dream down.
The way he explained it - he was in a Russian country and there were two parts of the dream. One part something happens to a vehicle he is driving. The person with him, says - don't worry just follow me we will figure it out. The second part of the dream he is trying to get a license for our dog and insurance. He is told by someone don't worry just follow me. Both parts of the dream took place overseas and both parts of the dream just told him to be obedient and follow.
Pretty much right after that - Tony went to help with the aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans. There were so many aspects of that trip that tied back to the don't worry follow me. He had a wonderful experience seeing God work there. The stories of faith that he heard and experience are fabulous proof of a personal and intimate God.
From there we decided to pursue the idea of world missions. Tony and I tend to run on different tracks - when I see an idea I just want to go and do it. Tony needs to see all sides of it and understand what it is before he does that. So he put God off a bit, he says now if he had to do it over he might not have done that, but in all honesty I think it is the road that God has us on.
In 2006 Tony started reading missionary biographies. We read wonderful stories of men and women of faith. I will try at some point to highlight them on this blog.
Ten years after I first went to Urbana I returned as a married women with a man who was also interested in pursuing World missions. It was a wonderful experience to be there together and bring in the year 2007. I think our third chid was conceived at Urbana or shortly there after. As our third child was born in 2007. She is our 50,000 baby as I ended up with some medical problems and had to take blood thinners throughout the pregnancy that without insurance would have costed us over $4,000 a month. Our town had a devastating flood that year as well.
During that summer we narrowed the mission organization to two and ended up going with the one that we thought at the time would get us on the field sooner. That hasn't happened, as it seems we are on a slow road. In Sept of 2007 before the baby was born we decided to go with Operation Mobilization (OM).
So over 8 years after I prayed that I would marry a man interested in world missions I was seeing the fruit of that prayer. It is a real lesson to me that if we live in a short view of prayer - in that prayer is not answered in our timeline then God is not answering our prayers. We miss the prayers that God does answer on His timetable!
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